Communication plays a vital role in every organization and it is directly connected to productivity, customer satisfaction, growth, and success of your business. Therefore, you as an entrepreneur need to make sure that there is no internal or external communication gap in your company. Whether it is happening in your workforce or in the case of client relationships; the gaps should be immediately removed since they can take bigger shape and bring more damage to your company. If you are not aware of the ways how you can do it; here are a few simple steps that you can utilize.
1. Identifying Bottlenecks
Before you look for solutions, the first and foremost thing to do is to identify the bottlenecks that cause miscommunication. These are barriers that mostly cause communication gaps inside the business. When you are able to find them, it gets easier to address such business.
• Language barriers
• Cultural barriers
• Interpersonal barriers
• Physical barriers
• Local barriers
2. Daily Stand-Up Meetings
Daily stand-up meetings are great to remove all kinds of communication gaps inside the company. Such regular 15-minute meetings are usually conducted by the CEO of the company and a few teams that handle most of the work process. Mainly larger organizations, tech giants, and other massive institutions run such meetings in order to keep everyone on the same page at the end of the day. This reduces communication gaps significantly and prevents employees from working in silos.
It also requires following the usual format where only one person speaks at a time. It should start with the most junior member of the team and gradually proceed toward the most senior persona. This makes sure every employee is part of the meeting and sharing their opinion without being intimidated by the higher-ups. Even if anyone goes out of track, such meetings can always pull them back in line without wasting any extra effort or time.
3. No More One-Way Communication
One-way communication is a way where companies do not allow employees or workers to share any kind of feedback or flag any concern. For example, if you send out monthly newsletters to the workers, they are unable to join any conversation. Therefore, the companies should be focusing on a bottom approach where they can send newsletters while requesting feedback from the workforce about how to improve it or make any additional changes. Instead of sending emails, it is better to ask them on a chat or group where one of several employees can share their thoughts. You can also join them in real time through video conferences.
4. Leverage Technology
Leveraging technology helps foster a better company culture that can go beyond Geo-location barriers. With a huge demand for remote working, here are some technologies that you can incorporate to improve communication among workers.
• Instant and online messaging
• Video Chat, Conferences, and Meetings on Webinars
• Cloud Software and Storage
5. Transparency and Understanding
Communication is not just about sharing positive news but also representing the bad news in a formal manner. Just like employees deserve to know when a business is making an achievement, they also deserve to know when it is facing a loss. Transparent communications relay honesty and help to maintain the company’s integrity. However, being transparent does not mean overloading with information. So, make to share only what is most important.
Wrapping up
Effective communication is what paves the way for success and with communication gaps, a company can witness severe downfall. Automation can also help in this case as it automates repetitive tasks and enable real-time communication.
