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Top 5 Productivity Hacks to Improve Team Communication
By Harika KochharJan 12, 2020
While scrolling through various job listings, you must have observed a common requirement in every field i.e., excellent communication skills. Communication skills are for a business's success. Poor communication within the team hampers the overall productivity. On the contrary, impressive communication skills have positive effects on the performance of employees.
It further helps to increase employee retention rate, the morale of other employees, and overall productivity improves. Effective communication is something that managers and business owners strive to possess.
Gallup Survey. According to the Gallup survey, about 73% of people read and send a text almost every day;80% make a phone call daily, 70% or more have received and sent emails, and 55% of people have used social media to communicate with each other. Though mediums are several, the purpose is one, communication. Effective communication strategies can be used so that the team can perform extraordinarily.
Communication Drives Performance
During tough economic times, the performance of a company is driven by courage, discipline, and innovation. According to a communication survey, companies with great communicators can convey their employees what they desire to hear. Hence, employees with excellent communication help companies to plan and measure their progress effectively.
Though communication alone cannot help companies during tough times, it ensures the company is aligned to its business goals. Employees should not fail to listen. Work on a change management plan with your employees and watch them perform well.
Disseminating information is good practice but one should listen and understand a situation well. Work on improving rapport among your teammates and it will be a valuable strategy that will enhance engagement and communication. Let your employees develop interpersonal connections to improve their communication skills.
Tips to enhance communication of your team:
It goes without saying that effective communication leads to a happy work culture— the one where people are easy to get along with. People have a diverse skill set and they are capable of exceeding expectations provided they get a good work culture to showcase their capabilities.
75% of employers rate collaboration and teamwork crucial t for business growth, yet you will be surprised to know that only 18% of employees can pass communication evaluations. Hence, companies are looking forward consistently to work on the communication skills of their current employees. That said, we’ve listed the top 5 productivity hacks to improve team communication and work towards the end goal.
1. Keep asking questions:
Repeat this in front of your employees. "There are no stupid questions." By doing this, your employees feel free to get clarifications on essential details. This will help in the successful completion of a project. Make sure that you support this value. Ask your employees for any questions after presenting a new project to them. You may be surprised after listening to the queries that they address. Look around to observe the body language of your employees and ask them for their doubts to present things more simply. Miscommunications in your company will decrease dramatically.
2. Introduce an Open door policy:
Introducing the Open Door Policy helps employers like you improve the communication skills of their employees faster. It means you are always open to discuss projects or anything else anytime. The team sometimes hesitates to ask a question when they see closed doors. If the boss is easily accessible, they can communicate their problems. Open door policy forges transparency. This helps you to communicate faster when they ask urgent questions. Be friendly with them so that they can approach you for queries and ideas.
3. Limit communication through emails:
An average worker spends almost 13 hours of a week on emails. This can be observed that nearly 28% of the total working days in a week are taken up by emails. Some unnecessary emails sent by HR Managers and other team members can be watched out for. They can consider working actively in limiting email communications. According to a recent study, 96 percent of workers said that in an entire day, they receive various emails that waste their time. Hence, they sometimes miss out on essential tasks on their agenda.
A communication policy should be established that helps to limit the number of emails. Communicating personally improves communication and increases productivity at the same time. Instead of sending emails within a team, meetings throughout the project will stimulate face to face communication. Self-confidence is also developed among the employees through this advice.
4. Communicate your goals with your team regularly:
Do you know the direction your team members are moving forward in? Possibly no. If they are not aware of the goals and mission of the company worldwide, how will they achieve them? According to an Intranet report, it was concluded that only two-third of the managers communicate their strategies with the team. With the help of a task management software, distribute the tasks among different team members. Keep reminding them of the goals and motivate them to meet deadlines consistently.
5. Facilitate usage of communication tools:
Even the smallest teams can have communication problems. People who work remotely consider communication to be one of the significant challenges faced. New York Times reported in 2016 that almost 47% of people work remotely. Hence, companies should invest in technology that can make communication easier. Various softwares are available that can strengthen team communication.
A project management software consolidates information about different team members involved in a project. It ensures that each member is on the same page with others. Team conferences or video calls to the entire team can be done through Join.Me, Skype, etc. Other software like Time Management, Client Relation Manager, etc. are also available. You can also introduce some crash courses so that employees can learn to use communication tools.
Feedback is important: An undeniable fact that employees initially hesitate to give open and constructive feedback about their employers or managers. The primary reason is that they know negative feedback is not easily accepted and managers can retaliate. Moreover, it is one of the best ways to get better and grow as an organization. 75% of employees say that they prefer a company that keeps its employees first, address their concerns and value their opinions. Praise