Relying solely on physical or technical tools is not enough to maintain effective communication with your remote teams; it’s essential to employ solid communication strategies.
These strategies will not only foster more effective collaboration but also ensure a constant flow of information among different teams.
Effective communication with your remote teams becomes more challenging when team members are in different locations. Therefore, it’s crucial not to rely solely on physical tools to enhance communication.
Furthermore, we must cultivate interpersonal skills such as active listening and empathy. These skills are critical for strengthening relationships and ensuring effective communication among different teams.
To improve communication, the company can choose appropriate digital tools.
When the company works with remote teams, it’s important to have communication and collaboration tools designed for this purpose, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Workspace, Trello, etc., which we’ve already seen in other posts.
Here are some of these skills:
- Scheduling regular meetings: To maintain effective communication with the team, it’s crucial to plan regular meetings where clarity and sincerity are promoted, and all topics are presented objectively. These meetings contribute to problem-solving and are used to share project progress.
- Being clear when expressing messages: Be concise, avoid redundant words, but provide all the context, set objectives, and ask for feedback to confirm that the message has been fully understood.
- It’s not all about work: Informal meetings help strengthen bonds among collaborators. Therefore, planning a video call or an event where work isn’t discussed contributes to improving communication.
- Active listening: How important listening is! In effective communication, attentively listening to what the other person is saying is crucial. We must pay attention to others’ opinions and seek ways to understand what they are trying to convey.
- Not everyone communicates the same way: Some people prefer conciseness, while others want all the details. Adapting to each communication style is important.
- Build instead of destroy: Address conflicts constructively, allowing all involved parties to express their viewpoints, seeking solutions rather than assigning blame.
- Provide feedback and give recognition: If we’re not clear that our actions are heading in the right direction, we’ll continue down the same path. This is why providing constant feedback to our team helps guide them to improve their activities However, be mindful that feedback should be personal, provided on an individual basis, especially when it comes to correcting someone’s actions. In contrast, recognitions should be done publicly, empowering and maintaining the commitment of each member of the organization.
In conclusion…
The implementation of effective communication has been a constant challenge in the business environment, especially when dealing with remote teams. Human Resources departments have been working on reinforcing this crucial aspect for organizations. However, the responsibility does not solely fall on them.
Leaders play a fundamental role in implementing effective communication and striving to the fullest to maintain cohesion among teams.
This topic is so relevant for companies that, when they recognize its significance, they will make an effort to implement a culture of open communication where everyone feels secure expressing themselves.
It is necessary to train managers who have deficiencies in soft skills. Within those skills, we can see: empathy, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence management, delegation skills, and motivating their team.
In these times, it is important to have these capabilities, as people who decide to leave a job do not do so because of the company itself, but because of those they have as supervisors or group leaders.
Maintaining effective communication and active listening with all members of each team ensures that they feel part of the company. Similarly, it helps them feel motivated to maintain a positive attitude towards their work commitments, regardless of their location.
Publicado originalmente el 24 de August de 2023, modificado 28 de August de 2023
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