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Internal Company Communications: Types of Communication, Barriers, and Connections
  •     •   11 min read
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Internal Company Communications: Types of Communication, Barriers, and Connections

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­in an orga­ni­za­tion serve at least two insep­a­ra­ble pur­pos­es. On one hand, with­out com­fort­able inter­ac­tion, it is impos­si­ble to cre­ate a har­mo­nious inter­nal team envi­ron­ment. On the oth­er hand, with­out exchang­ing infor­ma­tion about work process­es, tasks sim­ply won’t align. There­fore, it is cru­cial to care­ful­ly con­sid­er var­i­ous types and means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in companies.


What is the com­mu­nica­tive process?

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion plays an invalu­able role in the oper­a­tion of any enter­prise. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in an orga­ni­za­tion is a manda­to­ry con­di­tion for var­i­ous aspects of work, including:
  1. Goal and Task Set­ting: Enables employ­ees to under­stand expec­ta­tions and work har­mo­nious­ly to achieve com­mon objectives.
  2. Exchange of Infor­ma­tion and Ideas: Facil­i­tates mak­ing informed and effec­tive decisions.
  3. Task Imple­men­ta­tion, Coor­di­na­tion of Actions, Prob­lem-Solv­ing: Achiev­ing results through the process of communication.
  4. Open and Hon­est Com­mu­ni­ca­tion: Moti­vates employ­ees, cre­at­ing an atmos­phere of trust and support.
  5. Build­ing Strong Rela­tion­ships and a Sense of a Uni­fied Team: Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the orga­ni­za­tion helps fos­ter strong rela­tion­ships and a sense of a cohe­sive team.
To ensure that all com­mu­ni­ca­tion func­tions are ful­filled, the com­mu­ni­ca­tion struc­ture must be well-coor­di­nat­ed, free of obsta­cles, and include all nec­es­sary components.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Structure

The trans­ac­tion­al mod­el of com­mu­ni­ca­tion is the most log­i­cal, con­sist­ing of sequen­tial stages: 


This is sim­ple yet effec­tive mod­el suc­cinct­ly describes the com­po­nents of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion process:
  • Sender: The indi­vid­ual or group gen­er­at­ing an idea or infor­ma­tion and trans­mit­ting it. The sender must for­mu­late their thoughts and choose an appro­pri­ate chan­nel for transmission.
  • Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Chan­nel: The means through which the mes­sage is sent. It can be ver­bal (oral, writ­ten lan­guage) or non-ver­bal (ges­tures, reports, sketch­es). The chan­nel should be rel­e­vant to the tar­get audi­ence and the con­tent of the message.
  • Mes­sage: The infor­ma­tion trans­mit­ted from the sender to the receiv­er. Mes­sages can include news, tasks, orders, ques­tions, etc., but it is cru­cial for them to be under­stand­able to the receiver.
  • Recip­i­ent: The per­son or group receiv­ing the mes­sage. Sim­i­lar to the sender, the recip­i­ent can be an indi­vid­ual or a group. The recip­i­ent must receive and cor­rect­ly under­stand the message.
In addi­tion to these fun­da­men­tal ele­ments, the infor­ma­tion exchange process may involve addi­tion­al fac­tors:
  • Feed­back: The receiver’s response to clar­i­fy or con­firm their under­stand­ing of the message.
  • Bar­ri­ers: Any obsta­cles that may dis­tort the mes­sage (e.g., noise in the room, lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, or errors in data transmission).

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Barriers

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion bar­ri­ers in a com­pa­ny are obsta­cles that hin­der effec­tive exchange of infor­ma­tion and ideas. Any­thing can be a bar­ri­er, rang­ing from objec­tive to pure­ly sub­jec­tive reasons.


