The quickest and most efficient way to assure business success is to have everyone in the organization on the same page and working together. The best method to make this happen is to establish and maintain frequent communication with all employees, suppliers, customers and the general public. This seems like a very easy operation when your business is small and “management by walking around” is the current operational method. It is, however, amazing that many small and medium businesses have a real problem with communication.

The communication issue that causes the primary problem is what to discuss and when to do so. Most employees have more than we can accomplish every day and finding the time to discuss issues that don’t currently affect our workload is tricky. All employees, customers and suppliers want to know everything about our company and want to feel like a vital piece of the organization but how does this happen without causing additional problems in output?

 There is no single preferred communication method and the company culture must dictate the form and the amount of communication. Weekly staff meetings, monthly all-employee meetings, supplier phone calls, customer lunches, company newsletter, global emails, quarterly lunches, company websites, internal suggestion boxes, departmental meetings, daily conference calls and even the weekly Friday night gathering at the local bar are all great and useful communication tools for every business. Your company culture must dictate which are used.

The only requirement for your organization’s communication is that it be useful to all concerned, regularly performed and in a format easily understood by the recipient. I advise our clients to use common sense, start simple, and ask for continuing feedback from all concerned to ensure that the communication is doing what it is intended to do.

Proprietary company information must be determined by senior management and protected in all communication to ensure the long term success of the organization.

Communication methods are becoming more and more efficient with the electronic tools that are now available to small and medium businesses. It was only a few years ago that only the Fortune 500 had Microsoft Exchange servers allowing shared employee calendars, laptop computers with the same power as a desktop, Blackberry PDA’s, Air Cards for laptops so the internet could even be accessed from the Grand Canyon, text messaging from cell phones, cameras on cell phones with the ability to send a picture within seconds to the home office, and Instant Messaging on company desktops for communication between employees. These electronic tools are constantly changing our communication methods and must be evaluated for your organization.

Younger employees are generally very computer literate and are in chat rooms, on blogs, social network on MySpace and Facebook, Instant and Text Message constantly and desire and need much more communication than older employees. My college daughter’s cell phone bill indicates that she averages 100 text messages daily which amazes me but seems normal to her and her friends.

With the constantly changing electronic communication methods available, your organization must not only find the best method to communicate with your employees, customers, suppliers and the public but also as important, you must ensure that you protect and defend your organization from improper communication.

I have worked with several clients who have been sued for various issues and have had their communication successfully used against them. These issues range from sexual harassment to product liability to trademark infringement to age discrimination. This is now a major issue for small and medium business and not just a large company issue.

I have always advised all employees “Never put anything in writing that you could not defend from the witness stand in a courtroom.” This sounds very simple and everyone believes they do so but think about your workplace. Do your employees send personal emails from their business computer? Do they text message a girl friend from their company cell phone? Do they Instant Message each other?

Everything communicated from a company phone or computer is your legal liability and can be used in a court room to damage your company. I have assisted an organization that was investigated by the EEOC because a female employee was sharing sexually explicit instant messages with another employee and accidentally sent one to a third employee by mistake. The EEOC required the company to print and provide it with all emails, instant and text messages from company property over the prior 2 year period. This simple issue cost the company thousands of dollars in time and the company did not have any way of providing some of the information and was fined by the EEOC.

While this seems a rather strange example, it is not the exception. We have worked with several clients who have been sued by customers or suppliers for violating non-disclosure agreements. In every instance, employee emails were discovered that sounded very different in court than they did in the original context the employees meant them to convey.

Never put anything in writing that you could not defend on the witness stand in a courtroom.

Not only should every company have a standard Non-disclosure and Non-Competition Agreement that ALL employees should execute which clearly includes a statement that every employee understands that the company can review all communication on company assets, but also a statement that the employee agrees to voluntarily terminate if personal communication is sent from company assets. Your company lawyer can assist with your specific state legal situation.

While legal liability may not be a major monetary factor in many of these instances, the expense of hiring a lawyer and printing thousands and thousands of emails, texts and other communication required to defend your company in a lawsuit is the true inefficiency in this process.

Protect your company by setting the company guideline during the hiring process, constantly reminding all employees of correct communication behavior and finally monitor communication from company assets to ensure that your company is efficient and creating no legal liability with employee communications.




By: Mel Luigs