For many businesses, lack of communication is one of their primary productivity concerns.
It’s hard to grow a business, smooth out operations and create new working initiatives if you have ineffective methods of communication throughout the organization.
Learn how to improve communication and collaboration in your company for an overall better business.
When hiring employees you’ll have looked for a diverse group of people who have different strengths and skills to suit varying roles.
Each employee will have a different mind-set and way of thinking, which makes them have different skills and attributes.
This means they’ll also have different thought processes, and different ways of interpreting information.
Due to the amount of different brains you have in your company, you’ll have to cater to their thought processes and communicate to them in their preferred method.
Some employees will respond better to meetings than others, whilst confident speakers will thrive on a group discussion, you may find that less confident workers let the others speak for them.
If this is your primary method of discussing business decisions, you could be missing out on vital opinions and initiatives – just because they don’t give input doesn’t mean they don’t have any, they just feel too intimidated by group speaking that they’d rather not offer an idea that could potential be laughed off.
Shier employees may benefit from writing their thoughts and contributions rather than speaking them out.
This could be done through document sharing; employees could have the choice of anonymously contributing their ideas in a shared document, these ideas could then be discussed in a group meeting.
Employees may feel more comfortable discussing ideas if they are anonymous, no one will be made to feel embarrassed by suggestions, regardless of how “out there” they are.
Keep everyone in the loop.
Keeping each department up-to-date with what’s happening in various sectors of the company is a vital aspect of running a business that some organizations simply don’t do enough of.
Creating monthly newsletters containing company news which can be emailed to every department can help to keep everyone up to date on business changes, good news and pitfalls.
Whilst this may be an excellent idea for some employees, others may benefit more from watching a brief presentation providing the same information as the newsletter.
One of the best ways to ensure all employees receive relevant information regarding company news and changes in working procedures is to make this information accessible at all times.
Larger organizations may realize that it can be harder to assemble a meeting which everyone can attend due to other planned meetings and staff holidays/absence.
Record meetings either using a camcorder, voice recorder or take minutes. Share these using document sharing software so that all employees can access them, regardless of whether they were able to attend.
Using technology to improve communication is another option.
Utilizing workflow can ensure that information and documents are effectively routed and shared.
The central hub that document management provides allows all employees to have access to important data, content and tools to simplify their business and daily work environment.
Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of how bringing technology, people and processes together can have considerable advantages for the company and employees alike.
The entire organization stands to benefit from increased collaboration and improved communication.
Ineffective communication within businesses can be incredibly problematic, yet many organizations fail to get important messages to relevant employees.
Lack of communication can cause employees to feel undervalued if their colleagues know important information they haven’t been told about and low employee satisfaction can increase staff turnover. Plus, there’s always the “water cooler gossips” who plant rumors in other workers’ minds and further decrease productivity … it’s best to nip these in the bud by clarifying truths and putting any lies to bed.
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Battling the Paper Addiction:3 Ways to Help Employees Detox The End of the Information Age & The Rise of Knowledge as Power The Problem with Paper & How Going Paperless Affects Business
Written by Stephanie Staszko on behalf of Blue Octopus flat fee recruitment she enjoys writing posts about small businesses and her guilty pleasure – home improvement.