Let’s dis­cuss some com­mon rea­sons com­pli­cat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in an organization:
  1. Phys­i­cal Bar­ri­ers: Such as noise, poor vis­i­bil­i­ty, or sig­nif­i­cant distances.
  2. Psy­cho­log­i­cal Bar­ri­ers: Such as fear of man­age­ment, uncer­tain­ty in deci­sion-mak­ing, or mis­un­der­stand­ings due to dif­fer­ent experiences.
  3. Seman­tic Bar­ri­ers: Includ­ing dif­fer­ences in ter­mi­nol­o­gy, mis­lead­ing for­mu­la­tions, or the use of slang.
  4. Orga­ni­za­tion­al Bar­ri­ers: Com­plex hier­ar­chies imped­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion, bureau­crat­ic process­es com­pli­cat­ing interaction.
  5. Infor­ma­tion Gaps: If team mem­bers lack nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion for effec­tive exchange.
  6. Tech­ni­cal Bar­ri­ers: Absence or incon­ve­nience of com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools with­in the organization.
To over­come or avoid cre­at­ing bar­ri­ers in work­place com­mu­ni­ca­tion, it is nec­es­sary to fos­ter an atmos­phere of trust and open­ness with­in the team and uti­lize appro­pri­ate com­mu­ni­ca­tion types.

Types of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in Organizations

The types of com­mu­ni­ca­tion based on the rela­tion­ships between par­tic­i­pants are pre­req­ui­sites for effec­tive mes­sage exchange with­out unnec­es­sary obstacles.

Dif­fer­ent types of com­mu­ni­ca­tion may be used in one com­pa­ny depend­ing on the num­ber of employ­ees, team com­po­si­tion, ongo­ing projects, and oth­er cir­cum­stances. Each type of com­mu­ni­ca­tion plays its cru­cial role in orga­ni­za­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion. There­fore, under­stand­ing var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion types and their char­ac­ter­is­tics is beneficial.

Ver­ti­cal Communication

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion between man­age­ment and sub­or­di­nates. Can flow both top-down (e.g., task assign­ments) and bot­tom-up (e.g., reports from sub­or­di­nates to management).

Hor­i­zon­tal Communication

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion between col­leagues on the same lev­el. Essen­tial for col­lab­o­ra­tion, coor­di­na­tion of actions, and syn­chro­niza­tion of work process­es between dif­fer­ent teams.

Exter­nal Communication

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion with clients, part­ners, investors, and oth­er exter­nal stakeholders.

Diag­o­nal Communication

​
Com­mu­ni­ca­tion where employ­ees from dif­fer­ent depart­ments and hier­ar­chy lev­els can com­mu­ni­cate direct­ly with­out involv­ing man­agers or oth­er ​“inter­me­di­ary” links.


Well-select­ed, con­fig­ured, and applied types of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in a com­pa­ny enhance the speed and effi­cien­cy of infor­ma­tion exchange, improve con­nec­tions between dif­fer­ent depart­ments and employ­ee engage­ment lev­els. They also con­tribute to inno­va­tion and over­all com­pa­ny development.

How­ev­er, errors in com­mu­ni­ca­tion set­tings can lead to ​“infor­ma­tion noise” and infor­ma­tion over­load, cre­at­ing con­fu­sion and ambi­gu­i­ty. To avoid such com­pli­ca­tions and achieve com­mu­ni­ca­tion effi­cien­cy, it is nec­es­sary to:
  • Estab­lish rules and com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­ce­dures in the company.
  • Train employ­ees.
  • Pro­vide the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture for com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools.​

Means of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion With­in a Company

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools in an orga­ni­za­tion can be con­ven­tion­al­ly divid­ed into two categories:

Syn­chro­nous

  • Instant Mes­sag­ing (What­sApp, Telegram, Face­book Mes­sen­ger, etc.).
  • Phone Calls (mobile, land­line).
  • Video Calls (visu­al con­tact as an advantage).
  • Web Con­fer­ences (pro­vide shared access to screens, pre­sen­ta­tions, chat, and oth­er functions).
  • Meet­ings and Con­fer­ences (var­i­ous num­bers of peo­ple can meet in per­son or online).

