A good communication strategy glues a business together. A bad communication strategy can pull it apart. An effective manager is always looking for the best mediums of communication for their business, but workplace communication isn’t just a matter of keeping in touch.
Truly effective communication strategies mean understanding that your team consists of individuals with unique personalities and different communication styles in the workplace. How each team member communicates with their colleagues and with clients has a significant impact on your business.
Let’s first talk about effective communication
An effective communication strategy means the communicator gets the message across that they set out to convey. But there’s more to it than just passing on information accurately. The way you communicate, especially within the workplace, is also crucial.
Poor communication strategies cause problems: errors, lower productivity, and staff and customer dissatisfaction. But when information is delivered bluntly, impersonally, or impolitely, it also affects employee morale.
How you speak to your team, especially as a manager, is vital in building a cohesive, committed, and contented team. It’s certainly worth looking at ways to boost your oral communication and ensure your written communication sets the right tone.
Chanty can really help you deal with different communication strategies in the workplace. With our Teambook and instant messenger, you can organize all your projects, pin messages, and highlight team members to effectively communicate with all employees. With ease of communication, your teams can focus on getting the job done and meeting their deadlines.
Pexel.com
The five most important communication strategies
Not everyone communicates in the same way; it’s helpful to be aware of some basic communication strategies that may help you in the workplace.
A good communication strategy can refer to your overall internal strategy (how you communicate with team members, both office-based and remote workers), but you might also develop communication strategies for individual business initiatives where a specific approach is needed.
For example, your business may be considering digital transformation. To ensure this is implemented successfully, you may need to formulate a communication strategy that addresses any relevant issues concerning that digital transformation.
That strategy should identify goals and also describe how you will measure the progress of those goals. You might use SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goals as an integral part of that communication strategy. To achieve your digital transformation goals, you may want to think about:
- Communicating the need for change (why you are doing it) and building awareness.
- Ensuring all your employees engage with and embrace the needed changes.
- Encouraging support for the changes through understanding why it is needed.
- Addressing any resistance and seeking to reduce it.
Here are some important communication strategies that you can use to make things much easier for yourself and those around you:
1. Active listening
Active listening involves paying attention to what someone is saying, asking questions to clarify any misunderstandings, and responding in a way that shows you understand their perspective. It also involves nonverbal communication, such as maintaining eye contact and using body language to show you are engaged in the conversation.
2. Being clear and concise
Communication should be clear and concise to avoid misunderstandings. Use simple language and avoid jargon. Be specific and provide examples to illustrate your points. Make sure you convey the message you intended.
3. Empathy
Showing empathy involves understanding and acknowledging someone else’s feelings, thoughts, and perspective. It helps build trust and rapport, and it makes the other person feel heard and valued. By demonstrating empathy, you create an environment that promotes open and honest communication.
4. Asking for feedback
Asking for feedback is a key part of effective communication. It shows that you are interested in improving and that you value the other person’s opinion. Feedback can help you identify areas where you need to improve and help you understand how you are perceived by others.
5. Being adaptable
Communication should be adaptable to the situation and the audience. It’s important to consider with whom you are communicating and adjust your communication style accordingly. For example, you might use different language and tone when talking to a colleague than you would with a client. Being adaptable ensures that your message is received and understood the way you intended.
Chanty, as a communication tool, can be really useful when factoring in the different communication strategies of your team. Be it sharing a voice message, jumping on a video call, or creating dedicated threads to help your team stay on topic, you can adapt your approach in line with the different professional communication styles in the workplace.
Tools to keep up effective communication strategies
So, we’ve established that an effective communication strategy is important and we’ve also looked at the different communication styles in the workplace you might find among your colleagues. Now let’s look at the tools you can use to ensure effective communication strategies in your workplace.
1. Video calls
You’re probably already using video calls to communicate with your teams, but it’s worth emphasizing that these are a great way to stay in touch with all the different communicators on your team.
Personal communicators will appreciate being able to see the facial expressions and body language of all involved. And you can easily give a concise overview to those on your team who communicate more intuitively. Moreover, with the right software, such as Chanty, you can share your screen and provide all the detail necessary for your functional and analytical communicators.
When hosting a video call, remember that not all participants will want to have their cameras on and make sure everyone knows how and when to ask any questions they might have.
