What is Informal communication

Informal communication can be defined as the communication that takes place outside a planned or prescribed network of communication. Unlike the communication that is formal in nature in which everything is created in a formal way deliberately, the informal communication is spontaneous and beyond any formal barriers. It has no rules and regulations in particular and in goes off any direction. It means it goes in no specific direction. We can say it a grapevine being random in nature. One can find both formal and informal communication in any type of the organization. Informal communication is sometimes deliberately encouraged along with the formal communication in order to make the communication very effective. It is the kind of the nervous system of the any organization. There are different kinds of advantages of informal communication. It is firstly very speedy and spontaneous process of the communication. The information flows at the greater speed in the informal communication. In this way formal messages can be expanded, confirmed and expedited with the help of the informal communication. It is multi-directional in nature. It can flow higher to lower, lower to higher, laterally or horizontally. It flows without any constraint. It is hence easy and also economical for spreading information to large numbers of the workers in an organization without indulging into the unnecessary formalities.

It is useful to strengthen the social relationships. It gives the platform for the gathering that is used to become social in the society we are living in. It is cathartic in nature as it discards negative emotions and feelings like hatred, jealousy by making everyone talk to each other and feel relieved by talking heart to heart without any kind of the restraint. In this type of the communication one can easily by pass the channels that are present in formal communication. It is supplementary for the formal communication system as sometimes feelings cannot be shared through formal ways of communication. In these kinds of situations one can use formal ways of communication. One can think over the procedures and policies by getting feedback by this way of communication. Hence the advantages of the informal communication can be easily seen and felt by the members of an organization. However everything has advantages as well as disadvantages. This type of communication can lead to misleading. It is because it can carry rumors, half truth, fabricated and false stories. Hence due to lack of accuracy misinformation is sent to number of employees in an organization that result in misleading them. The chances of distortions of message are high in informal communication. One can add, subtract, colour or mould the message according to one’s will. Everyone puts his own opinion and transfer the information further that result in loss of original information in this chaos of opinions.

It can be proved to be disastrous for organizations as rumors can create misunderstanding among the employees of organization. This could put impact on relations of different employees of the organization. Due to wrong feedback one can react in a wrong way due to misunderstanding which could be harmful for organization as one can lead to adopting wrong decisions of the executives. In these kinds of communication the particular responsibility cannot be fixed. In case of formal communication can point out the one who is spreading a wrong information and hence responsibility can be fixed. This is the disadvantage of informal communication that no one gets to know who is spoiling the environment by misleading everyone. There are different types of informal communication or grapevine. This type of the communication can be single stand, gossip, probability or cluster. In single stand person tells the other in sequence in line. In gossips the one tells the other people on non selective basis. In probability a person tells other randomly on the basis of the law of probability. In cluster one tells only to the person he trusts. Cluster is the famous one among the all. One can use this type of communication in an effective way else it can prove to be harmful for the whole organization. The growth of the grapevine cannot be curbing as it is completely instantaneous and spontaneous process. It is necessary to channelize it properly to stop giving harm to the whole organization. There should be initializing of open communication policy in order to stop rumors in an organization. The false rumors should be stopped by sending the notice that is written in nature that is in form of the circulars or memos. The warnings can be sent in the organization to fix the responsibility of anyone who is found responsible or suspected to be responsible for creating the mess by misleading the people of the organization. The employees should be encouraged to take part in group discussions so that one can discuss the things face to face rather than gossiping in personal and creating the bundle of misinformation. The rumors can be faced by these methods and hence can be stopped at the early stages only. It is necessary to nip the evil things in the bud or in the starting only rather than making a problem that is difficult to stop at the later stages. Proper staff meetings should be kept at interval that needs to be regular.

In staff meetings, the executives as well as the subordinates can talk face to face and hence one cannot keep misperceptions about the other person. The active members of the organization should be contacted and they should be corrected by providing the adequate information. This type of communication can interact about the reaction and response of employees and hence it can be sorted out in the starting only. The informal communication is seen among the friends, relatives and near and dear ones. It is used to convey the information without getting involved in the formalities that are the basic requirements in the case of the formal communication system. With the help of this one can become economical and the cost of transformation of information can be cut through this. Although there is no proper direction in which data flows in this type of the communication but due to no constraint it has the fastest speed in which data can be spread in any organization. The social relations become healthy and by this one can become friendly with others. One can easily overcome the unnecessary official channels that only delay the transfer of the information and are not of much importance otherwise. The role of many other gets dumped in this type of the communication. The meetings of different heads of the departments can be kept in order to make the whole process of the communication effective and also let the misinformation to be out this system of the organization. The relevant data must be kept and the irrelevant must be thrown out by the healthy communication processes. It is very easy to start the rumors by the help of the informal type of the communication but it is very tough to stop them from creating the misperceptions of the information. In order to extract more from this type of the communication it is necessary to use it in an effective way. Combating the grapevine communication or channelize it in a proper way is the necessary step one need to take. There is no proper hierarchy that is followed in this communication as one can see in the formal communication. The different types of disadvantages that are included in the grapevine or the informal communication are misleading, distortions, disastrous for the organization and no responsibility of anyone to spread the misinformation. The different types of the grapevine can be seen and they are of the single stand type, the probability, the gossip and the cluster type which is in turn opposite from that of formal communication types. It is because everything in the formal communication keeps a proper order. There is the particular system that is followed in the formal communication. Otherwise there is nothing like that in the informal communication. Hence it is different from the formal type of the communication.