You’ve employed the best people for the roles, you’ve got the latest equipment, and everything should be in place for your team to work like a well-oiled machine. But something’s not quite gelling, and productivity isn’t quite as high as you expected.
Communication – and specifically internal team comms – could be the culprit. If your team members aren’t all on the same page, or the overarching aims and ethos of the wider business haven’t been communicated properly, you’ll likely have a problem with morale and, as a result, suffer from disappointing levels of productivity. Solving this issue, however, is a breeze: use the guide below to affect the changes that’ll get your team working well together, getting more done, and feeling happier in their roles.
Table of Contents
Use the Best Team Comms App
It’s easy to simply continue using the team comms app you always have done or the one that came pre-installed on your office software. However, taking a little time to check if there are other options out there that could serve your team better is likely to be time extremely well spent.
For example, many of the newest apps have been designed specifically for modern ways of working, which are frequently remote or hybrid. Look for apps that have first-class team chat tools, such as the ability to seamlessly switch between messaging, video calling, and audio. Features to help promote more organized messaging and advanced search tools should be on your shopping list, too, to find an app that’ll effortlessly boost productivity within your team.
Audit Your Current Processes
Take an honest look at how well the current comms processes are working within your team. Are there regular miscommunications regarding staff scheduling, for example, or around tasks that require working in collaboration with other departments?
This is a great point at which to ask your employees for feedback on what they feel is working well and what needs tweaking. As well as getting the vital ‘on the ground’ information you need, involving your team members in the process of change will promote feelings of empowerment and motivation.
Design your new internal comms processes collaboratively, and spend some time creating forms of best practice for comms to help achieve consistency. Once your new policy is in place, make sure it’s fully disseminated and that it’s communicated to new employees as part of the induction policy.
Keeping Everyone in the Loop
Fostering a culture of transparency is important to help your employees feel they have a real stake in the business and can see how their tasks help further the business’s overarching mission and values. This also builds trust, creating stronger teams that are both happier and more productive.
There are many easy ways to boost transparency via your internal comms process. Simply creating a weekly newsletter for your staff to celebrate your team’s achievements and make them aware of any company news or upcoming events is an easy way to keep everyone on the same page. Maintaining a regular schedule of whole-team meetings and one-to-ones is also key, as is fostering a general atmosphere in which every employee feels comfortable speaking up, whether it’s regarding a problem they’re having or an innovative new solution they’ve come up with.
The Importance of Leading by Example
As a manager or team leader, you’re in a unique position to influence your team in how you go about your daily tasks. Modeling best practices regarding internal comms is just as important as everything else. To do this, engage in two-way dialogues and always try to engage rather than announce. Fully adhere to the comms policy, and make sure that other managers are on board with it, too. When communicating with other staff, your team should see how, in the way you go about this, you’re espousing the comms policy you’ve all signed up to.
Being ready and willing to answer questions is a key element of leading by example: encourage your team to share information as standard until reciprocal, high-quality communication becomes the regular means of working.
Continually Measure Success
Finally – whether you’re going to take the opportunity to create an entirely new internal communications system or tweak your existing one, you’ll need to come up with a framework by which its effectiveness can be measured.
Finding the perfect comms solutions for your team is likely to be a work in progress, so give some thought to how you’ll measure success. Perhaps you could ask employees to complete a short survey at the end of the first week the changes have been in place, to gauge the difference they’ve made. To take a wider view, you could also assess how far staff turnover rates or business profitability have been affected since your new internal comms policy has been in place.
With tech advancing so fast, opportunities to digitally enhance your comms are likely to come thick and fast over the next few years, so staying aware of and on top of these could be one of the most significant things you do in terms of keeping productivity levels as high as possible.