Learn how to effectively communicate your ideas, decisions, requests, and announcements to your team.
A memo, or memorandum, is one of the most common forms of business communication. While the way memos are distributed has changed – emails have taken the place of printed notes and physical company notice boards – they still play a crucial role in keeping all employees on the same page.
Let's dive deeper into what a business memo is and how to write it effectively.
A memo is a note or a document distributed within an organization to share information. The term comes from the Latin word "memorandum", meaning "notable" or "memorable".
Memos are often used to effectively communicate ideas, decisions, requests, or announcements to large groups of employees, like your entire department or everyone at the company – for example, a new internal policy introduction, a reminder the clean the shared breakroom, or an invitation to attend a staff party.
A memo allows companies to disseminate information and communicate with their teams asynchronously, without having to schedule extra meetings or communicate important announcements one line at a time on Slack.
Here is an example of a business memo created in Nuclino, a unified workspace for all your team's knowledge, docs, and projects:
Nuclino can be a great solution for sharing memos and collaborating on documents, but it can serve equally well as an internal knowledge base, a project management tool, a technical documentation tool, and more. It works like a collective brain, allowing you to bring all your team's work together and collaborate without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos.
Although they can take different forms, business memos are always brief, clear, single-subject documents. They follow a simple structure and usually include the following sections:
It may also be helpful to include the business phone number or email address of someone who can address any follow-up queries.
The tone of business memos tends to be fairly friendly and informal. A signature is usually not included, but it may be appropriate depending on your message or your company’s style.
When it comes to writing memos, there are several simple dos and don'ts to keep in mind:
If your company doesn't have a team wiki, you can easily create one in Nuclino. Nuclino is a collaborative workspace that will not only make it easy to share memos with your team, but also allow your colleagues to give their input.
Your team can ask questions and share their feedback directly in the document, so that you can be sure your memo got the message across. Use comments and mention individual members or groups to send them a notification and grab their attention.
Make sure to create a template for your memos and have it used by the entire team. If all your memos have a consistent style and structure, they will be much easier to write and understand.
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to writing memos, but most companies use a similar format. Copy and customize this memo template for your own team:
Writing memos may seem like a trivial task, but it's a fundamental part of internal communication for every organization.
If the memo doesn't reach its intended audience or is written in an unclear way, it may end up creating confusion and resulting in unnecessary meetings just to get everyone on the same page. When done correctly, however, a memo can be one of the most effective ways to share information and keep your team aligned.
Nuclino brings all your team's knowledge, docs, and projects together in one place. It's a modern, simple, and blazingly fast way to collaborate, without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos.
