A poll of UK employees found that most do not filter or organise their emails correctly, while many of the emails that are sent do not help workers to do their jobs.

Our obsession with sending and receiving emails has led to a culture in which we process them without thinking, the research will claim.

The survey, of 4,000 people from 150 UK businesses, will show that the average worker wastes one hour every day through inefficient use of email.

A spokesman for the communications consultants which commissioned the study, Expert Messaging, said that workers had not been given appropriate training for proper use of emails.

He said: "As a communications tool that we have all grown up with, but seldom if ever given any formal training on or provided any corporate guidelines for, it's no wonder that email is a significant sources of stress, miscommunication and inefficiency for companies and individuals."

The findings will be released on Wednesday along with an "Email Charter" which the consultants claim would improve staff productivity, reduce stress and help communication.

Nigel Shadbolt, professor of artificial intelligence at Southampton University, said too many workers are still abusing email.

"I think we are still working out what is acceptable and unacceptable email use," he said."Some companies have banned their workers from sending carbon copies (cc's) of emails, and in extreme cases have banned them from sending emails altogether.

"There is a general problem that with the superabundance of information, there is a scarcity of attention. Since our attention span is always limited, since there are only a certain number of hours in the day, we do have to be more thoughtful about what we send and receive."

In 2003 John Caudwell, the entrepreneur who recently sold the Caudwell Group, best known for the Phones4U mobile phone chain, banned his staff from using email, claiming it was eating into productivity.
 
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