Best Practices for Virtual Communication

Does keeping up with your digital communication channels make you feel like you’re trying to plug many holes in a dam that’s about to break? Sure, the volume of emails is ridiculously high, but it’s not just email anymore; you’re probably also getting work messages by text, MS Teams, Slack, or WhatsApp. How do you cope with the onslaught?

I relate to this struggle. I think of email as my primary communication tool for business. I have a (albeit crappy) filing system and a way of using my inbox as a to-do list. That works…ish. But increasingly, I’m finding that some work contacts use other platforms. Some clients are now texting me versus emailing. Some important networking or business development messages are coming in through LinkedIn. I have colleagues from the speaking world who write to me through Facebook Messenger. The result is that I feel a constant low-level stress that I have missed something important. And what I don’t need more of is constant low-level stress; I’ve got plenty of that from raising teenagers.

So, here are a few best practices for virtual communication to adopt with your team to reduce that stress.

Virtual Communication Tips

Tip #1: Direct the Flow of Communication

Choose one primary medium for communication with your team. If you’re Slack users, stick to Slack. If you’re emailers, email away! Keep the focus on one spot to reduce the sense of having to monitor multiple channels at once.
Set the guidelines for when and why other forms of communication should be used. One global NGO that I work with uses WhatsApp because they have employees in many remote parts of the world. I encouraged them to leave WhatsApp for communicating with their global counterparts and channel all domestic communication into email.
Choose which notifications you’re going to turn on and which you’re going to turn off. I encourage you to turn off as many as possible. I have notifications off for email, but on for text. That way, I tell people that if there’s something urgent, send an email with the request and then text me to check it.
The reason I ask people to email the request and then text is that email lends itself to searching and storing, whereas text doesn’t. My attention span is terrible , and so is my memory. Several times I’ve been trying to remember “who said that,” or “where did I read that?” I need to be able to search on a few keywords from the message, and that just isn’t happening on text or in Messenger.

Tip #2: Agree on Standards

Commit to one another about how often you’re going to check your primary communication platform. For example, you could agree that everyone will do a quick morning check, one before the lunch hour, and once with an hour left in the day. If you need someone to get a message in between those times, give them a call.
Set the expectation that your team should be disconnecting from email for chunks of an hour or two to create enough mental space to focus and get work done. You can also start healthy habits, like saying 12-1 is for having lunch and you’re going to lay off any work at that time.
Try sending digest emails to reduce the volume of emails (and the feeling that they’re coming at you at an overwhelming rate). When you draft an email to a colleague, take a moment to think about whether they need it right away. If not, save the draft and leave room to add more to it before sending the message. Getting one well-organized message with several items can feel less distracting and overwhelming than getting four messages, each with a single task.

Tip #3: Improve the Content

(These tips are from my post on improving your email. Read the full post here.)

Focus on the receiver when you’re drafting your message. As you type the name of the recipient into the To: line, start thinking about what they need from this message so they can give you what you need. It’s the classic help you help me situation.
Make your subject lines more informative. Use a standard set of headers (e.g., action required, response required, or FYI), include timing (e.g., COB for close of business, EOD for end of day, or a specific date), and provide searchable detail about the subject of the message. Here are some examples:

Response Required COB: Choose Presentation Title
Action Required Friday 14^th: Validate ERP project committee membership
Primer for Friday Bid Meeting: Read Context for Bid go no-go decision
FYI: New Fourth Floor Layout Plans

Set up a Daily Update Template

One of the interesting questions I often get is how to deal with micromanagement. Micromanagement is a natural response for a manager who feels out of the loop or out of control. One answer is to agree on a template for updates. In that template, you could include categories such as: Completed yesterday; Priority activities for today; Additional activities for today; Priority support I need from you.
That last category, “priority support I need” should be at the very top of the message. That’s a key characteristic of good communication, you focus on what’s most important to the receiver first, then provide context second. Then decide how frequently your boss would like to get that kind of update.

Things are changing so quickly that your team likely needs to be communicating at a fast pace. That’s all the more reason to agree to follow these best practices, to make that communication efficient and effective. A little time invested upfront in some guidelines will help you get to the most important tasks while lowering that generalized anxiety many of us are feeling.