Talking with your team should feel like a no-brainer because you’re used to talking with them. But sometimes it feels awkward or sticky, even more so when you’re not used to managing other people. You’re the one setting expectations for how you’d like things done, how you want them to communicate with clients, making sure that your expectations for their role is clear, and more. Strong, clear, and consistent team communication is a huge part of running a successful team. If you’re not on the same page, feeling frustrated or even lost when communicating with your team then it’s time you did a review of how you’re actually handling your team communication.

Let’s dive into the 5 ways for improving team communication.

Quick side note before we dive in. When I say “team” I am referring largely to contractors rather than employees. There are terms/laws around the difference between contractors and employees so make sure you’re following any of those!

How to improve team communication

01 | Review the methods used to communicate with your team

Before we get into how you’re going to be improving team communication, look at your current communication set up.

When noticing communication with your team isn’t going so great, have you looked first at how you’re communicating with them?

Look at how you communicate with your team. Are they written, via calls, video, or even done audibly like a voice message?

It may seem like going with how you communicate best is the best option, it may be time to get your team’s input.

I’m not saying to open the flood gates and communicate only the way your team wants, more to be mindful of it. If you love communicating via video, but your team struggles because they like things written, consider pairing video with a transcript. That way you can continue your preferred style of communication, but you can also work with theirs.

Real life example: I have a client who loves to use Voxer because she can send me a voice message while she’s on-the-go. I’m not always in a place to listen to a voice message, so I upgraded my Voxer account so I can grab the transcription. This has allowed her to continue her preferred method of communication and I get to decide if I want to listen or read her message.

02 | Consolidate the platforms used for team communication

There’s a million and one ways to communicate with your team, and using all of them isn’t helping anyone.

The absolute top tip I’ll ever give for improving team communication is to scale down how many places you communicate with your team.

If you’re using Slack, emails, Asana/ClickUp, Google Docs, Voxer/WhatsApp, social media, and more to talk, it’s time to trim that list wayyy down. If you’re getting confused with where you should be talking with your team, imagine how much more confused your team probably is. Especially if you keep bopping between all of them in the same day for the same conversation. Yikes.

Look at the overall team and decide what your primary platform is, for most of us that’s Slack because of the functionality it offers. From there, decide if there are other platforms you’ll use, when and how you’ll use them. Then communicate that to your team and stick with it.

Curious to see some real examples of what platforms I use with my clients and why we use them? Come take a look below:

Client #1 — Voxer, Asana, and Email

• Voxer is how she communicates with me on a daily/immediate basis
• Asana is how she assigns tasks and occasionally drops questions inside of tasks (but will also Vox me that she did for confirmation)
• Email is only used if a client emailed her and she needs to loop me in or have me handle something for them (ie. proposals, scheduling, etc.)

Client #2 — Slack and Asana

• Slack is our primary method of communication and our entire team is there
• Asana is where tasks are assigned and things may be communicated inside tasks but we send a Slack message to confirm updates or conversations that happened in Asana

Client #3 — Email, Asana, and Voxer

• Email is the main way we communicate, anytime we need to send a proposal, scheduler, client docs, etc. my client sends an email with the request (typically forwarded from her conversation with the client for contents)
• Asana is the second way we communicate, primarily done through assigning tasks and occasionally with comments as that’s how the rest of our team communicates with each other
• Voxer is rarely used and done more so for immediate things (like 2FA access) or for longer conversations to talk out a quick process change

03 | Update how often do you communicate with your team

If you’re feeling out of touch with your team, then you may need to up the frequency. To improve team communication though, you don’t have to be constantly talking to stay in touch and feel like you’re up-to-speed.

A few simple things you can do to encourage more frequent communication:

1. Set up better channels for communication — for example, set up a Slack channel per client
2. Request more frequent check-ins — need an update at certain points in a task or project? Add that to the task, once your team hits a certain point in what they’re working on, ask them to send an update
3. Use Zapier to automate check-ins — keep reading for the automation we use to have our whole team check-in each week

Or are you the opposite and feel like you’re talking too much?

Some of my clients used to hold weekly all-team meetings but we realized that because we were already talking to each other daily in Slack, that call wasn’t necessary. So we moved it from a Zoom call to a Slack channel using a Zapier automation to send a weekly check-in message we all respond to.

Curious how often I actually talk with my clients and their teams?

Real life example with Client #1: I do a monthly 1:1 Zoom call with my client for big picture conversations. We also do quarterly all-team Zoom calls to encourage connection and loop everyone in for the quarter and any big changes happening. Otherwise, we’re talking daily with each other in Slack and Asana.

Real life example with Client #2: I do a bi-weekly 1:1 Zoom call to catch up on client projects, upcoming schedules, and other operations/workflow updates. I don’t join any all-team calls but if we do need one, we tend to do them in Voxer. Otherwise, I’m primarily talking with my client in Voxer on an almost daily basis.

04 | What do you do if your team uses the wrong platform or channel for communication

If you haven’t set up a clear communication system with your team before, it’s going to take some time to get used to it.

When you first make the switch, when possible, have an all-team meeting so you can go through the new system. Walking through the new system live will allow you to show your team how you want them to communicate, where specifically they’ll communicate, as well as allow them to ask questions live and get on the same page.

Once you’ve gotten the communication system down, write it out as an SOP (standard operating procedure) and put it somewhere public that your team can access it. Include the different platforms that you’ll use for communication, when they’re to use that platform, and if there’s anything specific to note about it. 

For example, if you use Slack for communication, do you want them to always tag the person they’re talking with in every message so it’s (1) clear who they’re talking to (2) it notifies them, allowing for less chance to miss the message.

After you’ve told them how you want to communicate, created a home for that information, it’s time to get consistent with it. As the business owner, it’s your job to ensure that you’re enforcing the procedures that you want your team to follow. If your team is having a hard time with it, connect with them directly to understand what the trouble is, why it’s a problem, and see if any adjustments need to be made. It does take time to adjust to a new way of communicating especially if you aren’t your team members only client.

05 | What do you do if… your team struggles with who to communicate with

If your team is good on communicating, but they keep connecting with the wrong person (ie. you), there’s a few things you can do.

The first thing is to make sure your SOPs and tasks are clear. If you’re asking your team to communicate at certain points in a task or project about something, make sure you clearly note who they need to connect with. In the project or even Slack (as a pinned message or in the Canvas) you can denote who is handling what so they can direct themselves to who to ask/communicate with.

The second is to gently tag or direct them to the right person. For example, if they keep tagging you in Slack when it should be someone else, instead of responding or answering them, you can simply say “@name can you respond to this” that way you’re not spending more time handling the response and can just redirect them to the right person.

Why improving team communication is so important

It shouldn’t be hard to understand why having strong, clear, and consistent team communication is so important. But lemme break it down a little because the better communication you have with your team:

• The longer your team retention rate is
• The stronger your client experience is (especially if they’re the ones handling that)
• The less quality control you do
• The less meetings you have (can I get an amen)
• The more profitable your projects are especially with hourly team members
• The more efficient your projects get

Improving team communication is a skill you have to learn and continually work at as it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Simple tweaks in how you communicate with your team will go a long way. You don’t have to spend hours on calls every week to stay in touch with your team. You also don’t have to communicate only in one platform to keep communication clear. There’s a lot of ways you can communicate with your team, the key is to figuring out what works for you and who you’ve hired. Sometimes the best way to find out what’s going to work is to talk to your team about it. 

Looking for outside support to get your team communication in shape? Book an Implementensive® and we can get it dialed in in 90-minutes!