Email Is the Channel of Communication

E-mail is the channel of business communicated that I selected for this discussion, which is also in the family of electronic communication. The reason I chose this channel was that my prior employer used this means as a way of communicating daily with his direct reports.

Email has advantages in that, they can be stored, contain information to refer to in the future and can usually be quickly written as well as edited. In addition, a person can read them at their convenience and can be cost effective compared to other means. The disadvantages can be viewed as they are low in richness, have a negative impact and the tone of the email can be interpreted incorrectly.

The example that I am going to site is an e-mail from my manager, which was a month prior to our employee-appraisals being completed by the C.E.O. An e-mail was distributed in all red caps stating "that his grandfather could manage better compared to his direct reports. A true manager shines when we deal with a crisis. Anyone can manage a department, but when a crisis happens in your department how will you react and manage to control the situation."

The channel of communication did not work well in this situation for the following reasons: it was not intended for all managers, it was negative, probably misinterpreted by some, the tone, and it was in all caps and in red. This type of communication is un-motivating and makes you question if you are really part of this team. Lastly, if someone is not meeting their objectives / goals the manager should be continually talking to them prior to their review.

With this employer, I found it more personally effective as a manager with my staff to have face-to-face meetings, since English was their second language and was only spoken 5% of the day. I could take away from the meeting that they understood what was being communicated to them as well as what was expected of them, so everyone was on the same page. I did ask them if it was ok if they would communicate back to me what was expected and stated, since we had a language barrier.