Team Communication and Engagement: 3 Top Tips

The importance of employee engagement can hardly be exaggerated, but different businesses have different definitions of what engagement actually portends. To be sure, better performance is the ultimate goal, but the fine balance between results and employee satisfaction needs to be maintained.

Kevin Martin, i4cp Chief Research Officer, says the lack of incentives and rewards is the most common and powerful barrier to effective collaboration and that the problem is that the majority of talent management systems are designed to reward individual achievement, not team accomplishments. He thinks that the solution to enhanced employee engagement and satisfaction lies in recognizing and rewarding individuals, leaders and teams who engage in productive collaborative behaviors.

Summed up, that would be the best definition of engagement. For it to be efficient, however, proper communication needs to be maintained. Just what exactly is "proper," we’ll discuss in a bit more detail below.

Encourage Communication

Team communication is a challenging affair, especially in the case of remote workers. The tech is not a problem, seeing as there are numerous apps and tools available. The main challenge is - to get people to communicate efficiently.

Firstly, you’ll need to train your team to use the chosen communication tools to ensure meetups aren’t cumbersome for anyone. Then, you need to keep various communication channels open and keep the apps updated for best results.

The best way to go about it is to set up a schedule of meetings and procedures for individual communication between team members.

Incorporate Engagement

To keep retention rates low, you should make certain that employee engagement is taking place. There are numerous engagement ideas; some of them will appeal to some employees while others will appeal to other employees, but you should be prepared to seek a balance between availabilities to ensure everyone is satisfied.

The first and the easiest hack is to keep ALL employees informed about the upcoming efforts and allow them to partake in decision-making. Everyone feels as if they are of more value when they know their voice is being heard.

Set up team-building activities the employees will love, but don’t force anything. There will always be an introvert or two who won’t appreciate being forced to leave their comfort zone. Rather, apply anonymous employee feedback to get an idea of which activities will be welcome by all.

Offer Support

Finally, support should be available to everyone who needs it. Similar to the matter of communication tools mentioned above, you should also make sure that team members be trained in using all the tech. If they aren’t, they’ll avoid using them because they really aren't sure how to.

It is safe to rely on online courses for educating the workforce. eLearning and mLearning are particularly popular and they allow everyone to learn in whichever way suits them best, so it’s a win-win situation. Learning will be taking place and nobody will feel forced to do things by the book.

Conclusion

Employee engagement relies heavily on efficient and productive communication. It is, therefore, essential to make an effort to ensure proper communication is taking place. Aim for a happy workforce that enjoys exchanging ideas and contributes to making decisions, and you’ll start seeing results very soon.

Angela Ash is an expert content writer, editor and marketer, who focuses on topics related to remote work, freelancing, entrepreneurship and more.