Communication

Communication is an important part of our company’s operation. At the departmental level, the policy for communication is to “over communicate” so relevant employees and customers are well informed.
In most cases, my communications with my direct supervisor are through verbal communication. I prefer verbal communication because I can see his emotions and get a better understanding instead of emails that for the most parts are hard to get reading of the real situations. This is especially true when the topics are HR related. For the technical related issues, I would not mind emails, phone calls, or anything other methods.
The second communication method is email. Email is a cheap and easy way to communicate with mass while in person meeting is almost impossible due to the size of the gathering, schedule conflicts, facility limitations, geographically diversity, and so forth.
The third communication method is town hall style of meetings. Recently, our group moved from one department to another department. While we know some of the employees in the new department already, but it is helpful to get a chance to know all the new colleagues and it is helpful to facilitate team work environment.
The fourth communication method is webcast/telephone conference call. Earning call and other important events are held via webcast to have the effect of the in person meeting and allow two way communications. Since internet speed and availability are getting cheaper, webcast is increasingly become popular, especially for technology fields.
I feel our communication is good in a sense that important business decisions and strategies are communicated through proper channels and through the most proper methods mentioned above. As an employee of a big organization, there are layers of layers managements between me and to the CEO and some information are filtered out through the channels, perhaps intentionally. This is why there are always rumors out there because partial or incorrect information create speculations and panics. In the long term, it hurts employees’ moral and creates instable workforce.