8 Simple secrets to totally rock your team communication

5 min readJan 7, 2022

Table of Contents

The digital age has produced team messaging capabilities which allow us to communicate with our fellow workers instantly, clearly, and effectively. But despite the capability to effectively communicate with other team members, we often find that messages get lost in translation or are never conveyed to the appropriate parties in the first place. These errors lead to decreased productivity, missed opportunities, and general frustration on the part of companies and clients alike.

If you’re finding that your team communication strategy could use a tune-up, consult the following list of the 8 top secrets which will allow your company to flourish, ensure that your employees are happy, and encourage your clients to stay with you forever.

Maintain an open-door policy

When it comes to effective team communication, one of the biggest mistakes is making yourself unapproachable as the team leader. Your employees should feel comfortable coming to you with any needs they may have. Implementing an open-door policy shows that you truly care about your team’s needs and are willing to listen to them as they work through any struggles they may be experiencing.

Set clear short-term and long-term goals

Goal setting is vital for both personal and professional success. Your team messaging needs to make clear what the short-term goals of projects are as they relate to the long-term goals of the project and company as a whole. Without clear goals in place, it’s easy to lose track of what’s being done and why at any given time.

So make sure, at a minimum, you address all of the goals of a given project during every meeting.

Show appreciation for your team

Your employees work hard, and they will continue to do so if they see that their work is being appreciated. Your team communication should frequently highlight employees and show them how valuable they are to the continued success of your company. Using team messaging for this purpose may, on the surface, seem unnecessary. After all, you need to send out the important information, why waste time on congratulating employees for doing their jobs?

The reason is this: happy workers are effective workers. If your team is showing up every day, excited to get to work, knowing that their efforts are noticed, they will continue to be loyal to the company for many years to come.

Use the best team communication tools

Depending on the specific nature of your company, the specific team messaging tools you implement should be top of the line and address every need you may have. While email, texting, and the standard services can certainly cover a lot of ground in terms of team communication, it’s important to explore other options to make sure you aren’t missing out on an opportunity for improving your team’s efficiency.

Tools like Clariti, an all-in-one team communication and organizational app, allow team messaging to improve in ways that would have been impossible many years ago. The time saved by having everything organized into one intuitive app can help businesses streamline their operations in so many ways. Having to search through five different apps to find a specific client message is a way of the past. With Clariti, team communication will be easier than you ever thought possible.

Set an agenda for every meeting

Whether you’re meeting through video conference or in-person, every meeting should have a purpose and an agenda. You should clearly define, through your team communication channels, what will be covered at the meeting, the start time of the meeting, and how long the meeting will be expected to last.

This team communication secret relates back to goal setting. Just as you should set and review your goals throughout projects, you should set and review goals for meetings. Before you ask your team to drop what they are doing and attend a meeting, make sure you can’t just communicate the important points through your team messaging service.

Don’t be annoying with your team messaging strategy

Obviously, you’re going to need to communicate with your team a lot throughout the time you work together. You and your team both understand this reality. However, this does not mean that your team communication strategy should consist solely of you sending out multiple messages a day that cover the same topic.

Be concise, be efficient, and respect your team members’ time and energy.

Encourage good listening practices

The sad reality of communication in today’s society is that people are much better at talking than they are at listening. This is also true for businesses. Team communication strategies often consist of team leaders talking at length while everyone else is expected to sit back and listen. Sometimes, this is unavoidable. If you have to get a lot of information to your team, you need to do so. But other times, it’s important to let your team talk and contribute to discussion. What do they think about a new development in a project? How do they feel about a recent change in company policy?

Listening to and allowing your team members to communicate their needs to you goes miles for improving trust and satisfaction within a company.

Give regular feedback

Employee anxiety and fear of getting fired often occurs when employees never get any feedback from their managers or leaders. Employees wonder if they aren’t hearing from you because they’re doing a good job and don’t need any feedback, or if you aren’t going to waste time giving feedback because you’re planning on letting them go soon.

Leaving your team in this state of limbo is unfair and brutal to these team members’ psyches. Make sure that you frequently let your team know how their work is being perceived so that they can adjust as necessary. This can be done in the form of a regularly scheduled email report on performance, a formal meeting, or even just a quick chat about something that needs to be addressed. As long as communication is clear, everyone involved will be happy.