With more companies than ever before taking the remote working route, it’s increasingly important that teams are able to properly communicate with each other. Without effective communication, businesses are likely to face a lot of unnecessary challenges.
Keep reading for five signs your team isn’t communicating effectively, and what you can do to remedy it.
1. A lack of communication
The first sign that your team isn’t communicating effectively is that there’s little or no communication, to begin with. Whether your team is working remotely or in person, strong communication is vital amongst team members.
Setting up a communication platform, such as a Microsoft Teams phone system, to allow teams to contact each other with ease will help to keep your team up to date with things going on in the office, and encourage them to effectively communicate with each other.
2. Too much communication
You know the saying, ‘you can never have too much of a good thing’? Well, that’s not strictly true in this case. Just like a lack of communication isn’t good for your team, neither is too much. If one individual continually overwhelms the team with messages or emails, it’s fairly obvious that there’d been ineffective communication somewhere along the line.
The first step in fixing this issue is to work out the root of it. Does this person need more information and clarification, or are they just looking to make more contact with the team members? Once you’ve worked out what the issue is exactly, you can then try to solve it.
3. Late work or missed deadlines
If your team repeatedly doesn’t meet its targets it’s likely that there has been some miscommunication amongst members of the team.
One way you can help the team to communicate more effectively is to reward them for their completion of small tasks which will motivate them to continue collaborating on the work and complete it on time.
4. Too many meetings
Often, people think that constant meetings give the illusion of teamwork and productivity. But, in reality, this isn’t always the case. If your team schedules multiple meetings a week, and nothing seems to be achieved in these meetings, it’s clear that your team isn’t working together to achieve a common goal.
Encourage your team to send emails instead of arranging meetings where possible, because, let’s face it, some meetings can become a huge waste of time.
5. There’s a lack of structure
If there is no structure during the workday or during meetings, it could be because your team isn’t communicating effectively. In order to ensure productivity, your team needs to be organized and follow some kind of structure to keep them on track.
To help your team all be on the same page, send out an agenda or an organizational structure at the beginning of the day or week to help your team to feel more prepared.
So, there you have it. Five signs your team isn’t communicating effectively and what you can do to fix it. Hopefully, you’re now able to recognize the signs of ineffective communication and know how you can help get the team back together.
