How Improving Internal Communications Can Benefit Your Business

Internal communication is essential for businesses to thrive and survive. With more companies working remotely, having excellent communication plays a vital role in success. Organizations with connected employees show a productivity increase of up to 25 percent. Additionally, 97 percent of workers believe that communication impacts their daily tasks. With numerous areas of business being affected by communication, it’s essential to focus on internal communications.

Meeting Deadlines

One of the critical areas where poor communication affects businesses is when it comes to meeting deadlines. An employee who may not communicate well or not have the tools and knowledge to communicate may end up delaying processes and causing you to miss important deadlines. At the end of the day, you need the deadlines to be met. Employees need to communicate their progress regularly and report if they’re on schedule or need assistance. One of the simplest ways is to have a daily morning check-in, either virtually or in person. Ask each individual on the team if they’re on schedule or if they need help. Having an open channel to provide this feedback ensures that employees can speak up and ask for help if needed.

Improving Efficiency

Good communication can speed up processes. Internal communications analytics show that when employees communicate well, they don’t have to wait to complete important tasks on their own. For example, whether you work remotely or in an office, you may need a supervisor to sign off on a part of your work before moving on to the next task. This is where an email, text via work phone, or a notification on their computer comes into play. Regardless of the method, the entire team needs to be trained on how to communicate and how they will receive prompts and notifications. When they know what to expect, their work can be more streamlined.

Ongoing Learning and Feedback

Good communication allows employees to share feedback with each other and supervisors or managers to provide feedback as an ongoing process. Waiting until a yearly review to provide this feedback isn’t good communication. Instead, part of communicating well internally may be having weekly or monthly feedback sessions with employees. These can be fairly short but should be seen as an important part of continuous improvement. This may help to catch employees who are struggling or have other communication problems. Create an open environment where you explore what’s going well, going poorly, and opportunities for improvement. Two-way communication is an excellent method to improve communication.

Companies may struggle to improve their internal communication, but it’s well worth taking the time and effort to implement these ideas. Focus on simple, actionable steps to improve communication methods. Focus on these methods to get started improving internal communication. Over time, it will be easier for all employees to share their work and communicate well.