Improving Team Communication in the Workplace: 8 Ways to Get Your Team in Sync

Communication breakdowns have existed since the dawn of the workplace. They can be as minor as confusion about who was supposed to make the next pot of coffee, or they can be significant enough to seriously impact workflow, deadlines, or even team morale. The types of miscommunication that cause project failures can also be compounded when teams are distributed or working remotely, unable to rely on face-to-face interaction.

Improving team communication in the workplace begins with the right task management system. Project communication tools can be invaluable, engaging team members from onboarding to workload management, and ensuring your team can collaborate effectively while sharing important project due dates and updates. Here are some additional ways to help prevent communication breakdowns.

8 Opportunities for Improving Team Communication in the Workplace

Effective communication solutions offer teams integrated tools with calendar and task management, built-in chat, and collaboration opportunities—all located together in one central hub.

Empowering your team and streamlining your tools and functionality will be foundational to improved communication, but the work doesn’t stop there. Consider these 8 strategies for building successful teams:

1. Maximize team communication with modern software. Modern project management platforms boast feature-rich functionality, integrate popular apps and tools, and include built-in solutions such as chat.

2. Establish a single collaborative connection for sharing project details. A central tool for project information improves team workflow. And when that platform offers a variety of methods for team members to communicate according to their preferences, effective communication quickly evolves. 

3. Apply an integrated task management system for:

• Assigning tasks to project team members
• Incorporating due dates, times, and recurring tasks
• Including notes, comments, and document files
• Following tasks to keep in tune with real-time project progress
• Choosing when to receive notifications 
• Muting notifications during busy periods
• Pinpointing important tasks and team members on a sidebar

4. Use project management software that allows customization where team members can personalize workflow views, filters, tags, and notifications. A personalized workspace helps team members feel valued.

5. Choose a team communication platform that offers a simple learning curve. Having to learn a difficult system can discourage team members from being as communicative as possible. The more intuitive a system is, the better it will minimize workflow bottlenecks and interruptions.

6. Select a scalable project management system. The growth of your team should be easily accommodated without having to choose a new platform and pricing should be affordable. 

7. Determine team camaraderie opportunities for improving collaboration. Your company culture drives the team communication you share. When you plan activities to build team rapport like social chat channels, meetings, and celebrations, it will automatically lead to more effective collaboration among team members. Consider icebreakers for team and client wins, team member anniversaries, and birthdays.

8. Communicate regularly on important projects. Project management processes should integrate built-in direct chat messaging tools within the program and not just via a separate app. This way, teams can communicate regularly in one, easily-accessible location. 

It’s also helpful to improve communication for remote workers in dispersed areas. A project tool that is also a remote work tool will facilitate regular communication via direct messages (DMs) and comments throughout project tasks. 

Integrating a Comprehensive Communication Tool

Comprehensive task management tools that foster communication will go a long way in improving team unity in the workplace for your remote team.

Team communication starts with ensuring you have the right communication platform in place for project and task management and making sure team members understand what tools are available from the moment of onboarding. Effective team communication, supported by a great platform, is vital to preventing common communication failures.

With the right solution, teams can worry less about communication breakdowns and focus more on using their talents to achieve powerful team performance and project victories.

Flow provides a collaborative team communication platform with a simple setup so your team can start checking off tasks right away. Sign up for a free trial today.