What Is the Best Way to Communicate Information to Employees?

Effective communication with employees is an essential function of every company. After all, if there’s a lack of communication between managers and employees, you risk upsetting employees, disrupting workflows, and even losing business. As new ways of contacting employees arise, such as scheduling texts to employees, many business leaders wonder whether these methods work and how well. We are here to provide some insight into what good communication looks like and what methods work best. Plus, we’ll go into more detail about the best text messaging service for business. Let’s jump in.

What Is the Most Effective Way to Communicate With Employees?

As you provide team members with important information, keep in mind these 6 tips to communicate effectively with your team:

• Be honest. Your employees should be able to trust you. It allows for a better work environment overall and more innovation. In fact, according to a Harvard Business Publishing article, those who work in high-trust businesses have 106% more energy at work, are 50% more productive, and experience 40% less burnout.
• Provide updates to employees regularly. This idea relates closely to being honest because without regular updates, your employees may start to feel that you’re hiding something from them. Giving employees new information as it arises also allows them to complete their work to the best of their ability. For example, if someone has a shift schedule change, you need to let the employee know so that they can show up on time.
• Allow for two-way communication. Communication works best when it goes two ways. You give employees the information they need, and they can provide you with feedback or questions based on that information. It builds relationships and trust between employees and team leaders.
• Understand your employees. Empathize with how they’re feeling and what stressors they face. Know what their role is in the company. Figure out what goals they have and where they need more help. All these points will guide you in what information to give and actions to take to help your employees. It will also inform how best to communicate with them.
• Consider which methods work best for each situation. As we mentioned in the previous point, understanding your employees plays a big part in this. Not all communication methods are created equal (we’ll talk more about those in a bit). What works well for an office employee may not be as effective for non-desk employees.
• Determine the best time to give information. You may have employees who work different shifts or have assigned breaks at different times. Make sure to send important updates or reminders when you know that your staff will see it without distraction or inconvenience. Yourco’s scheduled text message option allows you to type up text messages when it’s convenient for you and send them at a set time when it’s best for employees.

What Methods Can Be Used to Communicate With Staff?

• In-person communication. This type may be as formal as having a scheduled meeting or as informal as bringing something up in passing on a job site. While in-person communication works great to build relationships and to see body language, it’s not effective for communication in remote teams or for team members who work in the field or on the floor. It’s also hard to pass on urgent information, such as an unexpected schedule change, in-person.
• Emails. Many companies still use email as their primary form of communication. It can be a quick way to communicate information, and you can send attachments as needed. You can even schedule emails to send at a specific time. However, only 20% of all emails get read. If you’re trying to share important information with your employees, chances are that they’ll miss that information. It’s even worse for non-desk employees because they may not have the technology readily available to check their emails consistently. Some non-desk employees may not even have a work email address.
• Phone calls. This method can work well if you have a quick question or update and only have to let a few people know. However, it gets more complicated when you have to update a large group of people on something. Think of all the time you’d have to spend dialing different numbers. What’s more, phone calls aren’t ideal for employees who work the night shift. Either you have to stay up late to make the call, or you have to call your employees while they are at home.
• Video calls. Video calls have an advantage over phone calls in that more people can join a video call at once. With that said, employees would not only have to download an app to hop on a video call, but they’d also need access to the internet or use data. This could be annoying for some non-desk employees and even impossible for others who may not have the technology for it.
• Messaging apps. Messaging apps give employees the ability to read messages on their own time while phone and video calls don’t. However, messaging apps like WhatsApp and GroupMe require an app download and internet or data. Plus, you can’t schedule a time to send messages on these platforms, so you run the risk of employees missing information until it’s too late.
• SMS text messages. Text messages stand apart from the rest of these forms of communication because 98% of texts get read. Nowadays, most people have cell phones, so texts can be an easier, more effective way to send information to both desk and non-desk employees. If you’re concerned about privacy or distraction issues with text messages, there’s no need to worry. Yourco’s platform allows you to send texts to a group, but the group can’t see responses or phone numbers for their coworkers. Plus, Yourco allows you to schedule when text messages are sent, so you can pick the best time to send a reminder or an update. It will even let you send attachments or create groups so that everyone gets all the information they need when they need it.

The Best Way to Share Information With Employees? Use Yourco!

SMS text messages are the easiest way to make sure your non-desk employees get the information they need. Yourco makes it even easier and better for business operations. Whether you need to send messages five minutes from now or a year from now, we have you covered with our scheduled text message capabilities. Send messages and attachments that your employees can respond to with their own messages and attachments. Plus, if you have any employee who leaves the company, future scheduled messages to or from them will automatically be deleted.

To learn more about how effective your communication can be with Yourco, try for free today and contact us for demo.