ISJ: Enhancing Communication in Business
As the impact of the global coronavirus outbreak continues to transform our way of living, people across the globe have adopted new ways of working to survive and help stem the worldwide spread of COVID-19.
As the impact of the global coronavirus outbreak continues to transform our way of living, people across the globe have adopted new ways of working to survive and help stem the worldwide spread of COVID-19.
New ways of working have created new opportunities and collaborations; many professions which were previously considered unsuited to remote working are now learning what’s possible through goodwill and innovation. But for some companies, ‘not’ having a clear communication strategy in place is impacting productivity, reducing employee engagement and affecting mental health.
Effects of poor communication
Lack of direct communication with your team can make them feel isolated, disengaged and ‘out of the loop’ from decision-makers.
Ineffective communication can be frustrating, creating a breeding ground of distrust and confusion, particularly in the current climate. If workers don’t have good lines of communication with each other and management and don’t feel like they’re being heard, their loyalty and commitment to the organisation may suffer.
The speed and scale of COVID-19 has bred uncertainty and disruption – how organisations communicate now can create clarity, build resilience and catalyse positive change. Some of the common questions people ask when going through major operational changes are:
- How quickly can we communicate with our global workforce?
- How do we inform multiple individuals and stakeholders about a business or operational change?
- How do we know if important messages have been received and actioned?
- How can we reduce the rumours and misinformation that may cause further disruption and stress?
You’ve got mail
Many organisations rely solely on mass emails to share critical communications and although it’s a widely adopted tool and a universal platform, it does have limitations. Emails are often delivered to junk or other folders where they may be missed by the recipients. The onus is on the recipient to assess the relevance of the email and senders of an email are unsure a message has been read or understood.
Multi-channel communication
Mass notification systems that have the capability to share information through multiple channels and are very advantageous to organisations undergoing change. Systems that allow you to send several communications via different means at the same time, help ensure no one is left in the dark. The ability to instantly share operational changes, safe working advice or vital safety alerts at a push of a button has huge benefits:
- Clear and consistent messaging from one central place
- Share up-to-date advice, changes in company procedures and vital operational updates
- Deliver messages from one or 10,000 recipients immediately
- Use geographical locations to send messages to specific individuals or groups
- Schedule regular and automatic communications
- Share media, documents and policies
- Invite users to official company channels such as Slack, Trello or Asana.
- Respond with confidence
Mass notification platforms allow employees to respond to a specific question or report issues directly to senior management or team leaders. This allows companies to make decisions based on actual responses and real-time data. Robust systems will let you know if a message has been delivered, confirm if it has been read and enables recipients to acknowledge messages. Management teams can rest assured knowing that their workforce is being kept informed, providing them with the flexibility to send follow up communications automatically.
Mental health matters
As lockdown restrictions continue throughout the UK, negative economic consequences and enforced social isolation are exacerbating health inequalities and causing heightened states of stress; particularly amongst those that live alone or already suffer with their mental health.
The results of a survey by Nuffield Health, the UK’s largest healthcare charity, revealed an overwhelming 80% of Brits feel that working from home has negatively impacted their mental health. 36% stated not being in the same space as colleagues has left them feeling unable to take a break or step away from their workstations.
These findings reinforce the need for good team communication, reassuring staff and encouraging a work-life balance. Regular wellbeing check-ins, meetings and communication strategies are an important part of your remote working toolkit and the use of a mass notification tool can really help.
Locate Global
Locate Global is an Incident Management and Communications platform – enabling a workforce to respond and report problems directly, allowing management to make informed and faster decisions. The multi-Channel Communication module allows you to disseminate vital communications instantly to all stakeholders from one central place.
Whether you have 100 or 100,000 employees, the platform can be implemented in a matter of days and thanks to the smart infrastructure phone app, it also makes it quick and simple to communicate with any employee, anywhere via, email, SMS, or push notification.
To support two-way communications, Locate Global enables users to communicate using the ‘peer to peer reporting’ function to advise of problems encountered, whether that’s a problem at home, an operational issue, illness, or anything else that might impact their work. Riz Omar, Locate Global’s COO states: “We have found that by using this function, teams are more open with their managers as they can report things more easily that they perhaps wouldn’t want to discuss by email – be it harassment or internal bullying.”
Locate Global’s technology can help organisations keep people safe, through a user-friendly, cloud-based platform that evolves to cater to the changing needs of your business.
For more information, please book a demo, or read the full article on the International Security Journal’s website.