Communication is at the heart of any successful company. It doesn’t matter who it is in the firm; people must be kept in the loop. Effective internal communication is the basis for an engaged workforce.
Building relationships in this way results in happier and more productive employees, who feel cared about and respected. The outcome of this is company growth, an increase in profits, and a good reputation for your firm.
Making Internal Communication a Success
With employee engagement being a fundamental criterion for any successful firm, let’s consider a few points that will help you to achieve this.
Establishing Your Strategy
Internal communication involves the whole team – nay, the whole company. After all, there’s no point in the head of IT and tech deciding that the firm would benefit from video conferencing hardware and then only passing this on to the marketing team.
Equally, every employee must be listened to when it comes to moving things forward. After all, they are the ones with inside knowledge and so best placed to know what will work. This means that, when it comes to creating a communication strategy, you should talk to employees first, not just managers, and find out their opinion.
It could be that your employees prefer a daily team meeting over emails. Discovering what they like will help make them feel valued and foster employee engagement.
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Convene Over the Benefits
To make sure everyone is getting involved in internal communication, you need to ensure they understand the benefits. Especially when making changes to project management or communication strategies. Whether it’s retaining, improving, or changing plans entirely, make sure that employees are getting a say.
This is so they fully understand the benefits of each method. Say, for example, you decide to implement a Slack app replacement as part of your new strategy. People may have some feedback or concerns, and these are important to listen to.
Vitally, you need to do this in an environment where they feel comfortable having their say and where they won’t be judged.
5 Communication Strategies for Employee Engagement
So, what communication strategies can you use to foster employee engagement? Here are five for you to be getting on with.
1. Open Information
Nobody likes feeling left out, especially when it comes to decision making. It’s vital to ensure that every department is included in this process. Part of your strategy could be to implement an open information policy. This means no matter what department a person is in, they can access information and contribute.
This is a particularly good plan if your workers aren’t based in one place. It means you can manage remote teams effectively and oversee your in-house teams too, knowing they will have had an equal say.
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2. Horizontal and Vertical Communication
Allowing teams some level of autonomy is a great way to make sure they are happy workers. A big part of this employee recognition means making sure they’re communicating between themselves. However, this also means that to progress further, ideas and thoughts are being communicated with managers. This is part of engaging with and trusting each other.
To really have successful engagement, teams should talk amongst themselves, whilst still feeling they can talk to their managers to receive feedback and achieve long-term professional growth.
3. Using the Right Platforms
There is a huge range of communication tools out there and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. So, to streamline communication with the business, it’s important to pick the right one. Whilst some teams may work better with a messaging service, others will prefer to use video calls. The same goes for all the kinds of software your teams will be using across the board—whether it’s word processors, software for automating OCR, or even specialized editing applications. Again, it’s about talking to staff and seeing what they prefer.
It’s also an idea to think about the type of work they do. If you have a team of writers that focus on producing blogs, like “What does fixed VoIP mean?”, then their ideas and feedback would be more effective over a written platform than a phone.
4. Visual Communication Strategies
A really great way of getting people to absorb information is to use visuals. When communicating, being talked at can get a bit stale over time. This has the opposite effect to engaging people. On the other hand, adding videos, infographics, and other visual content helps with retention and employee focus.
Say, for example, you’re looking into new communication strategies. You ask your team, “What are the advantages and disadvantages of VoIP?” to stop the subject from getting too dry and to engage them. A light-hearted video could help to answer this and expound on its benefits.
5. Incentivize Employee Engagement
To drive results when it comes to figuring out the best team communications, you could try offering incentives. To get people to input their thoughts, entice them with rewards like swag, subscriptions, or even bonuses.
Alternatively, offer rewards when people manage to communicate well or reach communication goals you have set.
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Conclusion
Whether you choose to implement all these methods or just one, always listen to your employees and consider their opinions. It’s important to consistently test and strategize ways of communicating internally—whether it’s your internal email client, meeting apps, or preferred instant messaging software.
This helps to find the most effective method of sharing information with your team. In turn, this will keep your staff engaged and motivated, with both their work and the firm.
