While the importance of team communication was already well-recognised, there’s a renewed focus on it, thanks to work-from-home becoming the new normal. Businesses are looking to establish better ways for remote teams to work together and team communication forms a huge part of it.
Team communication and collaboration for a remote team is decidedly more challenging than a team that’s working out of an office. According to Slack’s recent survey of 3,000 knowledge workers, those without a prior experience of remote working are more prone to facing communication and coordination issues. Another study by the Harvard Business Review found that more than half of responding remote workers feel left out or disengaged from their teams.
In short, team communication is a challenge that has become more prominent in the era of social distancing.
So, how can you improve your team communication at work? Here are some simple tips.
1. Develop Communication Channels
Contents
Whether you are managing a virtual team or a traditional one, you will need good communication channels. Luckily, you have several effective channels at your disposal. You can use traditional channels like voice calls or emails. Or you can experiment with modern ones like video conferences or instant messaging.
The aim here is to keep the channels synced and integrated. To achieve that, you can always combine these channels, for example, you can send SMS from Outlook or use your messaging app for video calls.
2. Keep the Door Open
An open-door policy is an invitation for the workers to be more collaborative. With this policy, you are giving them an option to provide you with feedback, pitch their ideas, or voice any concerns at any time. The team members will see it as a gesture of being open and transparent about workplace issues.
A Forbes article talks about how removing physical doors between you and team members also improves team communication. With no physical and symbolic obstacle between you and the members, you are saying that you are open to their feedback and criticism.
The open-door policy will lead to fast information sharing and a friendly workplace culture between the members and the manager. It’s all about creating a collaborative environment with two-way communication.
3. Have Meaningful Conversations
In the context of team communication, remember that quality is more important than quantity. Even when you are open to your team members, always emphasise meaningful discussions and constructive criticisms. Casual banter and social talks are necessary, but that must not disrupt your workflow. You should also steer clear of discussions that might hurt the sentiments of minority groups. That is why each meeting must have a crystal clear purpose.
You can improve the quality of the overall conversation by providing communications training. It will improve general conversational skills of your team members and help them with their presentation skills, research skills, writing skills, etc. Overall the training will benefit both parties.
Conclusion
To conclude, these are just some simple ways to improve your team communications. You can always find additional methods that will have relevance to your team members. Remember that each team functions a little differently, and it’s up to you to see what exactly works for your team members.