The Watercooler

Ready to Manage Your Team More Effectively? Improve by Using These 4 Tips

The rise of the cloud has changed the ways and places we work. Today, many employees can access their work at any time, from anywhere.

But with this flexibility come new management challenges – particularly in the area of communication.

Communication challenges tend to be the root cause of many other management issues (e.g., scheduling, tracking and measuring performance, collaborating, hiring, training, and more). Whether employees work down the hall, across the shop floor, or remotely, here are four ways to manage your team more effectively by improving your communication:

1. Get more from meetings.

Meetings are one of the most common ways to communicate with your team – but they can devolve into a time suck unless you run them effectively. In this post, we share 7 ways to run better virtual meetings. Here are a few more tips to improve meeting communication and results:

  • Plan meetings better. Make sure all attendees have a clear agenda in advance. This will require the person running the meeting to think through what needs to be covered and accomplished.
  • Banish devices. Communication will be more effective if your team’s attention isn’t being divided among the meeting…and incoming emails…and phone notifications.
  • Keep your team on task. If you find that conversations go off on tangents for too long, speak up and bring attendees back to the topic at hand. Use your meeting agenda as your guide.

2. Use email intelligently.

Whether you love email or hate it, it’s an indispensable management tool. But suppose you’re sending dense blocks of text, spamming your team’s inboxes with “Reply All” responses, or leaving out essential pieces of information. In that case, you could be unwittingly undermining the effectiveness of your communication. Here are a few tips for improving your emails:

  • Write a searchable subject line. Include keywords (e.g., client, project, or initiative name) recipients (or you) may need to find the email later.
  • Define a singular purpose. Instead of sending a “stream of consciousness” email, take time to organize your thoughts and distill your message to one goal or one question. If you struggle to do this, it’s a sign that email might not be the right communication medium for the job.
  • Be brief. Be polite, but get to the point quickly.
  • Front-end-load essential information. Share critical information at or near the top.
  • Use active voice. It’s clearer and easier to understand.
  • Use your platform’s formatting tools. Bulleted or numbered lists, bold text, and other formatting options help organize your content visually and improve your message’s clarity.

3. Promote knowledge sharing wherever employees work.

Proactively sharing your team’s knowledge in all directions – up, down, and laterally – simplifies management, helps employees solve problems quicker, fuels innovation, and builds your culture. In this post, we share 7 tips for facilitating knowledge transfer regardless of where your team works.

4. Leverage communication and collaboration tools effectively.

When employees are physically separated, robust software is essential for working together. Tools like Skype, Highfive, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and more allow people to see and hear one another in real-time. Many platforms also include essential screensharing capabilities, and still, others are ideal for managing communication for complex projects.

It’s important to understand your needs, choose the right platform for the job and train everyone on the software, to maximize the value of these tools. This post explains 4 types of remote work tools that improve team communication, collaboration, and management to get you started.

Related posts:

Sharing Knowledge in a Virtual World

Run Better Virtual Meetings

4 Tools You Can Provide Remote Employees

PrideStaff is here to help.

Whether your team is on-site, remote, or hybrid, our national staffing firm is here to help you staff and manage your workforce more effectively.

What can we help you achieve? Contact your local PrideStaff office today to start a conversation.