Latin America. The success of any company or organization depends largely on the effectiveness with which all its workers communicate. In this digital age, effective business communication goes beyond sending emails and taking calls. According to a recent study by the consulting firm SHRM, only 6 out of 10 employees globally mention knowing what is happening inside their companies in real time, while 55% say they are well informed only in certain periods.
Today, it's about listening carefully, while creating a high level of bonds of collective participation among workers. It is also important to be clear and direct in the messages you want to convey.
In addition, proper communication is important at different levels of the organization as it involves product creation, service delivery, employee engagement, meeting customer needs, and relationship with suppliers. Effective communication, therefore, becomes a critical factor for the operation of a successful business.
To achieve this, companies are currently in search of fully comprehensive and easy-to-use digital communication solutions that contribute to achieving their productivity goals. These concepts include virtual communication and collaboration tools that allow employees to work with clients and colleagues who are in another geographical area and not have the need to go specifically to the office to make decisions and meet face to face with someone.
Having a good management of information and understanding of messages can be a difficult challenge to meet, however, considering these factors can help improve communication within companies:
1. Develop a communication strategy: Company managers must think, know and define how the organization will communicate with employees as part of a strategy; all this with the purpose of achieving better communication. This will detail in the future who needs to know what information; when they need to know and how they will be notified. The strategy will help create a standard for organizational communication. Consider scenarios such as What is the best way to communicate the new projects of the company? When is an idea in the planning phase? How is it funded? or when is it ready to launch?, can be solved through a good communication strategy.
2. Inform in a timely manner: The management of communication within a company must be in charge of a person or a work team. As with most defined processes, the existence of a single element that is responsible for unifying the messages and getting them to all employees on time in a uniform way, is the best way to ensure constant communication and avoid misunderstandings. BroadSoft's UC-One provides employees with fast and effective communication between members of different departments of the organization.
3. Explain the why of information: Often leaders come up with a great idea, plan it, implement it, and can even communicate it, but they may not think about explaining why a particular initiative makes sense. It is highly recommended to present the information in such a way that everyone who is involved within a project benefits from obtaining and retaining such information. Even better, having work teams that have the same belief system will align the organization's goals.
4. Adapt the messages: Not everyone receives and interprets the information in the same way. For this reason, you should consider who the recipient will be before sending any message. While some employees may be provided with detailed and technical information about business initiatives, others will be satisfied with a summary of it. Understanding the people we communicate with and knowing how they interpret information will help ensure that the message is received in the right way. For example, Broadsoft's Team-One empowers collaboration across team workspaces, and is fully integrated with key business applications. The app puts all the tasks, files, messages, and notes a business user needs in one place, integrating functionalities like video conferencing, one-click calling, and screen sharing.
5. Create a feedback process: Communication strategies rarely work well if a feedback process is not enabled with all employees. This ensures that messages are received as planned on all occasions. Regardless of structure or processes, employees need to know that their opinions are taken into account, and as a result this helps the organization identify areas that can be improved.
In conclusion, employees spend a large portion of their lives at work and helping them stay connected to the organization's mission and vision is one of the ways to encourage engagement. The more we can do to keep all employees informed and feel part of any organization's decisions will ensure that goals are achieved at all times.
Text written by Héctor Sánchez, Vice President of Sales for BroadSoft in Latin America.
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