Staff who send emails to each other are costing the business thousands of pounds a week in lost productivity.

That’s the conclusion reached by a telecoms company manager who has banned his company’s employees from sending internal emails.

The owner of Phones 4u, John Cauldwell, ordered his 2,500 staff to talk to each other face-to-face or on the phone rather than using email – estimating that they would stop wasting at least three hours a day, the equivalent of saving £1m a month for the company.

He claims it has worked, as “things are getting done and people aren’t tied to their PCs”, though it is questionable whether such a ban would ever work in an industry such as recruitment.