Communication among personnel is a leading factor in the success - or failure - of your operation.
Your team needs to be in unison, or things won’t run smoothly.
Stress caused by lousy communication is overwhelming in itself.
We’re sure the long-term effects reflect poorly on your bottom line too.
We always talk about controlling chaos, but in this article, we’re going to skip that concept and jump right into something even more critical.
How do you create order in the midst of your already established chaos?
How do you improve communication among all your personnel while getting the details you need on time?
Bad communication will have devastating consequences on an operation.
Do you agree?
When the problem goes for an extended length of time without being handled, it accumulates and then affects every aspect of your operation – negatively.
But before we fix it, we’re going to establish the root of your communication problems.
We need to understand where the breakdown is and what is associated with each and every factor of it.
It’s how you’ll achieve Proactive Operations.
NEGATIVE FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH FRAGMENTED COMMUNICATION
We’ve done our homework for you and have put together four thought-out hazards that could be hindering your lines of communication.
Let’s consider where your operation measures up.
Then, we’ll see four ways to strengthen your communication with a purpose.
Conflicts Between Employees Result in Communication Failure
When managers or staff are not speaking to each other, it makes it very difficult for others to communicate effectively.
Personal agendas and conflict prevent the team – and complete operation – from communicating effectively.
Communication Requires Employees' Time
Members of other teams may not take the time to share important information, especially when they’re under pressure to complete tasks and deadlines of their own.
When the pressure to produce is present, communication with other personnel won’t be a priority to them.
Communication Guidelines Are Written in Grayscale
The importance of documenting crucial details, processes, and protocols is as essential as tracking things that happen on your property.
Unfortunately, it’s prevalent that procedures for communication are not outlined or agreed upon between leaders.
It’s obvious – they need to be!
Geographic Separation Is an Obstacle
Effective communication among personnel is challenging when they’re located on different floors or other properties.
Space will create obstacles for communication.
Sharing crucial information may be less important once they figure out how long of a walk it is to your office.
Motivation to communicate might diminish even more over time, because they know you’re always on the move and unreachable when they need you.
But, knowing you still need the correct information when you need it, we’re going to move on and show you how you can prevent these factors from sabotaging your operation.
4 Steps for Enhancing Communication
We put together four practical steps for improving communication for your operations, and for an overall increase in professionalism on your property.
You don’t have to wait to put them in place either. We encourage you to start implementing once you finish reading this article.
- Identify and Outline Need-to-Know, Ongoing Procedural Information
- Build Amity Among Your Leaders
- Implement Processes Focused on Communication Among Personnel
- Invest in a Platform for Operational Efficiency
1. Identify and Outline Need-to-Know, Ongoing Procedural Information
What crucial procedural information stays the same each day, week, and month?
Everyone needs to create a list of the missing details from other personnel and their everyday expectations.
The vital information gets to the need-to-know staff in a timely manner when your operation does this.
Everyone is informed and communicating.
2. Build Amity Among Your Leaders
As you know, we’re proponents of role-playing.
Team building is great, too, primarily if you’re working with leaders across multiple job functions.
Merely develop quality leaders and the rest of your operation benefits.
Once they’re communicating on the same page, the effect will move down the hierarchy to frontline staff.
Team building can significantly improve how well leaders and their teams work with each other and other personnel along the way.
3. Implement Processes Focused on Communication Among Personnel
Include steps outlining when and how information must flow among staff – before, during, and at the end of the workday – corresponding to your expectations.
No more “grayscale” and ambiguous procedures.
Everything you require will be in black and white.
Do you know what that leads to? It leads to accountability across all personnel.
4. Invest in a Platform for Operational Efficiency
The right platform can help supercharge communication.
After you've enhanced communication among teammates, bring it together with software that will take your communication and total operation to a whole new level.
Not just any ordinary software you read about on review sites.
Invest in a unified platform that industry peers use – and are willing (and happy) to share their success and applaud their solution provider for listening to their needs.
Your frontline staff will now have the ability to communicate wet spills, security issues, among other things, to the operations center in real-time.
What’s the result here? Efficiency.
OVER TO YOU
Now is always a good time to create order.
Quickly improve communication among personnel and watch efficiency drastically increase.
It’s one step in the right direction to Proactive Operations.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness and freshness.
