Communication & Collaboration

Communication in Practice

The below is based on the SHRM Managing Organizational Communication Toolkit.

THE IMPACT

Effective Communication...

Builds employee morale, satisfaction and engagement.
Helps employees understand terms and conditions of their employment and drives their commitment and loyalty.
Educates employees on the merits of remaining union-free (if that is the organization's goal).
Gives employees a voice—an increasingly meaningful component of improving employees' satisfaction with their employer.
Helps to lessen the chances for misunderstandings and potentially reduces grievances and lawsuits.
Improves processes and procedures and ultimately creates greater efficiencies and reduces costs.

Ineffective Communication may increase the chances for misunderstandings, damage relationships, break trust, and increase anger and hostility. Ineffective communication may stem from poorly aligned strategy, a failure to execute the strategy, use of the wrong communication vehicle, bad timing, and even nuances such as word choice or tone of voice.

TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION- some may initially think of communication mainly in the context of delivering messages to employees about business issues, policies and procedures, but two-way communication plays an essential role in a comprehensive communication strategy. Listening to employee issues and concerns builds loyalty and drives improved productivity. Organizational leaders can learn through listening about issues or concerns before they become formal grievances or lawsuits. They can also discover potential employee relations issues and learn about attitudes toward terms and conditions of employment.

THE STRATEGY

Effective Communication Strategies:

Maintain consistency to establish a trust.
Listen to employees and to members of the leadership team.
Seek input from all staff.
Provide feedback.

Everyone Plays a Role:

NWS Leadership ultimately responsible for setting the tone and establishing organizational culture of great communication.
Managers are responsible for daily communication with their employees and for relating to their peers and colleagues.
All employees have a responsibility to voice concerns and issues, provide feedback, and listen effectively.

THE PRACTICE

Leaders/Managers: Office management team compiles frequent notes/kudos/updates into an email for staff
Google Chat/Meetings: Frequent google meetings to connect with in-office and at-home team members where ALL employees can talk/share
Regional Level: Regularly scheduled meetings with region contacts in division to collaborate and collect ideas on new initiatives and processes
Regional Level: Add the ability for any employee to submit comments/questions to Regional Director
Knowledge Sharing (Example): What’s New From the SOO? The SOO sends out a weekly document to the staff with the latest happenings in the SOO world, like training, new research, etc.

Additional Practices relevant to Communication can be found under the Transparency & Openness, and Knowledge Sharing & Collaboration Focus Areas!

How effective is your in-office communication?

Want to test how effective communication and collaboration is within your office? Consider hosting this fun and short exercise at your next staff meeting either virtually or in person.

Collaboration in Practice

Establish Psychological Safety

Employees need to feel they can show up as themselves to work

Effectively Communication

It's the ability to communicate when projects hit roadblocks and resolve conflicts in healthy ways.

Develop Communication Tools

Collaboration skills can come to life with the right tools.

Build Skill Sets

your team needs those skills and capabilities as the foundation. Then, the tools help to become that vehicle or vessel for delivery.

Communication through Feedback

A Guide to Mastering Feedback in the Workplace

Being able to provide and receive feedback is an essential skill for growth and improvement, both in the workplace and beyond. It gives you the chance to course correct, or to keep improving when you are already doing well. No matter where you are in your career journey, understanding the art of giving and receiving effective feedback can boost your personal and professional development.

Communication & Collaboration Articles

Five Ways to Sharpen Your Communication Skills[For more, visit the Communication Insight Center.] We need people who can communicate! Raise your hand if you have heard this line at least a thousand times. In fact, you’ve likely heard it so much that it’s become meaningless. Communication, as I teach and coach, is the glue that holds an organization together. It is […]

Council Post: Five Strategies To Improve Communication With Team MembersYou can communicate effectively in the workplace by avoiding empty interactions and unproductive meetings, choosing the best ways to communicate your message and making sure that regular progress updates are given to everyone who needs them.

Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams

Why collaboration is importantEver wonder why collaboration is important? This article looks at 7 reasons why collaboration is the key to creating an extraordinary workplace.

4 Ways to Communicate with More EmpathyThe pandemic and other stressful events over the past few years have only made empathic communications even more desirable and necessary, especially as those expressions have become more virtual — including videos, social media posts, and emails. But just as each of us has varying levels of empathy, not every leader is equally empathic. So is a lack of natural empathy a showstopper when it comes to expressing and benefitting from empathic communications? No. The good news is that all leaders (even those who are not naturally empathic) can communicate messages of empathy as powerfully as they convey messages of unity and accountability. During challenging times, the most effective leadership communications are ones that deliver attention, acknowledge distress, demonstrate care, and — not necessarily at first, but eventually — take appropriate action to mitigate the situation or at least provide comfort. This article offers four touchpoints to focus on in your communications.

Successful Remote Teams Communicate in BurstsFor remote teams, remote communication is both a challenge and a priority — and it will remain so long after the present pandemic has ended. The authors present new research that suggests remote communication is most effective when teams coordinate to communicate in rapid-fire bursts, followed by periods of uninterrupted “deep work time”; when they exchange a broad diversity of information; and when they align their schedules to communicate synchronously rather than asynchronously.

New Study Finds That Collaboration Drives Workplace PerformanceMost organizations strive to be more collaborative, but a new study finds that the most effective are five times as productive as those who don't adopt targeted collaboration.