[Asyn­chro­nous]

​
  • Email (text mes­sages, files, and oth­er infor­ma­tion stored until deleted).
  • Project Man­age­ment Sys­tems (aid in plan­ning, orga­niz­ing, and track­ing tasks and goals).
  • Inter­nal Forums (com­mu­ni­ca­tion and infor­ma­tion exchange strict­ly with­in the organization).
  • Social Net­works (can be used for per­son­al and busi­ness communication).
  • Sur­veys (data col­lec­tion for research, feed­back, etc.).
Chat­bots and noti­fi­ca­tion sys­tems can belong to both cat­e­gories of com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools. All of them can be used in var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions for the con­ve­nience of teams. The diver­si­ty of com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools in an orga­ni­za­tion pro­motes effi­cient infor­ma­tion exchange. How­ev­er, in prac­tice, some com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools are more preva­lent than oth­ers, such as mes­sen­gers and work calls.

Mes­sen­gers in Work­place Communication

Most com­pa­nies use mes­sen­gers for com­mu­ni­ca­tion among col­leagues. It is indeed a con­ve­nient and famil­iar means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion that has seam­less­ly inte­grat­ed into every­day life. How­ev­er, it’s essen­tial to con­sid­er that mes­sen­gers were not specif­i­cal­ly designed for work com­mu­ni­ca­tion, so their use has both advan­tages and disadvantages.


Advan­tages of Mes­sen­gers in Team Communication:

  • Mobil­i­ty: Mes­sen­gers are avail­able on mobile devices, allow­ing employ­ees to stay con­nect­ed any­time, anywhere.
  • Oper­a­tional: The abil­i­ty to send and receive mes­sages and respons­es in real-time.
  • Sim­plic­i­ty: Mes­sen­gers are user-friend­ly, famil­iar to all employ­ees, and do not require spe­cial training.
  • Team Col­lab­o­ra­tion: Group chats can be cre­at­ed for com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in the entire team or spe­cif­ic departments.
  • Mate­ri­als: The abil­i­ty to send files in var­i­ous for­mats, exchange doc­u­ments, images, media.

Dis­ad­van­tages of Messengers:

  • Unstruc­tured Data: Infor­ma­tion in mes­sen­gers arrives and is stored chrono­log­i­cal­ly, mak­ing it chal­leng­ing to search and utilize.
  • Lack of Con­text and Details: Mes­sen­gers can be incon­ve­nient for track­ing task progress due to the absence of context.
  • Infor­ma­tion Over­load: Employ­ees may receive too many work and per­son­al mes­sages across dif­fer­ent mes­sen­gers, divert­ing atten­tion and con­sum­ing time.
  • Secu­ri­ty: Most mes­sen­gers do not pro­vide a suf­fi­cient lev­el of secu­ri­ty, mak­ing them unsuit­able for dis­cussing con­fi­den­tial matters.
Using mes­sen­gers for work com­mu­ni­ca­tion is pos­si­ble, tak­ing into account their pros and cons. It’s cru­cial to clear­ly define rules for using mes­sen­gers in the com­pa­ny, train employ­ees, and ensure the nec­es­sary com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools infrastructure.

Work Calls: Pros and Cons

Work calls are tra­di­tion­al­ly a pop­u­lar tool for work com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and they have cer­tain advan­tages and disadvantages.

Advan­tages of Work Calls:

  • Per­son­al Inter­ac­tion: The voice and into­na­tion of the inter­locu­tor make com­mu­ni­ca­tion more meaningful.
  • Prompt­ness: The abil­i­ty to quick­ly get answers to ques­tions or imme­di­ate­ly clar­i­fy details.
  • Involve­ment of Mul­ti­ple Par­tic­i­pants: In group dis­cus­sions via video calls.

