.jpg)
Few things are more important than office communication when running a successful business. If employees do not communicate effectively, the company wastes time and money as tasks take longer and customers become frustrated with unanswered requests or unfulfilled orders. With these strategies for improving office communication, you can ensure teams are happier and more productive.
The Importance of Collaboration
In an office setting, effective communication ensures employees understand roles, responsibilities, and how to accomplish company goals. When interdepartmental communication and collaboration happen effectively, it results in greater efficiency throughout your organization; employees better understand roles and functions, which helps them make informed decisions about how best to move forward with projects.
Common Failure Points
Large companies tend to be complex, which makes them prone to miscommunication. The more departments you have working together on a project in different cities or countries, the chances are greater someone will overlook something — or fail to communicate an important detail. This miscommunication can lead a team effort right off a cliff.
Make Communication Part of Your Culture
If you have a department or team that is not communicating, it is likely because of your company culture. It can be challenging to change behaviors, but if communication is important enough, make a concentrated effort and emphasize it as much as possible. Start by ensuring everyone understands communications roles. Then, hold regular meetings where each team member has an opportunity to share what they are working on and any issues they are facing. Also, look for ways to get your employees talking regularly outside of meetings — whether through casual chats at lunch or impromptu hallway conversations about weekend plans.
Involve People in Decision-making
People thrive when given work ownership, and their productivity tends to increase. Participation in decision-making leads to higher employee morale and productivity and workers who feel they have input into company decisions will be more loyal and enthusiastic about their work, so everybody wins.
Have Interactions Regularly
Encourage more face-to-face interactions among team members. Try having lunch together every day or scheduling regular coffee breaks. Another option is to set up standing meetings where you rotate different team members into meeting facilitator roles every month. Keep people talking regularly to identify issues early and address them before they become problems.
Create Reports
Create and present reports to leadership or staff when working together across departments. It’s easy to maintain everything in one file if you use a tool to add pages to a PDF if you have numerous documents and graphics for your presentation. You can also use this tool to reorder, delete, and rotate pages.
Use Team Building Exercises
When you work together as a team, it is vital everyone understands roles and how to contribute best. A team-building exercise is a great way to reinforce this. It is also essential every employee clearly understands and shares your company values.
Efficiency and Productivity
Every employee in your office needs to understand how individual efforts impact company goals. By streamlining communication and collaborating more frequently, you increase efficiency and productivity.
Join your local chamber of commerce for a better business today.
