The numerous channels now available for professional communication can result in misunderstandings, lost time and potentially damaging errors, The Wall Street Journal reported.

For example, the Journal reported, one part-time accountant, juggling 30 instant-messaging channels, four client-email accounts and at least a dozen phone or video calls a day, accidentally sent a sensitive company document to the wrong person.  

She is not the only one suffering from multiple channel overload. Microsoft Corp.’s Teams now has more than 280 million monthly active users, Zoom Video Communications Inc. has grown to more than 210,000 business customers since the start of the pandemic, and Salesforce Inc.’s Slack is also growing. Many clients of each tool overlap—and then there are emails, texts and in-house messaging forums.

Bosses estimated that their teams lose an average 7.47 hours—nearly an entire day—to poor communications each week, a 2022 Harris Poll survey of more than 1,200 workers and executives found.

The situation can also lead to poor workplace relationships and culture clashes. A recent Korn Ferry study found that many of those surveyed said that remote work made it easier for colleagues to misbehave by interrupting calls and ignoring emails. A new Pepperdine University study on workplace toxicity found that 35 percent of the 800 office workers surveyed cited communication problems as the top barrier to getting ahead in today’s workplace.

Bad behavior by her supervisor led one sales manager for a Florida food manufacturer to quit her job. The supervisor would often call the sales manager impromptu via video as she worked from her home office in Portsmouth, N.H., so she asked that outside of scheduled calls with the team, she be contacted only by email or instant message. He responded that her request could not be accommodated.

Multiple channels of communication get more complex as the number of people on a conversation thread grows, Jessica Carlson, a former director of supply-chain operations at Nestlé SA, told the Journal. “You could have an email chain, a text thread, a videoconference call and an in-person one-on-one about the same topic all within 24 hours,” she said.

To avoid feeling overwhelmed, an employee should ask teammates or other colleagues what their communication preferences are, while also being unafraid to state one's own, said Sally Susman, chief corporate affairs officer at Pfizer Inc. and author of a recent book on improving workplace communications, in an interview with the Journal.

Some companies are trying to develop solutions to the problem of multiple communications outlets. Archer Daniels Midland Co. has linked instant messaging, email, video and social-media style updates into one central hub. Shopify Inc. shifted to Meta Platforms Inc.’s Workplace, which combines instant messaging, videoconferencing and other communications tools.

“Email hasn’t evolved in the last 30 years. And it still sucks,” the company’s chief operating officer, Kaz Nejatian, wrote in a January memo to staff.