Dis­ad­van­tages of Work Calls:

  • Time Con­sump­tion: Calls can take up a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time, espe­cial­ly with many participants.
  • Data Fix­a­tion: Infor­ma­tion dis­cussed over the phone or through video calls is hard­er to doc­u­ment and apply in work.
  • Tech­ni­cal Issues: Calls may be inter­rupt­ed due to com­mu­ni­ca­tion glitches.
  • Dis­trac­tion: Calls demand full atten­tion, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to mul­ti­task, such as dur­ing email correspondence.
If a work­day is over­loaded with calls, work effi­cien­cy decreas­es, and indi­vid­u­als can quick­ly become fatigued from the vol­ume of con­tacts and infor­ma­tion. There­fore, it’s advis­able to use work com­mu­ni­ca­tion selec­tive­ly, only when tru­ly appropriate.

When is Com­mu­ni­ca­tion through Work Calls Appropriate?

Calls bring the most ben­e­fit to team com­mu­ni­ca­tion when used in mod­er­a­tion and when tru­ly needed:
  1. Urgent Mat­ters: For dis­cussing urgent issues in real-time.
  2. Com­plex Prob­lem-Solv­ing: To address intri­cate prob­lems requir­ing simul­ta­ne­ous involve­ment of team members.
  3. Per­son­al Inter­ac­tion: Between man­agers, HR, and employees.
  4. Sched­uled Online Team Meet­ings: For reg­u­lar planned team or depart­ment meetings.
To avoid over­load­ing sched­ules with calls, clear­ly define their con­tent and pur­pose, com­mu­ni­cate con­cise­ly, and adhere to tim­ing. Fol­low­ing these sim­ple com­mu­ni­ca­tion rules can make inter­ac­tions with­in the com­pa­ny effec­tive and meaningful.

Why is Mean­ing­ful Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Important?

Mean­ing­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion is con­scious­ly direct­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion aimed at achiev­ing a spe­cif­ic goal. The mean­ing­ful­ness of com­mu­ni­ca­tion can be deter­mined by:


  • Clar­i­ty and Unam­bi­gu­i­ty of Messages.
  • Con­cise­ness.
  • Com­plete­ness and Inclu­sion of All Nec­es­sary Information.
  • Rel­e­vance to the Con­ver­sa­tion Topic.
  • Polite­ness and Correctness.​

The impor­tance of mean­ing­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion can­not be over­stat­ed for sev­er­al reasons:

  1. Improves Work Effi­cien­cy: Clear and con­cise com­mu­ni­ca­tion enables peo­ple to per­form their tasks faster and better.
  2. Enhances Rela­tion­ships: Mean­ing­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion con­tributes to under­stand­ing among indi­vid­u­als and team building.
  3. Facil­i­tates Inno­va­tion: Increased shar­ing of ideas and infor­ma­tion leads to the gen­er­a­tion of new ideas and solutions.
  4. Reduces Error Risks: Clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion helps avoid mis­un­der­stand­ings and errors.
  5. Increas­es Job Sat­is­fac­tion: Peo­ple are more sat­is­fied with their work when they feel heard and understood.
How­ev­er, all these advan­tages can be neu­tral­ized by sev­er­al fac­tors that hin­der mean­ing­ful communication.

What pre­vents com­pa­nies from build­ing mean­ing­ful communication

The exchange of infor­ma­tion in the orga­ni­za­tion will not be mean­ing­ful if there are one or more obstacles:
  • Lack of open­ness and trust cul­ture. If employ­ees don’t feel com­fort­able talk­ing about their ideas and prob­lems, effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion is impossible.
  • Unclear com­mu­ni­ca­tion: If man­age­ment does not set clear goals and objec­tives, employ­ees will not know what is expect­ed of them.
  • Bureau­cra­cy. Com­plex pro­ce­dures and strict for­mal­i­ties hin­der effec­tive and mean­ing­ful communication.
  • Tech­no­log­i­cal dis­ad­van­tages. Use­ful tools are nec­es­sary for mean­ing­ful communication.

