While most of these guidelines are also applicable to working in a Traditional Office “working virtual” requires extra emphasis on the format and content of communication, particularly in the early stages.

The majority of these guidelines refer to e-mail communication. E-mail is already the dominant form of communication in modern business, but the very advantages of e-mail bring their own special communication problems that you need to be aware of.

Before looking at some guidelines for e-mail, a few general tips and a word about phone and fax communication (we’ll skip snail-mail - the guidelines for writing letters are well established and unchanged for years).

General Guidelines

Think carefully about the method of communication you use. Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses, so choose the most appropriate for the task. Using the right method to start with can avoid many potential problems.

Most communication problems are related to inappropriate use of either (1) a one-way communication method such as e-mail where you don’t have the ability to stop and clarify anything ambiguous, as you do in conversation; or (2) using an imprecise communication method such as telephone where the participants can both come away with a different impression of what was agreed

The global, viral and instantaneous nature of communication, especially e-mail, produces a different type of problem.  In this case, your communication to a colleague in the next office is instantaneously, unexpectedly forwarded to any number of recipients in any number of places worldwide.  It’s amazing how much your communication depends on what your colleague already knows about you, and how much will be misinterpreted by everyone else.

Remember:  “Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are” - Franklin D. Roosevelt  

Phone

Make it easy for people trying to contact you.  They get you or your voicemail – first time.

Publish a single number and then take responsibility yourself for redirecting that phone number to where you are, or to a message service.

Here’s a simple way of doing it for most circumstances.

If you’re at your desk – they’ll reach you.

If you’re “on the road” – they’ll reach you.

If you’re “incommunicado” – they can leave voicemail.

What could be better for them?

Fax

Avoid using faxes wherever possible!

Fax machines are expensive to buy and run. They're unreliable (out of paper, out of toner, jammed, date / time / answerback wrong); they're always busy just when you need to use them, they take up office space, and they’re hard to take with you on the road.  Throw your fax machine away.

Receiving. Use an electronic faxing service that delivers your “faxes” as e-mails into your inbox. It avoids all the problems listed above…and automatically gives you an electronic copy rather than a paper one.

Sending. Obtain an e-mail address and send an e-mail rather than send a fax. Tell them that your fax machine is “on the blink” and almost everyone will come up with an alternative e-mail address you can use. If you just have to send a fax, using an electronic faxing service will let you “fax” via your e-mail outbox simply and easily.

E-mail

As mentioned above, the main task here is to make sure that the communication is clear and unambiguous. In addition, as e-mail becomes the main business communication method, the original “quick and dirty” approach that earmarked early personal e-mails is no longer appropriate. 

E-mail accounts

Have only one business e-mail account (e.g. mary@yourcoy.com) for e-mail directed at you rather than your current role, whether you’re a big shot or a little shot.

Use additional e-mail accounts for various roles if appropriate. For example, having “Mary” also pick up e-mail to customer.service@yourcoy.com rather than have it all addressed to mary@yourcoy.com will make it easier when Mary changes her roles in the company. 

E-mail format 

E-mail Content

Most important of all...don’t antagonise (accidentally).  Be careful in the way you express criticism; you know that you’re typing it with a “soft voice and a smile on your face”, but the words can often be read “shouted by someone who’s angry”.  Adding an emoticon such as a smiley J can soften the words if you’re prepared to sacrifice the formality.

When writing a letter, there’s an implied limit to speed and extent of any distribution. With e-mail there’s no such safety factor. In 10 minutes your communication could have a much greater and wider audience than you ever thought possible…sometimes accidentally.

Writing unambiguously, assuming the reader does not know who you are or where you’re from, and assuming your communication will have a global distribution will at least ensure that your communication is correctly understood, wherever it happens to turn up.