How can I get my subordinates to reply to e-mail consistently?

When I send emails to my staff I operate under premise that they read them. This is their responsibility. I'm not their mom. If it turns out they made a bad decision because they did not read an email, then I will deal with that as a performance issue. Start assuming they've read them and your life will get less stressful.

I really just need them all to get into the routine of hitting "Reply" for every single e-mail they get from me. I just don't see this happening. And if it does happen, it's going to breed resentment and discord and undermine your leadership. It may seem like a small thing to ask, but ultimately you're expecting them to modify the way they use a certain technology -- one which they use constantly for all personal and professional communications -- just to appease your worry that they might have missed something. In their eyes (and mine), you are micro-managing them. They are currently passive-aggressively letting you know that they aren't interested in conforming to this expectation. Be a better boss by paying attention to what your team is telling you and finding a new way to manage your communications.

I don't want to be anal about this, but it's really important that I know people are actually reading these e-mails. It is possible (dare I say commonplace) to reply to an email without reading the email. If you are trying to ensure that the emails get read, then requiring a simple rote response will not do it.

Why are you not able to assume they've read the email? Is there something wrong with your mail servers?

And plenty of people ignore e-mails all the time. Assuming that they've read critical information really just isn't going to cut it. Assuming they're responsible professional adults will definitely cut it. Don't send group email. Don't insist on read receipts, and don't micromanage. Those are shitty, demoralizing things to do to people. Set deadlines and establish goals and principles, send a small number of emails with pertinent information in them and trust people to do their jobs. If they don't do their jobs, call one-on-one meetings with them to address those issues or otherwise correct course. If you value your employee's time, then stop interrupting them and let them do their jobs. I really just need them all to get into the routine of hitting "Reply" for every single e-mail they get from me. That's how you communicate with 6-year-olds, not adults.

It's pretty hard to manage people if you're not sure everyone's on the same page. It’s pretty hard to do your job if you feel like your supervisor doesn’t trust you to do it. You are definitely micromanaging. I work in Outlook, and if every single email from my boss came with a read receipt on it? I’d be pissed. Knowing how to open and read emails is a BASIC skill that all of your employees should have. They are adults; treat them as such. If you are seeing evidence of certain employees not reading your emails, deal with them individually.

There are two problems here: a technical one and a human one. The technical one is that email was not originally meant to be a real-time, guaranteed delivery service, and any post hoc attempt to get around this using technology (like read receipts) is going to meet with friction. The human organization problem is that your interests and your subordinates are not aligned: you perceive a need for them to respond to these emails, and they do not. (If they did, they'd be answering them!) As SMPA says, one way to ensure compliance in email response is to provide an enforcement mechanism with consequences. This means you'll need to be given actual power of some kind, or obtain buy-in from your boss. But there is a third way: checking in, on a scheduled basis, using a mode of communication that was designed to be interactive and real-time. Seriously, just set up a phone call or IM session with each of the people you need responses from. They don't have to be long. Just make sure you say, at some point during the chat, "Hey, did you get emails A, B, and C? [wait for agreement] Okay, cool." Of course, if there are so many of these MUST RESPOND emails that the check-in chats are perceived as onerous, I guarantee that the emails themselves are perceived as onerous, and there are other organizational problems that maybe could use addressing.

Y'all are amazing! Here's what I did: I sent out an e-mail letting everyone know that responses to group e-mails weren't necessary unless they needed clarification or I had specifically requested a response for a specific reason. I just sent out my very first e-mail yesterday that I really absolutely needed to hear from everyone on, and they all responded. It was like a miracle! I had the responses in hand within 10 minutes of sending it out. By not worrying about the little stuff so much, I got rewarded with a response when it really mattered to know that everyone was on the same page. Hurrah! Thanks again to everyone who contributed.

Further: You may want to watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwRrpCWTiOY by Merlin Mann. The main thrust of his argument is that your ability to do great work is entirely predicated on your ability to give your uninterrupted, time and attention and care to the thing you're working on. Being frequently interrupted by somebody who doesn't trust you to act like a professional, or even an adult, makes it almost impossible to do any of those three things. A good quote: "Nobody thinks they're bad at email. Except you guys; you know, the people who show up for these thing are the most open to the idea that there's an improvement opportunity here. Did you notice that none of the people who make your lives hell are in this room?"