Improv­ing Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the Organization

​The com­mu­ni­ca­tion process is a flex­i­ble and adap­tive infor­ma­tion exchange sys­tem that can and should be improved. To build qual­i­ty and mean­ing­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion, com­pa­nies should, at a minimum:


  1. Cre­ate a Cul­ture of Open­ness and Trust: Estab­lish prac­tices for infor­ma­tion exchange in the work process.
  2. Ensure Clear Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stan­dards: Spec­i­fy task for­mats and response times.
  3. Devel­op Effec­tive Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Skills: Train both lead­ers and subordinates.
  4. Pro­vide Con­ve­nient Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tools for Employ­ees.
Com­mu­ni­ca­tions meet­ing these con­di­tions ben­e­fit both busi­ness process­es and the team atmos­phere. How­ev­er, con­tin­u­al mon­i­tor­ing of com­mu­ni­ca­tion qual­i­ty and reg­u­lar reviews of com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools’ rel­e­vance in your com­pa­ny are essential.

Tran­si­tion to More Infor­ma­tive Messaging

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools in the orga­ni­za­tion are con­stant­ly being improved in response to the needs of users. There­fore, both tra­di­tion­al and inno­v­a­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools are cur­rent­ly avail­able, among which each team choos­es the most con­ve­nient com­bi­na­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools. These include:
  • Mes­sen­gers
  • Phone Calls
  • Video Con­fer­ences
  • Inter­nal Forums and Chats
  • Noti­fi­ca­tion Systems
  • Inter­net Platforms
  • Sur­veys
  • Project Man­age­ment Systems
The choice of spe­cif­ic tools and their quan­ti­ty depends on the com­pa­ny’s size, its projects, and the com­po­nents of effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion suit­able for your team.

Work­sec­tion: A Tool for Struc­tured and Effec­tive Communication

Work­sec­tion is a project and team man­age­ment sys­tem. Apart from effi­cient con­trol and report­ing tools, Work­sec­tion offers inte­grat­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion fea­tures, mak­ing it oper­a­tional, con­ve­nient, and effective.


Work­sec­tion helps your team orga­nize all work with­in one sys­tem. Mes­sages and files are stored direct­ly in tasks, mak­ing it the most mean­ing­ful and fastest way to exchange infor­ma­tion, com­mu­ni­cate with col­leagues and clients, share files, dis­cuss, and pro­vide feedback.

Using Work­sec­tion for Build­ing Effec­tive Communication

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in Work­sec­tion is linked to spe­cif­ic tasks. Team mem­bers can uti­lize var­i­ous fea­tures for mean­ing­ful infor­ma­tion and data exchange:


  • Instant Noti­fi­ca­tions of Task Updates: New com­ments are dis­played imme­di­ate­ly with­out refresh­ing the recip­i­en­t’s page.
  • Per­son­al­ized Set­tings for Receiv­ing Emails, Online Mes­sages, and Push Notifications.
  • File Work allows view­ing graph­ics, edit­ing Google Docs, and cre­at­ing new doc­u­ments of docx, xlsx, and pptx types avail­able for collaboration.
  • Employ­ee Con­tact Details can be used as a con­tact base with quick search.
  • Inte­gra­tion with Telegram, Viber, Mes­sen­ger accord­ing to employ­ees’ preferences.​
All these Work­sec­tion fea­tures con­tribute to mean­ing­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in the orga­ni­za­tion, both with­in indi­vid­ual tasks and across the entire plat­for­m’s noti­fi­ca­tion system.

Con­clu­sions

Effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion helps com­pa­nies achieve their goals and main­tain a pos­i­tive and pro­duc­tive work atmos­phere. To achieve this, it’s essen­tial to estab­lish a con­ve­nient com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem with­in the orga­ni­za­tion and have effi­cient tools for its implementation.

Among numer­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools, choos­ing one inte­grat­ed into the team’s work man­age­ment sys­tem is opti­mal. This saves time and ensures syn­chro­niza­tion of all busi­ness process­es with­out data loss. There­fore, Work­sec­tion is an ide­al solu­tion for both project man­age­ment and team communication.

Try Work­sec­tion to grow through coor­di­nat­ed work and effec­tive communication!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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