{"id":6102,"date":"2018-11-01T11:41:59","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T15:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/?p=6102"},"modified":"2024-08-30T11:11:49","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T15:11:49","slug":"how-to-improve-communication-with-your-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/how-to-improve-communication-with-your-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Improve Communication with Your Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-6103\" src=\"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-content\/uploads\/adult-3365364_1280-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"imorove communication with your employees\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-content\/uploads\/adult-3365364_1280-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-content\/uploads\/adult-3365364_1280-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-content\/uploads\/adult-3365364_1280-1080x720.jpg 1080w, https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-content\/uploads\/adult-3365364_1280.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/>Here\u2019s a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/3057759\/why-are-so-many-managers-afraid-of-talking-to-their-employees\" rel=\"nofollow\">startling statistic<\/a>: nearly 70% of managers are uncomfortable communicating with their employees. That number comes from a Harris Poll conducted on behalf of Interact, and it indicates that your managers may at times shy away from doing basic management duties, rather than looking for ways to improve communication with your employees.<\/p>\n<p>If uncomfortable managers avoid giving feedback, offering praise, showing vulnerability, providing direction, or communicating in general, they\u2019re not helping the bottom line. Poor employee performances will go unaddressed. Star performers won\u2019t feel recognized. Employees may distrust their managers and not admit mistakes. Efficiency and productivity won\u2019t be a good as they could be, and that\u2019s money down the drain. While some managers might do better in non-management positions, others need only a little training, practice, and experience to overcome their discomfort. Here are a few ways you can develop new managers and improve the performances of existing ones:<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Best Practices Before Promoting Someone to Management<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Identify potential managers based not just on individual performance, but the likelihood of success when put in charge of a team. Management requires a specific skill set \u2014 the ability to lead, to take decisive action, to facilitate compromise, to defuse escalation, and to assess performance with clarity and kindness. When considering whom to promote to management, look especially for those employees who exhibit these skills or show signs that they have the potential to develop them.<\/li>\n<li>If you see employees with the potential for leadership, give them informal leadership duties and see how well or poorly they do. Some discomfort on their part is expected, so don\u2019t rule out someone just because they\u2019re not fully comfortable the moment they\u2019re asked to lead something. That said, if their feelings of discomfort persist as they\u2019re given more informal leadership responsibilities, they\u2019re likely not well suited to a formal leadership position \u2014 at least not yet.<\/li>\n<li>Provide relevant skills training. If you identify an employee with strong potential for leadership in the organization, prepare them to take the role by teaching them the skills they\u2019ll need to be successful. Consider paying for them to attend workshops or conferences. A mentorship program could also be helpful if you have good managers to help onboard new managers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Best Practices with Current Managers<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Provide skills training in needed areas. It\u2019s possible that a manager may be uncomfortable communicating with employees because they\u2019ve never really been taught how to do it. If that\u2019s the case for any of your managers, teach them the communication skills they\u2019re lacking. Coach your managers and give them time to practice their managerial skills. When they become more competent, they\u2019ll feel more confident.<\/li>\n<li>Manage your managers. Like any employee, managers need direction, guidance, and someone to hold them accountable. Do for them what they do for their subordinates.<\/li>\n<li>If a manager\u2019s performance is having negative impacts on the company and guidance and training do not help, you may need to look at putting them on a performance improvement plan. This plan should have clear, attainable goals and a set timeframe for completion. If they improve, great, but if not, then it may be time for the next step.<\/li>\n<li>If the performance improvement plan doesn\u2019t result in improved performance, it may be time to move the employee out of management. Employees who excelled as individual contributors may not do well in management, and that\u2019s okay. They may be happier going back to what they were doing before if that\u2019s an option.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Management isn\u2019t easy, and some of its duties will be uncomfortable no matter what. That said, the best managers don\u2019t try to avoid unpleasant conversations when those conversations are needed. Because they\u2019re generally comfortable with their managerial responsibilities, they\u2019re able to face the more challenging moments with more confidence and conviction. And that helps your bottom line.<\/p>\n<p>Another way to improve communication with employees is to keep them engaged through your payroll and HR management system.\u00a0isolved\u00a0simplifies engagement with useful tools like social engagement, idea sharing, continuous feedback, notifications and alerts, and collaboration across the entire organization.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/hcm-demo-request\/\">Request\u00a0a free quote on our HCM solution today<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Managers may at times shy away from doing basic management duties, rather than looking for ways to improve communication with your employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[266],"tags":[91,16],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-6102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consulting-services","tag-communication","tag-employees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6102"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7350,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102\/revisions\/7350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6102"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=6102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}