How to Connect with Your Employees – 5 Great Communication Hints
TechsPlace | Operating a business successfully is full of a lot of moving parts. You need to have your marketing on point, develop great produce of service, and offer quality customer service. Also, you cannot ignore the massive impact that technology has had on business.
There are many different technologies and tools that can have a hugely positive impact on your business. Nowadays, the recruiting process is something that is becoming more and more automated, since the process took too much time in the past. The popular solution is an applicant tracking software – which can help the company find the best possible candidate in a short amount of time. Applicant Tracking Systems can give you a few solutions for finding the best recruiting software.
However, one of the most underrated and important ingredients of a successful company is communication. Communication is how you get everyone on the same page, build relationships, create and reach goals and so much more. Without it, successfully running a company just would not be possible. In fact, according to surveys, inadequate communication can potentially lead to huge losses for businesses.
Unfortunately, connecting and communicating with employees isn’t always easy. With that in mind, this blog post is going to go over a few ways to effectively connect and communicate with your employees.
Be Sure to Listen (Make it Two Way Communication)
Most communication between you and your employees should be two-way in nature. This means you should not only give them instructions but also be willing to listen to what they have to say. This won’t always be the case, but you need to be willing to listen to your employees. Not only does it show respect, but it can help you potentially solve problems.
If you don’t ever listen to employees and simply do all the talking, some may tune you out. Open-door policies work for some people, but not for others. There is no rule that you need to have an open-door policy, but if you do, be sure to stick to your word and honor the policy. Take employee input seriously, listen to concerns, and you will have a much happier team. Also, be genuine in your responses and show appreciation to improve the morale of your team.
Have Regular 1 on 1 Meeting
While communicating in groups can be more efficient, it can also be difficult for some people. It doesn’t provide the same opportunity for true communication between one person and another. As a result, having 1 on 1 meeting is generally something you should do at your company. Despite how helpful it could be, having these meetings every week simply isn’t viable. While these don’t need to be a weekly or monthly thing, you should at least aim to do them once a quarter or so.
Of course, in addition to listening to what they say, be sure to use the information to improve your company. Nothing beats in-person communication, so be sure to implement it, no matter how infrequent it might be. In addition to being a more direct conversation, 1 on 1 meeting can come in many shapes and sizes. Depending on your culture or preferred communication style, it could be long or short and either informal or formal.
Keep Employees in the Loop
While surface conversation and small talk are fine, you also need to have more substantial kinds of communication with your team. One of the best examples of this is keeping your employees in the loop. There are likely lots of things happening within your business, and you should let employees know about them.
Keep them in the know about things like projects, new investment, the performance of the company and more. Letting them know things like this can build their trust and provide a common purpose for everyone. Employees don’t want to feel disconnected from where they work and want to be aware of what’s happening. Even if you only have bad news to share, it’s better to get everything out in the open, rather than keep everyone in the dark.
Allow for Anonymous Feedback and Communication
Many employees might want to communicate or offer feedback, but don’t want to be identified. This could because they have a complaint or have some other critique that they don’t want to share openly. Instead of coming forward publicly being their only option, consider allowing anonymous feedback.
Without something like this in place, some employees may never come forward with their communication or feedback. Of course, be sure to actually read the anonymous submissions and take them to heart.
Utilize Technology
While it would be lovely if managers and bosses could have in-person communication with every employee all the time, this simply isn’t realistic. As a result, you need alternative ways to stay connected with employees. Thankfully, technology has made this easier than ever. There are several different apps and platforms out there that allow entire teams to communicate instantly.
Many of these also allow you to collaborate on projects and do so much more. Not only is using this technology an easier and simpler way to communicate but can be a lot more time and cost efficient as well. This doesn’t mean you should never have in-person meetings, but just have them sparingly.
Hopefully, this article has been helpful when it comes to helping you connect and communicate with your employees.
This article is contributed by guest author on techsplace.com.