Workplace communication and culture influence each other. Your team’s culture influences how they communicate with each other, which can change the overall organizational culture. Communication is an essential part of our daily lives, and without communication, ideas and views cannot be formed.
Communication culture is the way your organization engages with people, shares information encourages employees to voice their concerns, and drives the conversation. It is essential for any sized workplace.
Communication culture can impact the employee experience, motivation, engagement, and overall business success. Open, honest, and transparent communication cultures can birth happy and satisfied employees. To help you achieve all this, here are ways to build a communication culture for your business.
Start From the Foundation
The emergence of remote working and dispersed workplaces has led to many organizations struggling to build and manage cultures to keep employees engaged, connected, and inspired.
Whether your team is located under one roof or distributed across different locations, building a culture based on open and two-way communication from scratch can help you build cohesion and connections among your team members.
Cultivating a culture where everyone communicates with everyone regardless of their levels is paramount for your business’s success. As a leader, you need to understand and tap into the potential of open workplace communication to attain a positive culture. If your communication is effective, you can save time, create clear briefs, and manage expectations and deadlines.
Be Inclusive Through Technology
How you structure your organization determines whether regular communication will be successful or futile. Distance between employees and top management can cause communication barriers where interdepartmental communication becomes hard because of bureaucratic operation.
Currently, many team members work remotely, while your sales team is likely to spend a lot of time on the road and away from the office. However, you can maintain all moving parts in synchrony and foster synergy across departments through technology. Technology such as voice over internet protocol or VoIP can help you make long-distance calls within the same network as the user.
Voice over IP is the latest technology in the business phone systems, slowly replacing the landlines. Many businesses are finding VoIP to be an attractive option that allows them to save money without losing the reliability of a phone system.
Encourage Feedback
Building a strong workplace culture should be your number one goal as a manager. A culture that cultivates positivity and open communication encourages employee growth and better performance. In contrast, an antagonistic culture can stunt the overall growth of your company and lead to higher turnover rates.
One of the best ways to build a communication culture to help boost employee morale and create a more positive environment is having a feedback culture. If employees are free to share what they think about management, the organization, and other employees, they are more likely to be happy and engaged with your company. Feedback creates a culture of transparency as employees will feel heard, included, and respected.
In the contemporary business world, so many employees feel disengaged and undervalued. There is a need to focus on increasing employee engagement. Decrease employee turnover, and nurture a positive and employee-focused culture. A culture where feedback and honesty are valued can help increase job performance and employee morale and build a better company.
Encourage Celebration
Celebrating your team makes communication more fluid and less intrusive. Celebrating your team’s victories, anniversaries, and personal promotions makes employees feel valued. Celebrating your team motivates and encourages them to put in the work that is required, brings back the focus to the positives, and reminds the team of the overall goal.
Celebrating the achievements of your employees also builds trust in the company as employees can establish a rapport with one another and help the company achieve a successful outcome together. Celebrations give space to reflect and recharge as taking a break can boost employee morale and build a culture of achievement.
The New Work Standard
Many companies resort to hybrid working arrangements; intercultural interactions are now common. Intercultural communication occurs when you communicate with people across cultural contexts. Suppose you are dealing with teams across different regions. In that case, you may need to focus on team recognition, respect for their varied cultures, and support the development of intercultural sensitivity among other members.
