Roadblock to Success

Clients frequently call us with concerns about waning productivity, diminishing morale and ever-increasing turnover. When we conduct surveys and focus groups with employees, we often discover that the real culprit is poor cross-departmental communication and lack of teamwork. Specific concerns we commonly hear include:

• The workload has been heavy and staffing is lean
• Teams are pressed to meet their own deadlines and have little time to focus on requests coming from outside their department
• In some cases, incentive plan are pitting departments against each other rather than rewarding collective efforts throughout the organization
• Different teams within the organization have different goals
• Departments are often physically separated from each other making frequent communication less likely
• Some members of the management team are less accountable for getting cross-functional information they receive at management meetings to their employees

If you are experiencing any of these warning signs of declining productivity or cross-departmental communication, follow the five tactics listed below to enhance communication and get everyone in your organization working together toward the same desired outcome.

1. Spell out your organization’s top three strategic communication goals. Communicate your goals to all employees. Clarify your expectations and commitment to effective communication and cross-departmental teamwork.
2. Gain insights regarding communication challenges. Conduct an Employee Opinion Survey or Organizational Assessment to identify challenges and opportunities presented by failing communication.  Present findings to your senior leadership and mid-level management teams and brainstorm actions to address employee concerns.
3. Identify specific needs from other departments. Meet regularly with other departments to determine current needs and how well your departments are communicating and working together on organizational goals. A great question to ask is, “What can our department do to help you be more successful?”
4. Develop departmental communication action plans. Require every manager to develop a communication action plan to address identified needs and concerns. Hold everyone accountable to implementing and achieving the stated actions.
5. Discuss cross-departmental communication at management meetings. Invite every manager to share their plan and identify actions taken to improve. Address lingering communications problems, create new actions, and re-commit to hold one another accountable.

We recently worked with a senior leadership team to improve communication, morale and, ultimately productivity.  After implementing the tactics outlined above over a six month period of time, one SVP commented that the continued focus on communication was really hard work, but the resulting improvement in cross-departmental communication, productivity, and improved morale was well worth the effort.  Had they allowed the problem to linger, both the work environment and the service provided would have eroded further. With persistence and commitment to the action planning process, this organization was able to create an environment where employees love to come to work.

Additionally, when the organization conducted its next Employee Opinion Survey, the improvement was significant.  Scores for company-wide communication improved by 25 percentage points. Communication from upper management to employees also showed an improvement of 11.4 percentage points.  Finally, scores regarding internal communication between departments scored an 80% favorable response.

Are you experiencing a downturn in productivity or engagement? Could ineffective teamwork and cross-departmental communication be causing poor performance?  Peter Barron Stark Companies has been conducting Assessments and Employee Opinion Surveys for over 20 years. Let us help you identify reasons your organization may not be hitting its goals and take action to improve.