Ask any successful leader and they will tell you that communication is the key to team success. Whether you communicate with your colleagues, your boss, or different departments within your company, being able to communicate is critical to sharing information and ideas that help your organization make better decisions. However, communication does not just happen naturally. That’s why many good organizations have communication policies in place to help employees communicate effectively and appropriately.
Communication policies don’t just set expectations for better emails. Creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable communicating with colleagues at all levels. If you want your team to grow, develop, and be as successful as possible, you need to develop solid communication channels between your peers and your leadership. If your workplace doesn’t have a communication policy, or if everyone doesn’t follow it, communication can get lost and opportunities can be missed.
What an Effective Communication Policy Can Accomplish
The importance of effective communication is often forgotten until it’s too late, and the ill effects of misunderstandings are felt. Communication policies are valuable tools that help ensure consistency in communication with teams, departments, workplaces, and even customers. Here are some ways you can benefit from a successful communication policy.
Set standards for communication
The main goal behind establishing a communication policy is to set standards for how employees should communicate with colleagues and customers. Without clear expectations about how employees communicate with each other and with managers, misunderstandings can easily take hold without anyone realizing it, until a simple misunderstanding turns into a big problem.
A clearly defined communication policy helps employees avoid confusion about how they communicate, how they share information, and with whom they share information. Establishing these standards will ensure that everyone on your team understands how to communicate with each other and will be able to handle any situation that arises.
Useful for creating opportunities for communication
As a leader, it’s important to remember that your communication policy is more than just setting rules. It also aims to create a space where employees can communicate safely and freely. To do that, you need to create an environment where they feel comfortable talking and asking questions. This can be done in various ways, such as:
- Encourage open dialogue in the office by setting aside time for team meetings and other conversations.
- Create opportunities for individuals to ask questions and share ideas privately, such as one-on-one meetings with managers and executives.
- Create designated areas, such as suggestion boxes, where employees can provide feedback on how they are feeling at work and what they would like changed to improve morale.
Having a space where employees can communicate comfortably does more than just help your business run smoothly. It also gives employees the opportunity to make suggestions about how the organization can improve the products and services it offers or the delivery and distribution of its services. It also provides a means to voice concerns about the work environment. For example, if a company has a clear policy on how to report harassment or other inappropriate behavior, employees who feel harassed are more likely to report issues without fear of reprisal.
Helps develop channels of feedback
The ability to send and receive feedback is critical to a team’s success. It helps people learn how to work more effectively, develop their skills and abilities, and deliver value to the company. However, it can be difficult to get feedback if you don’t know where to look for it or the best way to provide it.
A good communication policy helps managers know what to do when feedback is given and how best to provide feedback without being intimidating or insulting. This makes everyone feel heard, respected and valued, not just by individual teams and managers themselves, but by the company as a whole.
Standardize your communication tools
Think about the different ways people communicate with each other.
- text message
- phone
- video conferencing
- face to face
The list is endless. Having all these options is great, but when everyone communicates differently, important calls can be missed, lost productivity, and frustrated employees. This is especially true for remote workers who use the tool to communicate with colleagues. By providing the specific communication her platform that employees use, you can prevent oversights and oversights.
Easier access to information
As companies grow and more employees become involved in the day-to-day operations of the business, there are many ways to share information, from emails to websites, blogs, and even newsletters. Having different platforms for finding information is very helpful, but only if the information is easy to find. It is imperative that employees can access that information without digging through complex systems or flipping pages in a book. Without easy access to information, employees are forced to waste time and resources trying to find what they need.
Ensuring employees have access to existing information is not the whole communication policy. Keeping your employees up to date can take a lot of time. No one wants to spend every minute figuring out when something was updated, what was updated, and where it was updated. Communication policies clarify when and how new or updated information should be distributed.
Get the most out of your communication policies with ComplianceBridge
We have all come across situations where our lives have become difficult due to lack of communication. But having clear, formal communication guidelines can help prevent that by giving employees the tools and knowledge they need to handle any situation. However, creating effective policies is not always easy. Whether you’re creating a communication policy for the first time or simply updating an already implemented policy, ComplianceBridge can help.
ComplianceBridge is the simplest and most comprehensive solution for creating, distributing and managing policies. Our software helps you through every step of creating and managing your company’s policy documents, keeping everyone on the same page easily accessible. ComplianceBridge streamlines processes with automated workflows, manages policy lifecycles with proactive alerts, and organizes with version control capabilities. The best part is that all policies are stored in his one central library and can be accessed 24/7/365 by anyone who needs it. Want to learn more? Request a ComplianceBridge demo today.
