Communication is essential to the functionality of an organization. Through effective communication, all the employees would have a sense of direction and alignment with the organization’s objectives and priorities. Consequently, communication across all units should be functional and practical.
The measure of success in communication within an organization is when all team members admit to feeling informed and understood. If there are hurdles in the organization’s communication flow, then there is work to do.
Admittedly, many organizations struggle to work their way through effective communication. By aligning your communications, you can keep your organization from being part of this statistic. Below are five ways to align your organization’s communication:
1. Create Open Communication Between Teams
Open communication promotes the expression of thoughts, ideas, and issues within an organization in a reliable, honest, and transparent manner. It reduces conflicts and enhances collaboration on essential aspects of work. Many companies that embrace open communication enjoy increased productivity since there is a shared understanding and great workflow. Organizations should enhance open communication within teams and even across organizational units.
2. Keep Internal Communication Frequent
Frequency in communication helps monitor individuals’ productivity and generally increases employee engagement. Most employees in organizations complain about a lack of sufficient communication from their managers, which creates a lack of understanding of the organization’s strategies. Your organization can enhance frequent communication through periodic meetings and the use of communication tools.
3. Simplify Your Messaging
Precise messaging goes a long way in minimizing miscommunication. Any form of messaging within your organization should be free from ambiguity. In addition, to ensure that employees understand the importance of the messages, keep them short and to the point. The most common reaction to lengthy unnecessary messaging is skimming, which may result in losing important communication. Instead of piling up the information, you can break it down and deliver it in bits. The use of infographics can also simplify the delivery and understanding of messages.
4. Create a Definite Flow of Communication
Having a clear flow of communication makes it easy to achieve organizational alignment. Often, miscommunication in organizations results from dysfunctional flow in communication within the levels of the organization. Employees stay in a dilemma, wondering whose communication or orders to follow. When there is a definitive structure in the flow of communication from the managerial to the employee level, engagement and productivity will increase. In addition, there will be less conflict and standstills. Before a message trickles down to the lowest level of an organization, there should be a collaborative understanding of the same at the top levels.
5. Integrate Communication Training
Training and workshops help organizations to fix various internal issues, like ineffective communication. Integrating communication training in workplaces makes it easy for individuals and organizations to have self-awareness and improve on crucial communication areas that align with their objectives. The training can start as early as the onboarding phase so that you can hire people who already have a proper understanding of your company culture.
Learn More About Improving Communication in Organizations at Applied Development
You can also work with an organization that offers accessible communication support services. At Applied Development, we strive to ensure you receive and communicate your messages as intended through social media, technical writing, graphic design, and speechwriting.
Our strategic communications services ensure clients’ success in expressing who they are and what they do. We work with clients to craft their messages. Our team’s deep communications knowledge and comprehensive consulting expertise serve clients across varied industries. Call us at (410) 571-4016 or contact us online to learn how we can help your organization with strategic communication.