Communication Channels

Organizations have different communications channels to send strategies, objectives, instructions, and feedbacks to its employees. The same channels are available for upward communications like problems, results, suggestions, questions and workers’ needs (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2008). Different communications channels are needed for different communications richness. Communication richness materialize in the content of the communication. General information like the morning weather condition can have different richness. A note with the expected morning temperatures wind speed has low message richness. But detailed hourly weather report updated on your computer screen is considered a rich report. Some organizations find written memo as the main communication method. Face-to-face communications is the considered the second best communications channel because of the advancement in the video and audio communication through the Internet. Face-to-face communications is two-way communications channel which is preferred for its richness but not desired because of it’s relatively slowness to reach most workers in the organization.value face-to-face communication is rich but slow when compared with e-mails and electronic bulletins (Schermerhorn et al., 2008). So the choice of communication channel depends on the desired richness and speed of distribution to have the desired effectiveness and efficiency. Effective communications is achieved when the intended meaning of the message equal the perceived meaning. The efficient communications is reached when the intended meaning reaches the intended receivers at the lowest cost by using the available resources (Schermerhorn et al., 2008). A good example of and efficient way of communicating an effective message is by connecting a live weather report on the company’s intranet portal. The workers will read the report when they need a weather update from the computer screed on in the convince of their offices.

References:

Schermerhorn, J. R., Hunt, J. G., & Osborn, R. N. (2008). Organizational Behavior (10 ed.). NY: John Wiley & Sons.