2. Instant messaging
This is another staple tool and it’s a great way to send short, informal messages that can easily be digested and responded to. They can be highly effective at keeping team members updated on current projects.
With Chanty, you can create instant messaging threads for each project, ensuring that the relevant people are included. You can thus maintain focus and productivity as your projects move forward.
However, be aware that you may need to jump on a video call every now and again to give more detail to your analytical or functional communicators.
3. Collaboration tools
Using collaborative tools to help manage your projects can be a great way to communicate with your team and ensure everyone is always on the same page.
Software such as that from Chanty provides teams with the ability to easily customize Kanban boards. You can assign tasks, set deadlines, and control the status of projects so your team, regardless of their different communication styles in the workplace, is fully informed.
For example, your intuitive communicators will be able to clearly see the end result of the project and your functional communicators will be able to identify the process of how exactly you’re going to get there.
What are the most popular collaboration tools available that will help enhance your communication strategy?
Chanty
Chanty’s team communication software can make your communication strategy easier to enforce. It offers a wide range of integrations, allowing you to keep the tools you may be already using. You can keep in touch with all your team members with everything from group messaging to video conferences.
Features:
- Create a new task from scratch a new task from scratch
- Turn a group or individual message into a task with a simple click
- Assign tasks by people, status, or dates.
- Provides a single hub for communication and collaboration
- Easy to access message history and find team members with a simple click.
Poppulo
Poppulo provides you with the right channel to engage every audience. Better business outcomes indeed rely on better people experiences. You can drive employee engagement and productivity. You can enable your return-to-office. You can engagingly reach your customers. That is all made a reality with Poppulo.
Features:
- Reach employees when and where they need it with engaging comms, across multiple channels, designed to make an impact.
- Leverage digital signage to create unique communications experiences designed to inform and delight your customers.
- Transform your office into an employee magnet with an intelligent, connected office that supports collaboration and productivity.
Dialpad
Dialpad offers you a cloud-based collaboration tool that brings together all your synchronous communications in one place. You can do everything from making a simple voice call to sharing files with team members or clients. Dialpad is an ideal solution if you have remote or hybrid workers.
Features:
- Unified communications.
- Integration with a wide range of existing tools.
- Works on a wide range of devices and on all major operating systems.
- Robust security measures.
Instagantt
Instagantt is an ideal solution for smaller businesses that may not need a large management and communications suite. It offers a simple and user-friendly way to manage projects and ensure high levels of collaboration with all your team members. For managers, you can track progress and timelines to ensure workflows are efficient.
Features:
- Can add clients in ‘read only’ mode so they can track progress and developments.
- Easy drag-and-drop interface makes it simple to create and adjust charts.
- Assign tasks and track progress.
- Manage workloads and projects
- Easy collaboration
Social media
Workplace-based social media networks are a great idea to introduce a more relaxed atmosphere to your team’s communication strategy. Many will already be used to the format, so they will be able to hit the ground running.
Employees can upload images and short videos and communicate informally between departments. Managers can also share updates instantly across the company, reaching all employees in an accessible way.
While this probably won’t become the principal method of communication within your company, it does provide a fun break from the more traditional methods. Your personal communicators, in particular, may very well enjoy the opportunity to communicate in a more natural way.
Intranet
Using a centralized form of communication, such as a company intranet, can be a great way to communicate with teams and across departments. Messages, document sharing, news updates, and more can all be shared safely and securely, whether your team is working in the office or remotely.
This can be a great way to communicate with your analytical and functional communicators, as all facts, figures, and details are readily available and all in one place. However, be aware that intuitive communicators may find having access to so much detailed information a little distracting. So, always check in with team members to confirm they’ve seen important announcements.
Keep communicating
An effective communication strategy is a many-layered effort. It requires an understanding of people and personalities, good technology such as softphone systems, and leaders who practice active listening and are clear and consistent in communicating ideas.
Effective communication strategies within your team will not only aid the smooth running of your business, but they will also have a knock-on effect on your customer lifecycle touchpoints. The more you actively strive for effective communication, the greater the benefits.
Chanty’s accessible and adaptable communication software can help you do just that. They make communication within your company smooth, clear, and easy to do, with methods to suit all work styles in the workplace.
By placing communication strategies at the core of your business, your teams can focus less on trying to understand instructions and information and more on the task at hand, increasing their productivity.
Add comment