Many surveys conducted into employees' preferred mode of internal communication suggest that the all time favourite remains face to face. Why? On that the surveys are less clear so here are some of my thoughts. Please add you own too.
Story telling happens over the phone, at the coffee machine and in corridors as well as in organised "town hall" meetings. It is stories that get passed through the unofficial grapevine, with stories changing as they go, so it is important to feedback the grapevine with accurate and trustworthy information and that is unlikely to happen purely through the use of an internal news letter.
If internal communication and employee engagement are important to your organisation encourage your leaders to get out and have genuine conversations with people; including listening...
Back in 1979 the Schnelle brothers recorded a series of meetings to establish the number and pattern of utterances per hour in meetings.
Effective internal communication is an essential part of a smoothly running business organisation. In the modern organisation there will be multi-channel flows of internal communication.