What most organizations across the world have in common are breakdowns in communication, confusion, and misunderstandings. Your company is no exception. Problems with communication negatively affect other business aspects such as profits, relationships with customers, partners, and employees, and business in general. Recognizing these growing pains, technology experts have designed a great number of solutions to help companies overcome their communicative challenges. However, for most, having such a wide choice is both a blessing and a curse. Why? Because what works well for one company may not be a good fit for another. If you choose the wrong tool, you waste not only money but also time and effort. To make a wise choice, align your tool with your communication strategy and the needs of your company. Here is a guide to choosing the best solution for your company’s needs.
What to Look for in a Communicative Tool?
Choosing the ideal communication solution isn’t easy, especially if you don’t know what to look for. In that case, you can easily make a mistake and wreak havoc on the company. When searching for the perfect solution, you should make sure it’s:
- Reliable — With a reliable and trustworthy tool, your business is completely safe. The tool doesn’t crash easily, operate slowly, or contain any other bugs in the system. All data shared and uploaded is backed up and there’s no fear of losing important business files. Your employees can use the tool without being afraid it’s going to break down any second and lose all relevant information.
- User friendly — The whole point of investing in a new communicative tool is to make communication and interaction easier for everyone in the company. There is no use in giving employees a tool that is complicated and difficult to navigate. If using the app is too challenging, they might not even give it a try which makes the whole investment a bad one. When you decide on a tool, make sure it’s user friendly and simple. This way, your employees can communicate efficiently with their coworkers, managers, customers, etc.
- Collaborative — The majority of communication solutions can be used for employee collaboration. This feature is quintessential as it allows employees to work together on due tasks and projects regardless of their location. If your employees are still working remotely, a tool containing this feature seems like a good idea. When you give your employees a chance to collaborate even through an app, you strengthen their team spirit, work relationships, and company culture.
- Social — While communicative tools are mostly used for business purposes, they also have a socialization purpose. Most of these tools have special sections that are reserved solely for employees. Here, employees can chat among themselves, share interests, hobbies, recipes, etc. It is a virtual place they can visit to blow off some steam throughout the workday. Thanks to this feature, they can relax whenever they lose focus and recharge their batteries.
What are the Best Communication Solutions?
Now that you know what to look for in a communicative solution, you can start searching for that one tool that will satisfy all your company’s needs. Here are some of the most common solutions available on the market to help with your search.
Intranet Communication
Intranet solutions are ideal for frontline and remote workers. These tools are especially suitable for companies with a greater number of employees because they efficiently connect every single member of the staff. Once you connect all your staff members, sharing information, updates, and data is no longer a problem. Apart from connecting, the intranet has other great features as well. One of them is targeting. You can select a particular employee, team, or entire department and send targeted messages only for them to see. It makes the information flow much more efficiently. Another great feature is digital storage. Within the corporate intranet, you and your employees can upload, store, and share important files and documents. As a manager, you can also grant or restrict access to the virtual file room, if needed.
Forums
Information flow is important in any organization. Employees like to know what is going on in the company. Moreover, they need timely updates and details about projects and assignments they are working on. Being informed helps them be thorough and diligent in the work. In large companies, management doesn’t always have time to address their employees’ concerns. For this reason, they invest in forums and discussion boards. Here, employees can ask questions, brainstorm, offer solutions, and suggestions daily. All employees have access to this virtual space so they can answer questions, discuss, and bring others up to speed. More importantly, forums can help with the onboarding and socialization process. When new employees join the company, they can find all the necessary pieces of information and settle in their new position quickly.
Task Management
To make sure all operations within your company run smoothly, you have to have a task management tool. This tool combined with a communicative one will make it easier for the company to reach its business goals. Task management tools allow you to not only assign, but also track tasks and their progress. As a manager, you can also leave details, side notes, set deadlines, priorities, or delegate. Employees on the other hand can work together or individually, leave comments for superiors and other team members to see, or ask for help. On the whole, your company becomes more efficient with task management software.
These tips can be the key to finding the best solution for your company. First of all, look at practicality, not money. Every good investment pays off twice as much in the long run.
Author Bio
Morgan Rose Elliott graduated marketing from The University of Sydney. Hobbies include yoga, reading, home renovation. . Rookie blogger who loves writing about business and lifestyle equally. She is happily married, stay at home mother of three.
Twitter account: https://twitter.com/MorganRoseElli1