Edition: January 25th, 2022
Curated by the Knowledge Team of ICS Career GPS
- Excerpts from article by Brandon Pena, published on Entrepreneur.com
Expressing the requirements and goals of the company, to all concerned, in an effective and constructive manner will build rapport that results in achieving and surpassing those goals: It’s that simple.
Effective communication is key, whether you are the enterprise leader, manager, executive, or a fresher who has just joined the organisation.
In addition to increasing productivity, it inspires teams to become more involved and feel empowered to contribute.
Here are 5 simple ways of ensuring effective communication at work:
1. Having the right communication tools.
- In this age of tech, there are countless resources at your fingertips to help you reach a team.
- Whether via email, a WhatsApp group chat, Zoom meetings, other apps or even a simple phone call.
- Teams should always have access to leaders in the event of unexpected events or when asking for help with minor issues.
- Using an engaging and interactive platform is a great way of keeping everyone involved and up-to-date.
- Leaders should also keep their teams apprised of any changes that affect daily operations, as well as upcoming events and company news.
- Maintaining an open flow of information will help ensure that operations run smoothly and team members feel supported.
2. Offering clear advice/feedback.
- Employees often need to make quick and important decisions during the course of a workday.
- Knowing that they are able to ask for help and will receive clear, concise feedback fuels a sense that they’ll be able to handle any situation which may arise.
- When it becomes necessary to speak with a team face to face, be sure that they leave a meeting feeling heard, understood and valued.
- Personal meetings should be constructive moments of assessment and reflection.
- It’s also important to recognise successes and celebrate a job well done.
- Safe spaces for conversation and expression must be created.
3. Getting teams involved in daily decision making.
- Offer the opportunity of a vote on new products or upcoming changes.
- Open the floor to new ideas for improving workflows.
- Staff members’ opinions matter, so take them into account.
- Give the team a voice by allowing expression of what isn’t working and soliciting collective solutions to problems.
4. Identifying and supporting group leaders.
- While an open-door policy is important, it doesn’t always work well when a business grows beyond a certain size.
- Maintaining direct communication with each individual team member at every level isn’t always going to be possible.
- A smart solution is to identify group leaders who can handle some of the work for you, as long as you clearly establish who they are to the rest of the staff and how the rest of the team can reach them.
- Make sure everyone knows that these leaders are your direct representatives, and assure them that their requests and comments will be passed on accordingly.
- Creating these smaller sub-groups allows each to be increasingly self-managed.
5. Team building outside of work.
- A good way to boost morale and foster strong relationships is to use team building activities.
- This can create a dynamic working environment and make people feel safer in expressing any issues. Get creative!
- We often spend more time with coworkers than our own families, making satisfying interpersonal relationships at work vitally important.
- ,Offering an escape from the daily grind by arranging out-of-office events like a field day, game night, celebrating birthdays, attending a movie or concert, etc., are some of the ways in which this can be done.
- Having an opportunity to loosen up and socialise builds trust, confidence and yes, communication.
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(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article mentioned above are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ICS Career GPS or its staff.)
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