It doesn’t matter whether you work in a small business, a medium-sized company or even a corporate group: Best results require good team communication! And many providers have recognized this. There are countless tools for smaller and larger tasks. From the simple to-do list, to more or less extensive collaboration and communication tools, to the platform for complete project planning and execution.
It’s all for naught – if the framework for communication is not clear enough, none of these tools will be much help. However, it is definitely worth putting some effort into the organization. If communication is currently more stressful for you than minute number 234 of a meeting marathon, then we have a few tips and methods for better team communication for you.
Especially when there is no opportunity for a brief “face-to-face” exchange due to home office, field service or communication across several locations: It is important that team members know or can easily find out who the contact person is.
Business messengers such as stashcat offer you an internal contact book – without any private cell phone numbers. This means that all internal company contacts are already clearly defined. Access within the contact book can be restricted via contact groups. For example, you can specify that the marketing department is only allowed to communicate with the sales team and the accounting department.
When a person has been found who WANTS to take over responsibility for a certain topic, CAN take over (qualification and competence fit) and MAY take over (authority over necessary resources) – then it is important to communicate this clearly in the team.
The High Secure Messenger stashcat offers you the following option: To easily clarify the roles within the messenger, you can use the manager roles within a channel, for example. For example, the manager of the channel “KPI Online Marketing” is easily recognizable for new team members as the person who is in charge of the channel topic.
To sustainably improve collaboration, you should make yourself and your team aware of the goals you are pursuing with communication. Do you want to create a distinct corporate identity, improve your employer branding and thus strengthen your colleagues’ sense of belonging to the company? Then choose a tool, for example:
Flexible and direct communication channels enable more than just informing employees: Pick up your team members where you are in communication and lead them to your common goals.
Create opportunities for the team to:
Communication via Messenger, for example, is often perceived as more up-to-date than an e-mail exchange. This is because you and your colleagues can always offer up-to-date media for download via file storage in folder structures, distribute information in a read-only channel or via broadcast, or even provide news via video conference in a regular jour fixe (see Tip 5). This saves you and your company time spent on costly e-mail distribution lists and offers employees a collective, individual or no feedback channel for distributed news and information, depending on their needs. The latter can also be helpful in some cases to avoid unwanted discussions.
Have you ever considered a jour fixe when optimizing your communication structures? This brings all those involved together to exchange information and interim statuses and to plan the next steps. Especially for long-term projects, it makes sense to meet regularly on a fixed date. To prevent your meetings from becoming sprawling and an annoying chore for those involved, it’s helpful:
This usually weekly appointment should, of course, fit into everyone’s daily work routine right from the start. So start a survey right away and agree on a suitable time together as a team. Now enter this automatically and repeatedly in the team calendar. The poll and calendar module are the most popular collaboration tools of the stashcat messaging platform.
Whether appreciation or criticism: feedback is important! It helps to strengthen the team as a functioning unit and to optimize the quality and quantity of work. In short: Feedback is the linchpin of good cooperation.
Not everyone always agrees and sometimes the road to a solution – which satisfies everyone – is bumpy. Use the possibilities of a modern communication tool to establish a healthy feedback culture and to prevent or eliminate conflicts on the way to the best solution.
It doesn’t always have to be the “big sweeping blow”: In Feedback, for example, give quick feedback with a simple Like to a message to signal that you support a comment. Otherwise, of course, Messenger for Business offers you all the communication tools you need to give feedback: With video conferencing or 1:1 voice or video calls, you have the perfect options for exchanging ideas regardless of time or location. stashcat enables direct and end-to-end encrypted voice and video telephony, and it’s easily integrated into the apps – no private cell phone numbers required.
If our previous tips have now been followed and communication structures have been defined, it is helpful in the final step for everyone involved to have an open attitude toward new impulses. Co-creativity in the team requires the willingness of the individual to leave his or her own comfort zone, even in the group. This can only succeed if an unbiased working environment is created in which people meet each other with appreciation and at eye level.
A particular strength of stashcat is that the business messenger provides you with everything you need to map simple but also highly complex infrastructures. Your new messenger can easily accommodate any organizational structure and size.
Notice that the new team communication is working perfectly? Collaborate across teams, departments, locations and countries. Establish efficient, secure and simple team communication across your company and group with stashcat.
We welcome your comments and reports on our 7 tips for better team communication.