Global and Multicultural Public Relations

10Employee Communication and Global Teams

Keywords

virtual teams; leading office; virtual communications; cultural differences; employee communications; globalization; social distance

Central Themes

• Employee communications, internal communications, and organizational communications all refer to the relationships and interactions within an organization.
• Three types of communications patterns are found in employee communications: vertical, horizontal, and diagonal.
• Trust, two‐way engagement, and respect can help form and maintain effective employee communications.
• For successful employee communications, employees need to be engaged and feel a sense of belonging in the organization, in order to put valuable time and effort into their work.
• Globalization and advancements in technology have positively affected global teams' effectiveness and success.
• Cultural differences, language barriers, and low employee engagement are some of the challenges global teams inevitably face.
• Virtual communications tremendously improved how global teams work, making it easier to communicate and be time efficient

Introduction

In general, organizations in the world have teams spread across multiple locations. With advancements in technology, businesses are now able to communicate with each team on a global scale in easy and cost‐effective ways. What once would have required a plane ride can now be done over a video conference call. However, the technology is worthless if an organization's employees ...