Do your direct reports hear your ideas and easily act on them – even if they’re complex? Does your team understand and take the right action on what they decide with each other? Is accountability high and are deadlines met? The answers to those questions are big indicators of how effective the communication is in your workplace.  

Effective communication is about more than just exchanging information. People should be able to: 

• Get their point across clearly 
• Convey the emotion and intentions behind the information 

• Inspire or motivate others  
• Choose words and a tone that does not offend 
• Be grammatically correct 
• Get the information out effectively across teams and the organization 

At CTC Productivity, we coach executives on the nuances of communication and train managers and employees on HOW to make communication work. People need to know how to clearly convey a message and the people receiving the message need to know what to do next. 

Everyone in the organization should know: 

• How to format an email so someone will read it and know what to do next 
• Which communication tools to use that are the least disruptive to someone’s productivity 
• How to standardize their communication so people know what tool to use and where to look for certain information. 

The best ways to have effective communication is through upgraded communication tools. They will help your workplace perform better, have fewer mistakes, be unified, and have higher engagement and morale levels. Workers favor tools that allow them to communicate with speed and ease. And, as the ranks of freelance and remote workers continue to grow, communication tools need to be accessible from laptops and mobile devices anywhere.   

We are a big fans of Microsoft 365 Teams Posts and Slack Messaging.  Their 180degree approach to how we historically have managed our Inbox is a relief to everyone that is drowning in email.   

Also by introducing emoji’s they allow us to communicate more succinctly than we can with the written word.  You can now send out a message and instead of asking for an email response back you ask for a thumbs up or thumbs down as a response.  Rather than drudge through 10 email responses you can quickly glance and look at the 10 emoji’s to get your answer.   

It’s easier than you might think to make the shift to more advanced communication tools. Even though their offerings are more complex, the tools themselves have become more user-friendly by design. If you would like any insights on your transition plan to utilize all that Microsoft 365 has to offer, let us know. We’d be happy to help.