Communicating can sometimes be one of the most frustrating experiences for administrators. You sometimes need to reach people or have long discussions with your staff, and it just does not work. Without proper communication with your staff members, you cannot expect a solid staff team. Communicating is the base for a successful staff team and it can mean all the difference. I want to talk about different and effective ways of communicating with your staff.

Each form of communicating has a good and bad side to it, so knowing these will hopefully allow you to make smarter decisions when communicating with your staff.

Instant Messengers

Pros:

• Quick communication
• Able to talk to groups at once
• Ability to brainstorm quickly and effectively
• Instant notification
• Un-editable conversation

Cons:

• All staff members would require an IM service (which not all have)
• Archiving these conversations is a hassle
• Not all staff members can participate at once (usually)
• Telling staff members that weren’t there what you talked about could be a problem (would have to create a topic summary of the conversation)

Personal Message (on forum)

Pros:

• Instant notification if user is online
• Private conversation
• Conversation is archived
• Un-editable
• Able to send message if user is offline

Cons:

• Generally slow
• Not able to have group PM conversations
• Requires constant refreshing of forum (for long conversations)
• No idea when user will receive message

Staff Topics (in a staff forum)

Pros:

• Conversation is archived
• Ability for all staff members to get involved in topic (especially useful if you have staff members living in different time zones)
• Easily organized and accessible for all staff members

Cons:

• Malicious staff users could potentially edit information
• One of the slowest forms of communication – staff member would have to constantly be checking up on thread by refreshing
• If staff account is cracked there is the possibility of information being leaked

Email

Pros:

• Ability to easily send mass emails to all staff members
• Private conversation
• Conversation is archived
• Un-editable
• Easily accessible using most modern phones
• Possibility for instant notification if user has a modern phone with his email working on it
• Ability to forward conversations easily

Cons:

• Requires you to know the email of all staff members (which for some might be a personal issue)
• No idea when user will check email
• Generally slow

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