Communication is consistently found to be one of the things that set apart successful businesses from failing businesses. No matter what field you work in or what product or service you create. You’ll need to communicate ideas at some point. This process gets even more complicated when you have several departments or teams that use different platforms for their work. But need to be able to compile everything together at the end of the day.

The following guide will explore some of the things you can do to help ensure communication is of high quality within your organization. It is important to note that this isn’t a one-time conversation. To continue to maintain strong communication lines. You need to be regularly reviewing the systems you have in place and speaking to your communications technology providers and platforms to see where you can meet newer needs and expectations.

Flexibility Is King

When selecting systems and software to use for business-wide communication and collaboration. It is crucial that you keep in mind flexibility. Satcom points out that the way humans communicate is constantly changing. The apps and platforms and programs you use today might be obsolete next week. This could result in all the thriving businesses suddenly talking to their customers through a new social media app you’ve never heard of before.

When you’re working with a company that assists with communications or provides communications software, you need to speak to them about flexibility. How easy will it be to change up the system to meet new demands? Will you be able to incorporate new applications and technology as needed? Is it scalable so that it can grow in tandem with your business?

Training Should Include Communication

Of course, communication isn’t only about the tools people use to send ideas to one another; it’s also about how they use these tools. When training new and old staff members, communication tactics should be a primary point that is made. It is critically important that you reiterate your expectations if you want to avoid wasting people’s time due to misunderstandings and to keep projects on schedule.

Something as simple as sending off an email or ending a phone call with: “To reiterate: You need this from me by Tuesday and you need that from me by Thursday,” can make a massive improvement. Make it a company-wide habit to end meetings and long emails chains with a: “to confirm. This is what is expected of me.” Another fantastic sentence that should be in everyone’s arsenal is: “here’s what I need from you.”

Likewise, it is critical to make it abundantly clear that asking questions is okay. If you have one or two higher-up members of staff that have a tendency to belittle. People for what they perceive to be “foolish” questions, need to speak to them. All the communication tools in the world aren’t going to help. If your staff doesn’t know how to say things in a way that other people will understand.

Keep Tools Simple

Depending on the projects and contracts you’re working with, you might need to incorporate new tools every so often. That’s completely okay. What’s not okay is continuing to maintain dozens of communication methods in the workplace. This is akin to everyone having fifteen tabs open and expecting everyone to be on the same page.

If you give people too many platforms to check messages on, you can bet that some conversations are going to fall through the cracks while they’re busy answering a company email. They’re getting notifications for the company chat app, but they also have to keep up with notes to go ahead on a project on a company spreadsheet. They could be expected to keep up with changing tasks on the company task list app while also being expected to read the company newsletter.

That’s too many things to manage, and it’s all too easy for one boss to be saying something on one app while another boss is saying something else on another app. Nothing is quite as frustrating to an employee as being told contradictory things. When you can, eliminate outdated communication methods. So that it’s smooth and easy for staff to keep up with everything that is going on.

The above steps should help you manage business communications when multiple platforms or programs are involved. Again, communication is an always-evolving process. It’s a great idea to do regular communication audits where staff and managers are able to express any misgivings. They might have about the way ideas are communicated within the workplace.