Leadership, Employee Motivation and more

Welcome to the first edition of our Internal Communication Talk. This monthly newsletter is designed to give you updates on the latest trends, tools, tips and inspiration you need to improve the communication within your company. Click subscribe above to be notified of each edition.

In this article you will learn about why an open communication culture at the workplace leads to satisfied employees and how leaders can implement “more communication” into their companies.

???How a Culture of Open Communication Leads To Satisfied Employees

In successful companies, there is an open communication culture. This means that there is an "open space" for feedback, agreements and questions across all management levels. Through open communication, the company has satisfied employees who are enthusiastic about their team, job, or product. This leads to sustainable success and a happier work environment altogether.

Problems that can occur in a non-communicative company culture:

• Lack of communication:?According to a recent study by the Peter Schmidt Group, 41 per cent of employees believe that internal communication is not open and transparent at their company.
• Bad quality content:?When bad content is shared via communication platforms, employees often feel unaddressed and misinformed.
• Different views:?If the culture is closed-minded, many topics are not being addressed, which can, later on, lead to disagreements that are not communicated or swept under the rug.

Tips for companies with an open communication culture

KEEP EVERYBODY INFORMED

One of the cornerstones of open communication is keeping all involved parties in a project informed. This way, you can better?coordinate your collaboration and prevent misunderstandings.

There are various digital and analogue options available to you: Short standup meetings are ideal for quickly exchanging information about the most important news of the week. You can record?important key dates and delivery deadlines?in a joint group calendar and use?communication tools?like employee apps to have a regular exchange with your colleagues throughout the workday.

SHOW YOUR FACE

In the spirit of open communication, you should?turn on your camera. Video calls offer a good opportunity to coordinate your work regardless of location. Looking your colleagues in the eye?promotes dialogue and creates trust. In addition, all participants can see directly who is saying something - which is particularly advantageous in larger video meetings.

BE HONEST

Open communication also means being able to be honest with each other. Maintaining open communication is about making everyone involved feel that their?personal opinions are respected and valued.

By the way,?honesty does not always have to mean criticism. Even after a project has been completed, you should sit down again and discuss what went well, what you weren't satisfied with, and what could be done better. This makes it easier to develop?joint solutions and prevent conflicts?in the future. Remember that praise is also a part of it and can be a motivational boost.

INVOLVE EVERYONE IN DECISION-MAKING

People who feel that their opinions and ideas count identify themselves more with their employer. Involving employees and asking for their advice can have a?positive effect on motivation and a positive working atmosphere. Why not, for example, involve the younger employees more in the decision-making process and?use their knowledge?in digital communication? If you ask these employees for advice, you can only win - for example, asking for help with trending topics on social media or recent apps etc.

Satisfied employees are the best advertisement for the employer brand: Ideally, they tell their friends and acquaintances about their job and also spread their positive opinion via social networks.

???Key Take-aways for an open communication culture

• Manage your team, key dates and deadlines with a fitting communication tool
• Promote dialogue and trust by respecting and valuing each other and allowing the team to communication face-to-face even if it is only online
• Create a positive working atmosphere by using the know-how of every employee to find joint solutions

?? Leaders: What “more communication” means in a company

"Internal communication is more important today than ever before"?

But like many people, you may have asked yourself, "But what exactly does that mean? What does more communication look like? How can we achieve that?" These are important questions because communication can often feel forced, stressful or like a waste of time.

So, to provide more clarity, let's address what it means to "communicate more" and how to do it correctly.

MORE TRANSPARENCY IS NEEDED

Communication must be focused on one purpose, which should be transparent. Even if clear decisions have not yet been made about specific issues, leaders should be transparent on where they stand.When news of Omicron first made its rounds, employees were uncertain about what would happen. Many of them had just returned to the office, so they wondered, would they now have to go back to the home office??Uncertainty causes anxiety, and even if leaders don't know the answers yet,?keeping employees informed on?decision-making processes is reassuring.

THREE KEYS TO GOOD INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

There are three things to keep in mind about communication: It should be?asynchronous, scheduled, and multimodal.

