The Importance of Business Memos

What kind of business are you running? Is it a traditional company that dates back over 100 years or are you running a startup where most of the employees’ lounge around doing business from the comfort of a hammock in an office that has only beanbags and sofas rather than desks and office chairs?

Either way, your company will need a great way to communicate with each other. Slack messages and traditional emails don’t always do the trick.

Instead even in the 2020s the decade of 5G and artificial intelligence, business memos have stood the test of time to be a great way of communicating.

Here is everything you need to know about internal memos.

1. A More Formal Statement

The trouble with emails, slack or other corporate chat channels like Microsoft Teams is that they are not very formal methods of communication.

If there is a change of policy that you want to tell your employees about or another such important announcement an email might not do the trick. An email can get lost or it could be one of ten or more sent that same morning. If you’re a big company more senior employees could get hundreds of emails per day. Thought it might feel like emails are part of normal corporate culture they have only been standard since 1973.

Slack messages are even less formal and are easy to miss, particularly if you have your notifications turned off or lots of people reply so the original message is lost in a big thread.

Instead, an internal memo can only be sent by the company. It is usually printed – some companies now like to send them as email attachments to save the environment – giving it weight and authority. If you are struggling with the design then be sure to consider a business memo template.

Employees are more likely to take your message seriously if it is displayed on a memo with the company’s header displayed on the top.

2. Record Keeping

Memos are also important because they are a more formal record of company communication that can be stored away and archived. If your company is large and goes back hundreds of years memos are a great way of keeping the tradition going.

Future generations can access them and see what decisions the company made and who was sending the memos. They are particularly useful on historic days such as the election of new Presidents or to see how the company responded to major national events.

3. Better Than Using the Phone

Phone calls are disruptive. They ruin the workflow of the employee you are trying to contact. They might be in the middle of a task or they could be writing an important document but the phone call interrupts their trail of thought.

If it is a large company then the person you are trying to contact might be away from their phone. The call might be taken by their secretary who then has to go out and find the person you are trying to reach which could take time.

Business Memos: Still Relevant Today

Even in the age of hyper-connectivity, well-designed business memos are still effective as a means of communication. They also add a nice touch of tradition to your business in an ever-changing world.

If you are interested in learning more about business memos or examples of business memos be sure to check out the rest of our site.