Discover different types of internal communication in a company

A corporate issue that is dealt with towards the end is the type of internal communication a company will use, especially if it is a small company or if it has just been established. However, it is important to know that there are different types of internal communication. Each organization should focus on a communicative methodology for its employees to improve the workplace environment and their overall performance. 

A common way of classifying types of internal communication is in three categories: ascending, descending, and horizontal, depending on who is addressed. This way, there is communication from employees to managers, managers to employees, and between leveled hierarchical employees. 

However, regardless of who initiates the interaction or is participating in the interaction whilst working, there is a more basic type of internal communication that should be considered. It’s the one that divides communication into two categories: the optimal and the deficient or, in other words, communicating well or communicating poorly.  

internal communication

Types of internal communication based on quality

1. Optimal internal communication

It’s effective: it doesn’t just create an impact it reaches its objective of exchanging messages that are correctly interpreted by the parties involved and help them work better.

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It’s efficient: it doesn’t take up more time than needed to achieve the proposed objective, takes place through the appropriate channel, does not involve more people than necessary, and does not include noise that distorts messages. 

It’s economically healthy: it contributes to better employee performance leading to better productivity, no just of individuals but as a team. 

It’s psychologically healthy: it’s not aggressive, cutting, or uncomfortable, but makes people feel good and not feel rejected when communicating with each other, whether it is to exchange good news or neutral messages or to manage a conflictive issue.

It’s corporately healthy: It is corporately healthy: it is developed in a way that contributes to a healthy work environment and preserves team cohesion. 

2. Deficient internal communication

It’s ineffective: it might have an effect, but not the desired one nor the one necessary to work more comfortably. When the exchange of messages ends, the conclusions are no clearer than at the beginning. It is likely the task will be poorly executed, or it becomes necessary to extend communication -investing more time- to reach the expected result of the internal communication. 

It’s inefficient: It takes too much time and energy to get the parties involved to understand each other, often involving people whose involvement in the conversation is unnecessary or has frequent interruptions. 

It is economically detrimental to the company: if workers don’t communicate optimally because they don’t understand each other, are slow, or don’t use the right codes, their performance will suffer, affecting the overall productivity of the company.

It’s psychologically harmful: it makes you tired and uncomfortable and creates tensions that can be avoided. It’s common for it to turn into an argument or a power struggle. This causes the people involved to distance themselves from each other and avoid any sort of communication.

It’s corporately toxic: when team members don’t communicate with each other properly or hurt each other mutually instead of contributing by listening to each other and fulfilling a mutual objective, it results in team cohesion cracking, and the working environment fizzles out. 

internal communication

How to develop effective internal communication

1. Establish which team members should be in each channel of the app you use for internal communication or who should be copied in the emails that are sent. Do not make a mess when deciding the types of internal communication to use. All those whose presence is not essential should be left aside to avoid a backlog of replies or people permanently receiving emails or notifications on issues in which they are not involved, with the disruption to their work rhythm that this would entail. 

2. Set basic internal communication rules that align with the organization’s company culture. For example, whether or not to allow the use of gifs or icons, whether or not to allow the use of swear words, indicate that it is better not to comment on personal issues within the internal communication channels, indicate whether any controversial issues should be left out of internal communication, etc

3. Encourage self-inhibition: do not overload internal chats with replies if it is not essential, send concise messages instead of long paragraphs, separate long messages into short paragraphs to facilitate reading, and do not overuse capital letters or question marks if it is not necessary, use bold and italics to facilitate comprehension, etc. 

4. Always avoid using aggressive, denigrating, or rude language in any of the traditional types of internal communication (ascending, descending, and horizontal), whether in writing or face-to-face communication, even with a single word or short expression. It seriously harms the work environment and is never constructive in improving anyone’s performance. 

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Improving emotional well-being in companies

At ifeel, we are committed to improving employee and company well-being. That is why we strive to help them in the challenge of generating stimulating and healthy work environments for their employees.  

For this purpose, our psychologists have created an emotional well-being program for companies. Through this collaboration, your company’s HR managers will be able to receive personalized, data-driven advice on how to improve their teams’ psychological well-being. In addition, this program provides employees with a complete mental health care service structured at different levels according to their needs. Try our program now to see how it can help you.

Visit our Resources section, where you will find podcasts, guides for Human Resources, or interviews with leading HR professionals. In addition, you will have access to a Psychosocial Risk Factors Template, which will help you comply with the Labor Inspection requirements.  

We hope this post about types of internal communication in a company has given you some good ideas to make it easier for you to fulfill your tasks. Contact us to learn more about our emotional well-being program for companies works

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