A lot of people seem to see making sure everyone in your business knows what’s going on is a mere courtesy. I’m certainly all for pursuing courtesy in the workplace, but ensuring everyone is on the same page is much more than that. If all your employees are on the same page, then this is good for your business as a whole. It gets everyone working in harmony, as opposed to in some chaotic fashion.
You don’t want your business to be in a position where there are employees who don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing, or who they should be reporting to, or what the actual point of the enterprise even is. So here are a few tips that will help prevent crossed wires and missing information in your workplace!
Get more people involved in planning projects
Managers are the people who should take ownership of all the projects your business undertakes, and, for this reason, it’s also assumed that they’ll have to take responsibility should something go wrong. But none of this means that you shouldn’t get other, non-managerial employees involved in the planning process. In fact, it often makes it that much less likely that mistakes will be made during development. After all, these employees are probably the best people to foresee the problems that may occur!
Document everything
If new decisions are made regarding a project or even the direction of the company at large, then you should get it in writing. Not only that, but that writing should be made to as many people in your company as is appropriate. When more employees are aware of changes happening across the business, either within a project or company-wide, then it makes it less likely that people will run into unexpected roadblocks or have to pester upper management (i.e. you!) with important questions.
Improve collaboration techniques
Your projects represent the output of your company, which is precisely what represents the quality of your company. So if there is something fundamentally problematic in the collaboration process here, then all of your work is going to suffer as a result. The way that your projects are managed will determine just how in-sync everyone is. Looking into software that aids with new methods of collaborating online will help everyone stay on the same page. This can help make it clear precisely what tasks need to be achieved, who needs to finish them, and in what ways these tasks all interact and overlap.
Encourage sociability
Social tools in the workplace can help tremendously in this area. Things like instant messaging are seen by some business owners as things that can only ever lead to distraction. But the fact is that better communication tools help people collaborate. This also helps strengthen the bonds between employees. And when these bonds are strong, they will tend to discuss business matters quite intimately as well as more private or fun matters. And this works in your favor – it helps important messages remain in the conversation, which keeps everyone in the loop. Just remember to engage in the social environment yourself, as well! Otherwise, it will make you feel slightly alienated – not a good vibe for an office where everyone should be on the same page!
