Today many employees exchange work-related information via multiple avenues: emails, texts, and internal communication boards (e.g. Slack) can all inundate on a daily basis.  As a result, just managing the email inbox sometimes isn’t enough.  Employees must juggle overlapping communications chains and exercise judgment on when to use each one. 

            At Greenevine, we have gathered some best practices for this challenge.  More information and practical applications are also available in our new training module: Managing Multi-Channel Communications. 

Best Practices: 

• Use email for documentation purposes and longer, complex messages; send complex questions via email not via text or internal comms as non-urgent complex questions interrupt workflow  
• Turn to email when you want a comprehensive record of activity/next steps or you are requesting non-urgent action
• Utilize email when including people external to the organization 
• Use text for in-motion items, e.g. the meeting room has changed, I’m running late, etc
• Allow conversations to end on text; there doesn’t need to be endless rounds of emojis and confirmations 
• Avoid large group texts and certainly replying to large group texts 
• Use Internal Communications for real-time conversations when your team is trying to solve a problem 
• Leverage Internal Communications for document repositories and as well as quick-to-answer questions 
• Direct light-hearted memes and banter to Internal Communications as it doesn’t clog inboxes 
• Use in-person meetings for nuanced and complex discussions (come with an agenda!) 
• Reserve in-person meetings for when you to get buy-in by storytelling