I have written a lot about communicating with your customers—but what about your employees? If you want your business to be successful and keep your employees happy, you have to communicate with your employees.
Consistency. When communicating with employees, you need to be consistent. If you set up a meeting time with them, make sure you are consistent and meet at that time every week (or however often your arrangement is). Even if you can’t meet for 30 minutes or an hour, meet and just touch base with each other.
Constructive Criticism. When meeting and keeping your communication open, make sure the criticism is constructive. No one is going to want to meet with you every week if you just “bash†or criticize without providing any help or advice for improving.
List Positives. It’s okay to criticize, but make sure you provide at least one or two things that have been done well. Don’t sugar coat everything, but do let them know if you liked their performance in one area for the week, etc.
Know What you Want. Before you go into your meeting, know what you want in the next week or so from your employee. If you are going to constructively criticize something they did, have a way that they can fix it or improve.
Set Goals. Along with the previous tip, know what you want and help your employees set goals for the next week or two. What do you want your employee to achieve in that time? Setting goals is a great way to keep everyone on track.
These five steps will help you communicate better with your employees, and help them improve customer service. If your employee is on a call with a customer, you could be doing something incorrectly—how will he or she know if you don’t meet with and discuss it with him/he? Keep an open communication flow and your work environment will increase substantially.
How do you communicate within the work place?