Communication Channel in Organizational Communication

This article discusses communication channels in organizational communication, including formal and informal channels, and how to establish and manage communication effectively.

Running head: COMMUNICATION CHANNEL
COMMUNICATION CHANNEL
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2.1. Communication channels:
In organizational communication, the channel refers to the sharing of information for the
senders to the recipients. For efficient communication, proper determination of most appropriate
channel and medium is quite difficult. In the organization, the information flows backward,
forwards and sideways and the communication channels refer to the ways that the information
will flow. In this communication web, the managers become the primary link. This is due to that
fact the decisions and directions flow upwards, sideways and backwards already depends upon
the position of the managers in the communication web. The reports from the lower level floe
upwards, the higher-level managers share information to the employees through downwards
communication and the communication among the employees of same level mainly allows the
sideways or horizontal communication channels.
General communication channels include oral and written means. The oral channels
include the direct communication, telephone calls and presentations. Written on the other hand
includes reports, emails and memos (Georgescu & Popescul 2015, p. 280). This communication
channel differs from rich to lean between which the communicators select one mode and utilize
them properly to profit the organization. The rich channels are more interactive and gives the
communicators a both way communication opportunity. This also allow both the receivers and
speaker to read even the non-verbal messages. The lean channels on the contrary, present
information without allowing for immediate interaction by only presenting the facts.
These rich and lean channels have categories according to their effectiveness. The richest
channels include face to face meetings and in person oral presentation where the communicators
change share their thoughts immediately. The rich channels include video conference and online

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meeting which are however not effective as richest one. The lean channels include phone call,
teleconference, video and voice messages where the communicators share their ideas in spite of
being in different places. The leanest channels only allow one-way communication at a time
which includes, blog; report; newsletter; flier; brochure; email; social media posts and phone
texts (Wang, Pauleen & Zhang 2016, p. 6). However, as the number of communication channels
have grown in these recent years in order to cope up with the demand of the global business, the
communication in the business organization, there are two prominent channels formal
communication and informal communication. Based on the efficiency, associated
communicators and reliability, these two-communication channel have different aspects to
explore.
2.1.1. Formal and informal communication channels:
The communication in which the flow of information is already defined, is the referred as
formal communication. This type of communication flows is hierarchical chain of command that
remains established by the organizations themselves. This type of communication is followed
exclusively in the workplace and the employees are compelled to abide by this channel of
communication to effetely perform their responsibilities (Mishra, Boynton & Mishra 2014, p.
185). The formal communication channel transmits information such as the goal, policies and
procedures of the organizations as mentioned before, this type of communication channel
follows chain of command which means information flows from the manager to the subordinates
and they’re in turn pass this information to the next levels of staff.
The formal communication channel s the newsletters of the companies that gives the
clients of the organizations and employees an implicit idea of the goal and vision of the
companies. This also includes the transfer of information with the regards to reports,

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memoranda, directions and scheduled meeting in this chain of command (Hänninen &
Karjaluoto 2017, p. 460). The formal communication channel also includes the customer
satisfaction survey, manual of the employers, annual reports, review meetings and business plan.
Through the formal communication system, the higher authorities send email to the sales teams
describing new commission structures for the new set of sales targets which will be sent making
the formal network of the company connecting the managers and subordinates. Formal
communication follows the practices designed by the official policy, technological systems and
hierarchy (Piekkari, Welch & Welch 2014). Formal communication is mainly one way in the
traditional organizations which are initiated by management and received by the employees. This
is also quite authoritative as this originates from the highest levels of the organizations.
On the other hand, some of the actions and decision of the organizations are also taken in
the informal channels of communication. This is important as the structure hierarchical web of
communication can never always function effectively on their own. Therefore, there is a
communication channel expert that operate outside the communication web. However. This type
of communication channel often creates disruption in the chain of command. This is the reason
why the good managers need to find a fine balance between the formal and informal
communication channel (Pearson 2017, p. 112). Informal communication channel does not
follow the authority lives. It is purely established around the social affiliation of the members of
the organization. This is the reason why this network is referred as the grapevine communication.
An example of informal communication can include the managers walking around and adopting
a hand-on approach to hand the employee queries. In order to solve minor employee issues, the
communication among the employees in the relaxed atmosphere which is often encouraged by

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the organizations which also falls under informal communication channel (Wang, Pauleen &
Zhang 2016).
Quality circles, different training programs and team work are outside of the chain of
command therefore fall under the informal communication channels. There are several
differences present in the formal and informal communication system. Formal communication
involve documentation while the informal communication usually leaves no recorded trace for
sharing. The informal communication can occur in any direction in the organization and connect
the people with different roles and status (Ruesch et al. 2017). Informal communication needs to
be managed properly as this can cross the boundaries within the organizations and commonly
separated from the work flows. This channel is often used to manage people who do not work
together but share common interests or affiliation in the activities of the organizations. This is
used to motivate the employees to perform their jobs well. The managers also use this type of
channel to convey their messages and transmit important information.
2.2. Establishing and managing communication:
The management of the organizations usually utilize both formal and informal
communication channels through three types of communication flow. These are downward,
upward and horizontal flow of communication but among these, downward and upward
communication is more formal than the horizontal one. It is used in the informal communication
system to manage the motivation among the employees themselves. As mentioned before, the
formal communication is the flow of information and messages. This mainly follows the
downward or top down flow of communication (Georgescu & Popescul 2015, p. 279). The
managers hold this type to be one of the most essential factors that manipulate the success of the
organizations. The mangers create concise communications and maintain a respectful tone to

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ensure that the employees get proper understanding of the messages shared through the
downward communication (Wang, Pauleen & Zhang 2016, p.7). However, in this
communication system, differences of experience, levels of authority and status can lead to the
misunderstanding as well as misinterpretations.
The upwards communication helps the managers to transmit information from the lower
levels to the higher ones in the organizations (Allen 2016, p. 139). This is mainly the responses
of the downward communication requests for actions, opinions and information. This channel of
upward communication includes direct verbal, telephonic and written modes. The managers
manage this type of communication in the decision-making process as this reveals the actual
situation of the organizations and the strength of the companies (Verhoef, Kannan & Inman
2015, p. 180). Through this, the organizations get proper idea how they get competitive
advantage from the aspect of their human resource and mitigate the employee issues in a very
initial situation. Upward communication manipulates the downward communication as this
makes the employees satisfied with the level access to the channels of upward communication
and they feel important for the organization they are serving.
The horizontal communication refers to flow of information across the functional areas
on the same level of an organization. It is the proper transmission of information among the
divisions, departments and units operating in the same level in the organizational hierarchy. The
managers use this type of communication flow to share information informally (Van et al. 2017,
p. 435). This is the proper method of solving problems internally which increase with then
miscommunication or gap among the departments working in the same project. Thus, the
managers can increase collaboration among the teams of subordinate employees and implement
changes if needed. This is the way this type of communication system an effectively enhance the

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productivity of the firms by sharing information informally had resolute conflicts among the
people working in the same level (Wang, Pauleen & Zhang 2016, p.10). This communication
system helps the organizations to implement the top-level decisions on the employees on the
lower level. It makes this process easier as the employees guarantee coordination among
themselves. This is also used for increasing job satisfaction among the employees of the
organizations and motivate them to create more employee empowerment in communication.

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