Not only does it affect your ability to work, but it also largely impacts the relationships you build and the overall feelings people have about your business and internal processes.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to prioritize internal communication when you already have a lot of things on your plate. However, when you let your internal communication slip, you also put many of those things at risk.

How does internal communication have such a big impact on your organization? Let’s get into it.

The Importance of Internal Communication

As the backbone of everything your organization does, internal communication spans everything, from leadership to teamwork and cross-functional collaboration. It includes all types of mediums, like memos, emails, instant messages, videos, newsletters, and a whole lot more.

This wide reach means that internal communication affects everything in your organization. It impacts the effectiveness of new policy implementation. It guides team collaboration. It influences meetings, approval processes, onboarding procedures and essentially anything and everything else you do. If it involves interactions between people – internal communications plays a role in its success.

How Does Internal Communication Improve Your Business Processes?

By this point, you’ve likely thought of several ways internal communication can make or break your business. However, to help you get the wheels turning a little more, we’ve put together a list of three major benefits that come from having good internal communication.

1. It Helps You Work Productively

Everyone wants to work productively. Ergo, we do everything in our power to make sure we’re as productive as we can be – we automate tasks, we streamline processes, we set goals and we track our progress. However, we don’t often consider the impact our communication habits can have on our productivity.

No matter what your job function is, good internal communication is vital to productive workflows and efficient processes. It keeps you ahead of the curve, by helping you solve problems before they arise or quickly after they’ve popped up. It also helps you decrease duplicate work, by allowing you to check on what’s been done.

Beyond that, good internal communication can also facilitate greater innovation. As ideas are able to flow in all directions – top-down, bottom-up and side-to-side – new processes, products, and campaigns can be considered and developed. As a result, your business can stay on the cutting-edge of trends and technology, enabling you to stay competitive.

2. It Makes Your Team Happier

Human beings are social creatures. We need interaction to thrive. Not only does it make life more enjoyable, but it also enables us to build connections with others and share ideas.

However, a standard working environment doesn’t often lend itself to interaction or communication. Employees are either spread across large office spaces or are separated by time zones – causing them to be isolated, even from those on their teams. Teams and departments are often confined to their own processes and communication channels – limiting their ability to connect with people from other teams and departments. And information often flows from the top-down – minimizing the opportunity for lower level employees to share innovative ideas. As a result, morale suffers, while motivation takes a nosedive.

Thankfully, this isn’t a permanent condition, though. Regardless of whether your team is distributed or working in the same building, good internal communication can fix it. By keeping people connected, collaborating and chatting regularly, you can increase the overall level of happiness in your organization. As a result, you’ll be able to reap the rewards of having a happy workforce: increased productivity, faster innovation and a deeper commitment to your company.

3. It Enables You to Build Trust With Employees

Trust is at the foundation of your business. To work effectively, your employees need to trust their managers and your company leadership. But this trust is contingent upon your willingness to be open and transparent with them.

When you’re transparent, you build rapport and strong relationships with your employees. They feel like an integral part of your organization, rather than outsiders. As a result, they become invested in your company and dedicated to the work they do.

Being transparent can be difficult, though – especially if you don’t have a plan in place for communicating with them. That’s why it’s important to prioritize the development and implementation of an internal communication strategy. With it, you can more easily share news and updates about your business and keep everyone in the loop on company progress. Over time, this helps your employees come to trust your leadership and act accordingly.

Conclusion:

While setting up processes to keep your work-environment open and transparent can be difficult – especially when things need to travel between teams or countries – the rewards are well worth the effort. All you need is the right tool stack and approach, and you’ll be well on your way to getting your daily ops aligned.