It’s a tricky one. Keeping your team up to date with business operations is crucial. It ensures they remain engaged and can make informed decisions. But, too much communication can cripple organisations. Think email overload, meeting upon meeting…it gets too much.

What’s the solution? Well don’t stress, as always we have put together some handy tips so you can make the most of you and your teams time.

3 Quick Tips to ensure effective communication with your team:

1. Hold critical meetings only

We’ve all been there – don’t fall into the trap of having meetings about meetings about meetings. It wastes everyone’s time and decreases morale. Not to mention, office coffee consumption goes through the roof.

2. Use messaging tools

Messaging tools such as Slack can save time when communicating with the team (note: when used properly!). They also help keep employees out of their inbox. Naturally though, these tools also need some policing around appropriate use so they don’t become time wasters in themselves!

Disclaimer – set a daily /giphy limit for your employees, or better yet – don’t teach them how to send them. Yes they’re funny, but time spent crafting the perfect giphy response is not always time well spent.

3. Have rules around emails

Is that email to Tim sitting next to you necessary? In some cases yes, it absolutely is so – but a lot of the time a quick conversation might be able to save 10 emails. Here’s some ideas to help determine whether an email is the best way to communicate:

• If your emails are project or task status updates, can you use a system to house the updates instead?
• For team correspondence, can you organise a 10 minute morning catch up (not a meeting!) each day, rather than send 20 emails?

Regardless of the communication process you wish to follow in your business, be sure to set clear expectations with the team. Having standards for communicating creates a great team dynamic and ensures efficiency.