Our Top 3 Winning Team Communication Ideas

One of the most important things we found when running a team was to make them feel part of something bigger than just themselves.  People want to feel part of something and your staff are no different.   Positive communication also helps build respect, trust and rapport amongst your team for you and each other.  All this leads to a happier team and better retention in the long term making you happier and more profitable and productive.

#1 Weekly Team Email - Every week on a Friday for over 10 years I spent about 30-60 minutes writing an email to the team updating them on what the team and individuals had been up to during the week. The vibe was always meant to be positive with a bit of humor thrown in, though at times some more serious topics were covered.  In the last few years of the business we had a team of 27 staff, but even when we were under 10 staff this email worked really well.   The sorts of things we’d cover included:

• Birthdays and work anniversaries, births and staff on holidays

• Individual achievements and anything great that a team member had done i.e. received an outstanding testimonial, helped an old lady who had collapsed across the road etc., personal bests,

• Team achievements including reaching a target or being on track to meet targets

• Quarterly Awards recap

• Market information we felt it was important team were aware of 

• Planning that Elaine and I had been doing for the business and interesting or important meetings we’d had

• An idea that a team member had come up with that we wanted to implement

• Upcoming staff or group events or special days such as Awards Nights, National Administrator Day, etc

• Thank you to people or teams within the business that had gone above and beyond.

• A focus or thought for the week

#2 WhatsApp Groups - It became apparent in our business that if you wanted to get a quick message or update to the team, a text message was the best way to do this. We found using the normal texting app that people would get forgotten off the message etc.  So, the best option we found was WhatsApp.  Nearly everyone already used it, the business could control the group and who was invited in and then when staff left we could exit them from the group too.   We also had different groups for different departments in addition to our Whole Team Group.  This really improved our day to day communication as emails were often not able to be checked so regularly if staff were out and about on the road etc.

#3 Goals, Targets and Progress Board - Communicating what it is you’re wanting to achieve is a really important part of the business puzzle and helps keep staff and teams on track.  As technology changed we changed the way we did this in the office,  but I still think the best method that the team related to the most was a large whiteboard we had.  It  was manual and at times a bit messy - but the team loved it.  There were parts of the whiteboard the team was allowed to update (sales), but management did the final figures and checked them.  So, it was a collaborative approach and staff could see where they individually and the team stood in terms of progress for the month and year v’s targets.  It also had their PB’s on.  The more visual and easily accessible it is the better.  We also used a spreadsheet which duplicated the whiteboard - parts of this were then screenshot and shared with the team in the weekly email. Having this so accessible was great for us too as it was a great reminder to congratulate staff for great achievements, sales etc.Communicating what it is you’re wanting to achieve is a really important part of the business puzzle and helps keep staff and teams on track.  As technology changed we changed the way we did this in the office,  but I still think the best method that the team related to the most was a large whiteboard we had.  It  was manual and at times a bit messy - but the team loved it.  There were parts of the whiteboard the team was allowed to update (sales), but management did the final figures and checked them.  So, it was a collaborative approach and staff could see where they individually and the team stood in terms of progress for the month and year v’s targets.  It also had their PB’s on.  The more visual and easily accessible it is the better.  We also used a spreadsheet which duplicated the whiteboard - parts of this were then screenshot and shared with the team in the weekly email. Having this so accessible was great for us too as it was a great reminder to congratulate staff for great achievements, sales etc.