I communicate through Skype, sometimes by email or PM but mostly Skype.
I like Skype because it notifies me when the user is on + almost everyone uses skype.
At my forum we talk in the staff lounge, but sometimes my staff and I will talk on Skype. We also communicate via PM, but the staff lounge is where most of our conversations start. 🙂
Here I share how communication works at another forum I'm working at.
Much like what others have stated above, the main communication method is the forum itself. The forum software is vB, and the technicians installed a kind of MOD which gives you notification at the bottom left of the screen so we know immediately if new post is made in important threads. We also make use of the subscribe system; all staff members must subscribe to important threads so whenever new replies are made they get notification and can at least read it. The problem is that replies may not always come, but at least we know when new replies are made and can get updated with it.
Next we also use private message. This is more personal, of course, so we use it more to get in touch with fellow staff members or follow up projects instead of project planning or more elaborated discussions. This is especially important because we have a kind of supervision system; as a global moderator I'm responsible to look after several sectional moderators and assist them in their duties.
IRC is the last but probably the most handy method, as you can talk with many people at once. The problem, as usual, is the timezone.
Mainly through a staff section. I think this way is the most effective way. Although we do use PM (invite staff members only) from time to time. That way it may not get buried so easily, and staff members are easily alerted about new issues/queries.
But if I had multiple staff members then we'd rely firstly on the staff forum. (It's there for a reason...)
Second would be PMs.
I probably wouldn't bother with IM or anything like that simply because it requires everyone to be on at the same time (which isn't always possible). Plus I'm not overly fond of moving the communications off site simply because it can get into a situation where things get said but there's no record.
Plus with a staff section you put up a warning that anything posted inside is not to be shared where with an IM service things may be blurred and aspects may be shared. (It may not be out of malice, but rather just that they either don't realise not to share things or they share something they're talking to at the same time without realising. I mean how many have had multiple chat windows open and wrote the wrong reply there without thinking?)
And IM services tend to be bad because if there is a heated issue it can escalate very quickly. Plus due to the nature of IM you may send something you think sounds great at the time... but later you realise you never should have sent it. (Sent because you're angry/upset at that time. But if you had taken time to compose a message in a PM or on the forum, you'd have cooled off some and been more level headed and professional.)
I try to communicate via PM and by Hangouts... Though it doesn't seem like my administrators are on Hangouts much so I may switch to Skype in the near future... Not that they'd be any more active on there...but it is worth a shot.
Skype and texting. I think we text more than we skype, we have email for when we need to send large files to one another, but other than that we text all the time. 😛
For my forums I always have the Skypes for my staff. If they don't have a Skype I will email them. But generally the staff I hire are my friends anyway.
Mainly email, Skype conversations and the various staff boards. If there is something that is more urgent or warrants a quick response then we normally use Email.
Im a huge fan of mass pms. They are really useful to mail our staff team quickly and on site. We do also have a skype group for general chats as pms can only communicate basically
