Interdepartmental Communication is just as crucial to the success of your recruiters as your company’s reputation is to your success; if your employees are comfortable communicating with colleagues across departments, you’ll soon be maximising productivity across the board.
What do we mean by interdepartmental communication?
In most organisations, it’s customary for employees to have some communication with colleagues in other departments but it can be rare for Heads of Departments to know everyone in the business – especially if you’re in a large company. However, there are many downsides to this.
Essentially, it’s crucial employees have contact with colleagues from all levels within the organisation and vice versa. This mutual knowledge can be particularly valuable when it comes to performance as employees who understand your expectations are more likely to meet them – and maybe even exceed them.
Benefits of Interdepartmental Communication in Recruitment
Flexibility is a highly valued trait within the organisation, leading to greater productivity and less absenteeism. If employees have the opportunity to learn from one another’s strengths and talents, they’re going to look for ways to better contribute to the team’s success.
As a result, you’ll find that, after a while, your entire team will become more productive and flexible. Not to mention, if there’s a massive performance slump, the team will be able to identify the problem quickly and find a way to improve, rather than sitting on their hands and hoping for the best.
But what are some other benefits we hear you ask?
Improved Recruiter Productivity
By helping your employees to know what everyone else is doing and making sure they’re communicating, you’re helping to streamline recruitment activities. If new employees have the benefit of learning from a colleague’s experience, they’re more likely to get on with the job – as well as be more productive.
Overall, encouraging your employees to communicate with one another leads to a happier workforce, a faster organisation, and a more creative environment.
Provides Value to Clients
Having a more responsive and efficient team can help achieve better results for your organisation and improve communications within your company which ultimately has knock-on benefits for your clients.
The hard work you put into encouraging communication will be repaid by their willingness to offer their own solutions rather than relying solely on you to solve their problems.
Promotes a Positive Culture
One of the best things you can do for your company is to ensure that your employees are happy and feel valued. You’ll soon find that they’ll work harder and more efficiently for you – not just because they like you, but because they know how much you value their efforts.
So do your employees a favour: encourage them to communicate with colleagues from other departments and help them feel appreciated. In turn, they’ll work harder and more efficiently for you – resulting in an increased revenue stream but more importantly, happy employees.
Ways to Promote Interdepartmental Communication at Your Company
You may be wondering how exactly you can promote interdepartmental communication; luckily for you, it’s not too hard and can be pretty fun!
Company Socials
Find a way to engage your employees in company activities. Whether you set up company socials or host an internal ‘get-together’, ensure that the company is involved, both on and off the premises.
If you go down the road of social media, why not have a company group chat and encourage team members to bond, praise one another, and be creative?
Employee Feedback
Every employee has the potential to offer feedback on a company’s initiatives – provided that it’s constructive and effective. By being transparent with your employees, you can cultivate trust and offer both positive and negative feedback in a manner that humanises management and aligns your goals.
What problems could a lack of interdepartmental communication create for your business?
A lack of communication is one of the most common causes of employee dissatisfaction but it doesn’t just affect individuals – it can cause difficulties for companies as a whole. For example, a lack of communication within your business can cause decision delays, waste, overheads, and missed opportunities.
What happens when we don’t communicate well enough with others?
Because a lack of communication can disrupt the workflow and flow of an organisation, it’s something that your business should be mindful of – both in how it communicates with employees and operates internally.
Some of the more obvious problems that stem from a lack of interdepartmental communication include:
1. Lack of Collaboration
Colleagues who don’t get along with their team members or don’t know them are less likely to contribute during meetings. In cases like this, you may miss out on new and innovative solutions to problems and have only a handful of perspectives on concerns as opposed to several.
2. Errors and Mistakes
Without constant communication and exchange of information, mistakes will happen more frequently and directly impact business. Prioritise keeping colleagues informed to ensure you mitigate the risks surrounding misinformation or lack of knowledge.
Another thing to remember is that human errors happen, it’s why there’s an entire term coined for it. Instead of promoting a culture where mistakes are feared, frame them as a learning experience for your employees to develop. This error management approach works to open the doors for collaborative troubleshooting and enables your team(s) to share knowledge at every turn.
3. Inefficiency
Poor communication can be another reason you have difficulty achieving efficiency and productivity across your business. If employees don’t have channels to discuss and explore their productivity in relation to everyone else, there is no sense of urgency, and complacency is more likely.
4. Lack of Community
Working alone or in small groups tends to create a bit of a clique, which can be awkward and unproductive to the larger team. Promoting socialising and team building is a great way to encourage employees to work well together.
Managing Internal Conflicts
Internal conflict is inevitable and can cause as much trouble for your employees as it does your business.
It can be good to have employees who can speak up for themselves when their opinions differ from those of their direct managers. However, if your employees feel uncomfortable bringing issues forward with their peers, this conflict can affect their work negatively.
When everyone feels uncomfortable raising an issue, no one does.
For this reason, encouraging interdepartmental communication is so important – it ensures that everyone understands what everyone else is doing and enables everyone to contribute better to the team.
Improving communication at your workplace
Interdepartmental communication is beneficial to your company in all areas. If you encourage communication and working together across your organisation, you’ll find that your company is more efficient, that your employees are happier, and that the business is more profitable.
So what are you waiting for?
Open those lines of communication further and find out how you could be maximising productivity!
TL;DR Key Takeaways
- Interdepartmental communication is essential for maximising productivity across the board as it helps employees understand expectations and work towards meeting them.
- Improved communication leads to a more flexible, productive, and creative work environment, reducing absenteeism, and providing value to clients.
- Promoting interdepartmental communication is easy and fun and can be done through social events, company group chats, and employee feedback.
- Lack of interdepartmental communication can cause employee dissatisfaction, decision delays, waste, overheads, missed opportunities, lack of collaboration, errors and mistakes, and inefficiency.
- Mistakes should be framed as a learning experience to develop employees and open doors for collaborative troubleshooting and knowledge sharing.