Relationships between employer and staff members are the foundation for creating a microclimate in any organisation. Many CEOs don’t learn the principles of effective employee communication and believe they naturally have these skills. Let's not forget that we live in ever-changing and dynamic times. The modern job market is full of confident and competitive representatives from various fields. In the past, employees were expected to silently endure unprovoked aggression, bias, penalties and reprimands. Nowadays, even workers who are not the most qualified carry themselves with respect and change jobs impulsively without fear of being unwanted in the job market. Many experienced employers know how hard it is to find qualified, honest, and loyal employees. That's why fine-tuned organisational communication plays a crucial role in any company. To make a business run smoothly, both employees and employers need to compromise and weigh every spoken and heard word while maintaining a level of courtesy. Let’s try to determine the proper ways of communicating with staff members and the measures that should be put in place to make your team the most effective workforce you've ever managed.
Most commonly utilised internal communication techniques
Being the head of a company is not the easiest job. Financial liability and employees themselves fall under your responsibility. A top company manager must be wise, flexible, constantly weigh their decisions and know the proper ways of delegating power. There are numerous team management seminars, webinars, and training sessions where you can get the required knowledge and necessary skills. Any self-respecting employer must attend at least one of these seminars to stay current with the latest trends in hiring and managing staff. You should also work on developing your own style of employee management.
Typically, there are several internal communication techniques discussed during various professional training seminars:
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Authoritarian. All important decisions are made solely by the employer. They impose strict systemic control over the execution of all tasks. Under this management, all initiatives and individuality are severely suppressed.
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Anarchistic. The employer tries to stay out of the company's daily operations and employee work as much as possible, allowing things to run wild while abandoning all responsibility for results.
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Democratic. An employer aims to increase the role of employees in decision-making, giving them a chance to voice their opinions and make decisions of secondary importance on their own. Furthermore, all new solutions, collective goals, and company objectives are regularly discussed, with each worker having the right to vote.
Additionally, employers can use joint creativity in employee management. The core of this style lies in achieving positive results, setting goals and tasks through the combined efforts of employees and the employer.
Each of these methods is good in its own way and appropriate under certain circumstances. The authoritarian approach yields some decent results due to constant control but can only be used in critical situations. The democratic method can be implemented when the company leader is highly intelligent and skilled in management. Without this, it is practically impossible to get good results from the democratic internal communication technique.
An experienced company owner must have a certain degree of foresight. Firstly, they have to analyse the behaviour and character traits of all team members, determine the potential of all employees, and foresee the possibility of various situations emerging. All these factors must be considered when looking for the right style of organisational communication.
Feedback is a valuable skill in communicating with employees
The ability to set up proper feedback is considered one of the most important communication skills necessary for effective employee communication among company leads for quite some time. Even young and experienced CEOs must be able to talk to employees, sort out inaccuracies, praise or criticise constructively, properly delegate authority, and give advice on various tasks. Communicating with staff members should be no problem for a CEO. A company head must be able to contact any workers, even the most unruly and capricious ones, as proper feedback is the cornerstone of mutually beneficial communication. Initially, it seems that calling in a worker to discuss issues is the easiest thing to do. It turns out it's not easy at all. The majority of psychological and sociological research conducted by hundreds of companies around the world has shown that feedback is the most problematic part of employee-employer relationships. Many workers are stressed during poorly handled face-to-face conversations with their superiors and due to the absence of a well-established feedback process. They are too scared to speak their minds, feel underappreciated, worthless, and humiliated. A non-existent or poorly set-up feedback system disorients workers in the organisation and decreases their desire to strive for the common goal. A talented and wise CEO must understand that feedback is a good tool that allows them to:
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Correct an employee’s behaviour in the team
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Guide an employee towards growth and development in a certain department
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Express gratitude and highlight the importance of an employee
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Motivate workers towards new achievements
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Determine the reason for an employee’s misbehaviour
Now let's look at some of the internal communication techniques that will help you set up a proper feedback system. By following these, you will be able to communicate easily with your employees.
Rule N1: Be precise with goals
Before meeting with an employee, understand what goal you are pursuing and write it down on a piece of paper. Ask yourself: “What do I want to achieve during this meeting?” You will make the conversation much easier this way.
Rule N2: Have a time and a place for talks
It is vital that you discuss only recent events when speaking to the worker. The best practice is to contact an employee and discuss an event that recently happened to them. There is no point in bringing up the time they were late for work 3 years ago if they have been coming in late over the past week. When you notice that some employees experience problems with the project yesterday or a couple of days ago, it's time to discuss this issue and offer some advice.
Rule N3: Involve employees in discussions
All employees across all companies wish to feel needed, important, and heard. Let your employees speak their minds. First, it's a good way to foster worker independence and responsibility for decisions made during the discussion. Second, by denying staff the right to voice their opinion, you may deny yourself useful information and even end up in an awkward position. You can also learn of the true potential a particular employee has, get a couple of good ideas, and even gain new experience.
Rule N4: Praise in public, criticise in private
This is a very important rule! There are plenty of reasons to do so. Public critique humiliated and deeply demotivates employees. Proper communication cannot occur if the head of the company allows themselves to publicly criticise employees with a touch of mockery. Understand that if you do this to some employees, you'll do it to others, which will instantly put you on their bad side. Praise should be given sincerely, whether publicly or privately.
Rule N5: Discuss events and actions
It’s not acceptable to get personal and put labels on people under any circumstances. When talking to employees, both privately and collectively, only discuss events and actions, not the workers. It’s really easy to label or offend people, but it may take months or years to re-establish team communication.
The way you communicate with your employees and which communication style you employ entirely depends on you. You can ignore our advice and fail to establish feedback with workers, but your career will be very short-lived that way. As a CEO you should understand one simple thing: Both you and your employees must focus on achieving common goals and tasks, while also making the team atmosphere as pleasant as possible. Good luck, dear employers. Don’t give up on improving your skills and you will achieve everything!
