Internal Communications

Communicating Within

Today's business offers a bevy of communication options. Whether it is e-mail, instant message, text message, video conference, audio conference, web conference, oh, and I cannot forget the telephone, employees are inundated with communication. While the aforementioned methods do benefit our organizations by making communication easier, managers must be careful to not solely rely on them. Face to face communication still does more to encourage and empower employees than any list of toys ever could.

Common issues arise in regards to internal communications. It is important to define these problems and make efforts to correct them. Many times the wrong people are in a certain "loop" while the right people are left out. This not only leads to misinformed employees, but could potentially alienate those who feel their opinions were devalued. Another issue is message misinterpretation. Each person processes information differently. If a communication is not conveyed explicitly in terms that the audience can understand, the message is lost. Noise always affects messages. Communication audits by an outside agency provide great insight to a company and their communication habits. This outside source brings objectivity to an otherwise subjective topic. An audit can help members on each side of a communication breakdown learn to improve and better prepare them for the future.

To effectively manage internal communications, organizations should make sure to do the following: Communicate upward and downward. This tactic will let employees know that someone is listening to them and not always just talking down to them. Face to face meetings remain invaluable to the morale of an organization. Exchanging feedback during these sessions helps each person feel more involved. And finally, company intranets and employee publications help employees stay in touch with their organization and help them feel a sense of belonging. Each of these factors can help companies engage and enlighten their employees, which does nothing but help internal communications.

The way I see it

An unfortunate reality of my company is that effective upward and downward communication is not present. The employee handbook says there is an "open door policy," but that is just fluff. There is no sense of communication other than a rigid, up-the-ladder approach. Not surprisingly, communication at my company is strained. There are instances of not being included in meetings of which I serve as a central information source. This lack of communication hurts the ability to successfully complete projects and move forward.

In a much different example, I cite my internship with Aldi Foods in 2006. The position was District Manager intern and the major focus was to shadow a District Manager's day to day responsibilities. Communication was upward and downward. DM's would easily communicate to store managers, assistant managers and store clerks. Clerks were encouraged to openly communicate with the DM's regarding any topic, serious or light. Employee morale across the organization was high and this welcomed communication played a large role.

Prime examples

This article shows an unfortunately true example of what happens when different departments in an IT company do not communicate well internally. Skewed perceptions between the different functions magnify the problem further.

The following video is a take-off of the Mac v. PC commercials. It features "Paper" and "Electronic" going back and forth about the use of technology to increase internal communication. In this case, "Electronic" has the upper hand, but it does highlight traits of each method.