This month's question is from Elizabeth, a legal professional from a large, global company. She has a concern about the potentially detrimental effects of some fairly common communication practices.

“It seems that I spend 90% or more of my days interacting with others through my computer and telephone. This is an amazing evolution of the workplace/workspace in the past 10+ years.

I would like to know what thought leaders in organizational behavior and dynamics think about this development. I routinely feel isolated and concerned that my (and others' as this is a typical scenario) lack of interaction with colleagues on a regular basis will translate into organizational issues sooner vs. later.

Can you give me some guidance for further information and reading? I know that I need to take steps to minimize my isolation, and have done so, to an extent. My question is for organizations, as they need to recognize this phenomenon and work to counter it, provide their employees alternatives to this working mode.

Twitter, IM (instant messaging), emailing, texting, phone – it seems like new ways to communicate with others pop up daily. They are often heralded as productivity boosters and are widely used in the corporate world. But as Elizabeth points out, they are not without problems. The potential issues created by these very familiar practices are definitely not on the radar screen of most organizations - Yet.

Potential Problems

Non face-to-face communication can create a number of organizational and personal issues:

Isolation & Stress: Over-reliance on electronic communication mediums can foster isolation and disenfranchisement which can, in turn, lead to increased stress levels for employees. Anything we can do to reduce stress is particularly important during these very difficult times.

Miscommunications/Misunderstandings: Electronic communication limits our ability to calibrate our senses to the reactions of others and increases the probability of miscommunication and misinterpretations of the message.

Cultural Footprint: How co-workers communicate is a key factor in the culture of any organization. People in some organizations have told us that they will send an email to someone who is 2 offices away rather than walk over to them or call because it is “what people do here.” How you manage or don't manage communication will add to or detract from your desired organizational culture.

Generational Divide: Elizabeth also commented that she believed the propensity for electronic communication was more generational than structural. In a telephone discussion, Elizabeth suggested that younger people – the twenty-somethings – were more apt to communicate by email and/or text than in person or even over the phone. Without active management of communication practices the potential exists to allow a generational divide to crop up within the organization.

Abuse/Mischief: There are many ways that electronic communication can be misused and create significant issues for the organization. In one of our “Ethics in Action” workshops involving managers, participants engaged in a long discussion regarding a practice involving cell phones that they were struggling with: employees using their cell phone to send nude photos to one another. Clearly not appropriate and not a method for combating feelings of isolation. This kind of inappropriate usage certainly creates a problem many managers or organizations are not prepared to address!

Lower productivity: The variety of communication channels we are required to monitor and respond to can create a real distraction in the workplace. For some people the need to constantly check email or incessantly IM is so addictive that they come to the end of the day and feel like they haven't accomplished anything.

The Solution

In terms of what can be done within organizations to address and counter this phenomenon, as well as provide employees with alternatives to this working mode, we suggest increasing the opportunities and reasons for employees to come together in person, and cultivate in person meetings as a cultural norm whenever possible. We do not suggest creating meetings for meeting sake but rather:

Cross-functional Task Teams that have a clear charter and timeframe.

Social clubs and interest groups, such as our client with the Gen Y group below. (This group is actually working on very specific organizational issues which have been presented to senior management and garnered their support.)

All Hands Meetings are a good opportunity to bring everyone together for informational purposes, as well as question and answers about important issues, such as how to cut costs or increase efficiency in certain areas.

Face-to-face meetings can be combined with technology, such as interactive web-conferencing and blogging.

Final Thoughts

Long-term, we are not sure but we do think that face-to-face communication will continue – even with the “younger” crowd! In fact in one of our client companies a group“Gen Y” folks have been asking for some face-to-face meetings so they can “re-connect”.

The other thing that is very clear is that organizations need to be more intentional about how they manage and monitor communication practices within in their organizations. We are not suggesting a “Big Brother is Watching” approach, that will do nothing but build resentment and stress. We are suggesting that leaders get clear about what are acceptable and unacceptable communication practices based on who they are as an organization – and then lead by example.

Other Information

Elizabeth asked for some reading and/or guidance. Of course, we suggest you continue to read this newsletter! And, as for articles or other sources of information, we will turn to you, the reader: Do you know of any sources? What have you found?

Thank you, Elizabeth, for your question. We hope this and our follow-up phone conversation was helpful.

Next Month

If you would like to submit a question, email us at AskWSA@wsa-intl.com.

We will select a topical question from the many we receive each month and ask one of the WSA experts to respond.

Please note that no past or future questions will be published without the consent of the author so all readers can continue to submit questions without concern for confidentiality.