Synchronous communications can force employees to waste their most productive hours in Zoom meetings, often leading to comments like,?"That could have been an email."?That's not because they don't want to know the content of the communication, but because?they want to be able to access it at their own pace. So make it asynchronous.

Frequent communication should be asynchronous, but that doesn't mean it can be random at any time. It also needs to be?planned and consistent. Many companies now have social media calendars for external communications but don't have a calendar for internal communications. However such a calendar is crucial. Your internal communications team needs to?plan ahead, be strategic, and define exactly what needs to be communicated each week?consistently (or possibly even each day).

Another problem with synchronous communication is that it is usually limited to one format, but employees have?preferences for how they best process information. For some, that might be a video. For others, it might be an audio recording or a company podcast, or even for some just an email. So?make sure?that communication is asynchronous, scheduled and that?the same information is delivered in multiple formats simultaneously.?The good news is that it's usually easy to use the same content for various formats. For example, you can convert a video to an audio-only format and then have it transcribed as an email or internal blog post.

GIVE EMPLOYEES FEEDBACK

Just like transparency, feedback has always been an important part of corporate communications, but it's more important today than ever.?People have a natural need to know how they are performing, whether their work meets the company's expectations, and whether or not they are on track to achieve their goals. If they're not on track, they also want to know?what they can do to improve themselves. And as with transparency, frequent and effective feedback boosts motivation and employee retention.

Feedback needs to be frequent, regular, and ideally multimodal. In other words, skip the boring annual performance review, or at least don't limit feedback to that.

There is no doubt that all this additional communication means a considerable amount of work and time. But far worse than that is a company in which internal communication is not valued.

???Key take-aways for more communication

• A transparent standing point can reduce stress and anxiety and help the employees to have trust in their employer
• Asynchronous communication means that every employee has their own pace in which they feel comfortable to work in
• The basis of a scheduled communication is the consistency in strategic planning concerning the weekly communication
• Multimodal communication focuses on diverse formats with the goal to include all employees preferences in terms of processing information
• Feedback is based on the natural need to know about the current performance and is essential for the personal improvement of employees

If you want to know more about internal communication or related topics you can check out our recent LinkedIn posts .

?? Sources:

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Bradshaw, R. (2022, 11. Mai).?Statistics On Remote Workers That Will Surprise You (2022). Apollo Technical LLC. Abgerufen am 30. Mai 2022, von https://www.apollotechnical.com/statistics-on-remote-workers/#:~:text=Globally%2C ?16%25 of companies are,remote work of any kind

M. (2022, 26. April).?20 Internal Communications Challenges and the Best Solutions. ContactMonkey. Abgerufen am 30. Mai 2022, von?https://www.contactmonkey.com/blog/internal-communication-challenges

A. (2019, 1. November).?How to Maintain Open Communication in the Workplace. Real Estate Executive Search Firm Recruiters. Abgerufen am 30. Mai 2022, von?https://www.real8group.com/how-to-maintain-open-communication-in-the-workplace/

Ilg, B. (2020, 8. Juli).?Mit offener Kommunikationskultur zu zufriedenen Mitarbeitern – Wie Arbeitgeber interne Kommunikation zur Mitarbeiterbindung nutzen sollten. Digitale Welt. Abgerufen am 30. Mai 2022, von?https://digitaleweltmagazin.de/mit-offener-kommunikationskultur-zu-zufriedenen-mitarbeitern-wie-arbeitgeber-interne-kommunikation-zur-mitarbeiterbindung-nutzen-sollten/

Foitzik, O. (2018, 5. Juli).?Was die interne Unternehmenskommunikation über Führungsstil und Unternehmenskultur aussagt!?TCI Transformation Consulting International GmbH. Abgerufen am 30. Mai 2022, von?https://tci-partners.com/was-die-interne-unternehmenskommunikation-ueber-fuehrungsstil-und-unternehmenskultur-aussagt/

Dishman, L. (2022, 11. Februar).?Leaders: This is exactly what ‘more communication’ should look like. Fast Company. Abgerufen am 30. Mai 2022, von?https://www.fastcompany.com/90721047/exactly-what-more-communication-should-look-like