Employees are probably the most important components of a business. This is why most human resources departments adopt stringent measures and offer generous remuneration to ensure they attract high-quality talent from the labor market or from other organizations.
When you have finally assembled the talent you desire, another major task is to build better team communication habits among your members. Below are some team communication strategies that any serious firm should consider.
Provide communications training
Developing good workplace communication and interpersonal skills is not an easy task for every employee. This is where basic communications training can help. Effective communications training programs can help struggling employees in areas such as basic conversational skills, writing, accounting, presentations, and managerial skills, among others.
At first, you may consider communications training courses pricey, but with time, you’ll observe that the benefits or value they bring to your organization far outweigh the cost.
Have a mechanism for feedback and constructive criticism
Feedbacks and constructive criticisms are vital aspects of both management and project management. Feedback is necessary in order to convey opinions, feelings, or expectations, e.g., about a concluded project or the performance of an employee, etc. Constructive criticism is a kind of feedback that dwells more on the shortcomings of the party being criticized with a view to inducing improvements. Whether it is feedback or constructive criticism, whoever is providing it should communicate in a formal but friendly way that should motivate rather than demoralize other employees.
Importantly, you also make it possible for your employees to criticize you constructively, since there are lots of lessons to be derived from constructive criticism. Criticism should never be destructive.
Arrange regular meetings for team bonding
One of the most effective strategies when it comes to building better team communication habits is gathering all employees regularly to interact with each other for greater team bonding. Bringing staff together on a regular basis enables them to understand their personal communication characteristics better, which will help foster the desired chemistry on how to best co-exist with little or no communication frictions. For new employees, such gatherings should be a part of their onboarding process that helps them become acquainted with older colleagues.
In these days of remote and hybrid work, gathering workers from all corners of the earth can be made easier by utilizing communications technologies such as video conferencing.
Consider workplace diversity
An important attribute of cosmopolitan cities is the diversity of nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, and belief systems that constitute a typical workplace environment in such towns. Such a multiplicity of differences can be a challenge to effective team communication. This is where some of the earlier mentioned strategies, such as communications training and regular meetings, can help.
Also, encourage all members of your team to make time to study and understand variables such as the racial, cultural, and religious makeup of your organization’s workforce. This is necessary to avoid communications that may be interpreted as racially, culturally, or religiously offensive.
Take note of differences in time zones
As noted earlier, remote and hybrid work is now a workplace practice in the US and other countries, especially due to the effects of the global pandemic. If you have remote workers in several countries, then knowing when to communicate with them should be an important component of your team communication strategies.
A good way of achieving this is by taking note of the time zones of all your employees in different locations. With this valuable information, you’ll precisely know the best time to communicate with your remote workers, either individually or as a group. An exception to this may be emergency situations when there’s a need to communicate with an employee irrespective of the time.
Lead by example by being open and honest
Effective team communication demands a high degree of openness and honesty not only from the team leader but also from every other member of the team. However, the team leader should set a good example by exhibiting levels of openness and honesty that enable him or her to be trusted, seen as transparent, and therefore held in high esteem.
Higher levels of honesty and trust ensure that what is communicated is taken more seriously rather than nonchalantly or even completely dismissed for lacking merit.
Have a robust conflict resolution mechanism
All kinds of human collaborations throw up all kinds of conflict now and again. The workplace is not an exception. Sometimes working relationships can deteriorate to nearly unrepairable extents. This can do considerable damage to the company’s operations, especially if the feuding parties need to collaborate directly with one another to achieve set targets. This is why an efficient and timely conflict resolution policy must be an important part of your team’s communication strategies.
Tasks and responsibilities should be clearly spelled out
For better team communication, the team leader or project manager must ensure clarity when assigning tasks and responsibilities to other members of the team. Communication is less challenging when every worker knows exactly what his or her duty is. Things do not end with assigning tasks but should also be followed up with constant communication between both sides about the progress of the assigned task as well as any challenges encountered while undertaking the assignment, among others.
Ensure decorum in communication
Sometimes, it is not just about communicating, but how you communicate. In a typical workplace, communication should not only adopt a formal tone but also be friendly and devoid of foul language (as noted earlier). In a nutshell, mutual respect among team members should guide communication.
Communication should be encouraged at every level
In many organizations, communication is usually initiated and concentrated at the top level of the hierarchy. This creates the impression that the various lowly-placed employees are not important. This policy can be a bad team communication habit because it can create an inferiority complex among junior staff.
Such a situation is capable of robbing the organization of bright or creative ideas from the affected staff in addition to causing low morale, which can impact productivity. This implies that your team communication strategies should include a bottom-up approach that encourages the opinions and voices of medium and low-level employees.
Boost productivity with project management software
These digital days, any serious business that desires effective team communication must acquire optimal project management software applications that will help it reduce friction, and remove bottlenecks while enhancing creativity, collaboration, and communication.
Heycollab is a highly recommended project management software that meets all the above-mentioned conditions and more! Designed to help creative agencies optimize their functions and enhance productivity, Heycollab is a must-have for companies that desire seamless team communication and collaboration.
Here are a few of Heycollab’s capabilities:
Plan and organize both projects and people
Effortless planning and organization with collaborative workspaces for each project. All you need in one dedicated space.
Unlimited storage
Unlimited file storage that ensures all your files, documents, and folders can be easily accessed without ever leaving Heycollab.
Fast visibility for all tasks
View your tasks, team members’ tasks, and team workload very quickly to stay on track and deliver on time.
Benefits of better team communication habits
Building team communication that is goal-oriented can yield a variety of benefits, such as:
Likelihood of greater productivity
When communication is seamless, team members have a clear idea of their duties or responsibilities. A clear understanding of what is expected of each employee cuts out unnecessary waste of time, limits the likelihood of mistakes, and increases the chances of higher productivity.
Better engagement
A team with great communication habits stands a better chance of building more satisfactory engagement amongst employees and customers alike. Employees that are better engaged are likely to have higher levels of motivation, while the customer experience is usually maximized through better engagement brought about by effective communication. A happy customer can mean more patronage and profit for the company.
Greater creativity
Allowing every employee to air their opinion can help a company harness the creative potential of all staff, no matter how highly placed or otherwise. Creativity is a valuable problem-solving attribute.
Unity in diversity
Better team communication habits can bolster unity among diverse races, cultures, and religious inclinations within an organization. With increased unity, the tendency for conflict is greatly reduced.
Better team organization
A team that communicates better is also likely to be better organized and more efficient than otherwise. The better the team’s organization, the better its chances are of achieving its predetermined targets and goals.
Enhanced collaboration
When team communication is optimal, it tends to also rub off on the collaborative efforts of team members. This is because every member of the team understands the preferred communication styles of other members and how best to work together to achieve their goals.
In short
It is in the interest of every organization to come up with strategies aimed at building better team communication habits among its employees. All the strategies you evolve should be complemented with optimal project management software that guarantees seamless communication and collaboration.
Heycollab is a project management tool built for teams like yours. With a free 14-day trial you can try out all the cool features. To get started visit https://heycollab.com/