Every successful business is built on a strong foundation of communication. Trying to communicate in a large business can be a difficult task. Knowing what form of communication to use is an even bigger challenge. E-mail can be an easy and effective way of communication in this day and age. However, it doesn't always stand in as a good substitute for face to face interaction. As a supervisor or manager, it is imperative to know when to e-mail and when to use direct communication. Using the wrong form of communication can be more harmful than you might think.

E-mail seems to have taken the business world by storm. It's quickly taking the place of office memos and inner-office correspondence. Simple informative messages that you want to get through to the masses is a terrific use of office e-mail. One example would be to send out an e-mail notifying staff of a meeting. This allows everyone to be on the same page for when and where the meeting will be held. This also works for other office events. Some offices even use e-mail to notify groups of schedule changes. Many office e-mail programs allow you to keep calendars, not only for yourself, but for others as well. This is very useful if you are in charge of keeping up with other people's agendas. You wouldn't want your boss to miss that flight or be late for that ever so important meeting.

Some larger establishments have e-mail chat much like Aim for AOL. This allows for brief live written conversation. This is a highly effective form of communication for co-workers that need to have interactive communication, but may not have easy access to each other. Administration may need to talk to someone in billing to to get an answer to a customer's question. The phone is always busy, and billing is in a building three blocks away. As long as e-mail is up, you have instant communication. A word to the wise; using this form of communication to carry on idle chit chat could be highly frowned upon.

Documentation is also an excellent use of e-mail. Although it is not wise to use e-mail to express your negative feelings about a disagreement or other situation, you can use it as a documentation of the event to report to your superior. Talking out disagreements in person is always the way to go. However, If the disagreement wasn't resolved to your satisfaction, you can e-mail your interpretation of the events to your supervisor. If the problems escalate, your superior has a fresh account

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