“A couple visits a counsellor to discuss why their relationship is falling apart. Over a few sessions, the counsellor realizes that both individuals in this relationship cannot effectively communicate their needs to each other. There is a huge communication gap leading to rifts and discontentment in the relationship.”
Now, you might think how does this scenario relate to small businesses, their owners, and their employees?
Well, you might not have a personal relationship with your employees (definitely advice against it!), but you do have a professional relationship with them.
The key word is “relationship”.
And from the above scenario, we know that to make any relationship work, you need to communicate with the other party effectively and let them know your needs and expectations.
Thus, a business coach Australia always suggests small business owners strengthen their communication with their team and external stakeholders. No matter what type of methodology you use to get your projects done or product designed, whether Waterfall or Agile, communication is a key element to get the desired results.
And communication is part of each department whether it is human resources, marketing, sales, and more. Here’s why.
Reason#1: Getting Your Team on Board with Your Goals and Strategies
You can have numerous business goals and strategies to achieve them. But what is their use if it’s all in your head? Without your team, achieving these goals is nearly impossible. Hence, you need to communicate these business goals and strategies to the team and get their buy-in.
Once you have their buy-in, it will be much easier to lay down your goals, split them into achievable chunks, and do the work to achieve them successfully.
Reason#2: Retain Your Employees Effectively
Do you know that it can cost you 2.5 times the annual salary of an existing employee to hire a new employee? And when you are a small business owner, you certainly can’t afford to spend so much money time and again.
One of the main reasons why employees tend to leave their jobs is a lack of feeling valued and respected for their work and effort. Most business owners or senior management never communicate their appreciation to their team and employees, leading to dissatisfaction.
To be a good leader, communication is critical to retaining your employees effectively.
Reason#3: Increase Your Productivity
Do you know that employee productivity increases by 20-25% when they feel valued and communicated with?
Yes, that’s right! Connecting with the reason above, making your team feel valued and respected, and communicating your appreciation for their efforts can go a long way. Valued teams are more willing to come up with strategic solutions, communicate better with the clients and bring results.
Reason#4: Reduce Mistakes and Errors
Business consulting Sydney emphasizes effective communication to help small business owners and their teams reduce mistakes and errors.
If you don’t communicate what you want from the team or how they should approach something, they might do it wrong or approach it wrongly resulting in mistakes and errors. Hence, communicating with the team is critical for reducing mistakes, errors and saving time in the long run.
Reason#5: Risk management
Every business will face some kind of risks and issues over time. Whether it’s an internal or external risk, communicating the same and creating mitigation plans will greatly help manage risks over time.
Communication will also help your team focus less on finding new communication channels and focus more on finding strategic solutions and helping clients.
Reason#6: Create Better Communication Channels
Communication between you and your employees will improve only when you create better communication channels. Despite having an intranet structure to communicate, several employees prefer using external communication channels for work-related tasks.
Moreover, with an increase inwork-from-home culture, improving communication gaps is critical. All of this is possible only when you create better communication channels for your team which are scalable effectively.
Reason#7: Reduce Emails
Did you know 62% of work-related emails are not important at all? Boring your team to death with tons of emails is not ideal.
It has been observed that 61% of emails are ignored by employees. This means most employees may unknowingly ignore critical information or knowledge required to bring results. As a small business owner who might be just starting or wants to change their communication style, the first step you must take is to reduce emails.
Wrapping it Up
As you can see, communication is essential for your business. Whether it is retaining employees or risk management, effective communication is important and must be practiced.
Although we talked a lot about internal communication, external communication with your clients and other stakeholders is important too. If you want to improve your internal and external communication for your small business, get in touch with us at Keystone Executive Coaching.
We provide professional, experienced, and certified business coaching in Australia to small business owners. We have structured coaching programs for our clients to improve their productivity and business growth.
Contact us now to find out more.
