Best Practices for Your Internal Business Communication Strategy
- Written by Lauren Wiseman
Communication has always been one of the most essential factors for business success. This is especially true for internal communication. If communication within the company isn't as seamless as possible, problems start to occur very quickly and those problems can fester over time, which leads to even bigger issues.
That's why it's of vital importance for companies to work on improving internal communications as much as possible. That task is not always easy to achieve, especially because you sometimes have to rebuild everything from the ground up.
Even today, many companies struggle with internal communication because they're unable to identify the core issues that are hindering communication channels within their companies.
Fortunately, modern technology is here to aid you in this endeavor and you can easily improve internal communications company-wide with this kind of help. With that in mind, here are some of the best practices for this strategy.
Break information silos
One of the biggest issues a lot of companies have when it comes to internal communications is withholding information in silos. What that means is that there's no communication or information sharing between departments.
Only the upper management has access to everything while others must submit a formal request to gain access to information. This type of environment is simply hazardous.
That way, you create unnecessary delays and increase the chances of human error. The foundation for your internal communication strategy is to first break down all the information and data silos and allow information to flow freely across the entire company.
This is how you create cross-department collaboration and improve the overall efficiency, productivity and performance of your employees. You also minimize, as well as mitigate the risks of errors or mistakes because employees have access to information they need to do their job right and to do it well.
Use the right tools
As mentioned before, modern technology is here to aid you in improving internal communications and creating an ideal strategy. That said, you have a plethora of communication tools at your disposal which you can use to establish your internal communications strategy.
Such tools range from instant messaging apps to video conferencing software and many more. You can even leverage employee engagement tools that can boost cross-department communication and even improve communication between employees themselves. This will encourage employees to collaborate and share information both while working on projects and otherwise.
To ensure seamless cross-department communication, you also need a comprehensive visibility over your entire operation. By using the best time and attendance software to track your employees, you’ll make sure that everyone is available to communicate and that they are at the right place at the right time.
Moreover, communication tools are of vital importance if you have remote employees. They must feel like a part of the team and you can help them do so by ensuring a seamless internal communication. If you forget to include remote workers, they'll become disengaged and might leave your company for good.
Assess your internal communication
You can fix something unless you know what's wrong with it, to begin with. The same principle can be applied to business communication. You must first assess your company's internal communication to determine its effectiveness or the lack thereof.
Therefore, a complete audit should be your top priority. That also includes asking employees for feedback, conducting surveys, testing focus groups and so on. Once you've obtained a general idea of where things stand, you can begin the process of improving whatever needs to be improved.
This process can take some time before viable results can be seen so make sure you keep at it until it's done. The only way to improve communication within your company is to implement and test different strategies until you find what's working and what isn't.
Communicate with your employees
Creating an effective internal business communication strategy is difficult without including your employees. Since employees are the ones that do most of the communicating, you have to take their opinions into consideration.
You might be surprised by how creative and innovative your employees can be. They can come up with solutions you never would've thought of, in the first place. The main reason is that employees have a different perspective than managers and the rest of the corporate leadership. Therefore, encourage employees to speak freely and voice their opinions.
You should also keep an open-door policy so that employees can come to you with their suggestions or concerns. If you make an effort to involve your employees in developing an internal communications strategy, you'll be able to do so much more seamlessly.
Nowadays, improving an existing or creating an entirely new internal business communication strategy is far less complicated than ever before. The main reason is that companies today have access to a wide range of tools and technologies that can make the whole process much simpler. That said, if you take the time to consider your options, you'll be able to find the best practices that will help you improve communication across the entire company and beyond.
