There are still many conversations going on in all sorts of businesses about whether to bring home working colleagues back to the office, let them stay at home or create a hybrid working environment.  For more information on that have a look at our article here. 

However this article considers those at the beginning of their careers or those who are starting a new role. What do we need to think about for them?

It’s my first job!

Those who are just starting in their careers and those who are starting a new role struggle to work from home all of the time.  It’s hard to ask questions that you consider stupid when you need to type them in a Team’s chat box!  Far easier to ask the person sitting next to you in a casual way! (Stupid questions are rarely stupid by the way, it is just our perception of the question!) Working from home means that the vital information that you need to do your job takes longer to learn.  In addition, there is no one who can watch over your shoulder.  I have caught many mistakes made by new colleagues by just listening to them speaking or taking a glance at their screens – mistakes that once caught are a great learning point, but if left that become a problem. 

For those new to work, those coming directly from university or college learn more about work life than just how to do their job. Lessons about being in the office on time, how to dress, when to take breaks etc. are lessons that this group don’t learn when they work from home.  I have had lots of conversations whilst mentoring apprentices that would not have been had if they and I had been at home such as:

• no, it’s not appropriate to wear jeans with holes in them to a customer visit
• don’t be late back from lunch every day, I’m not surprised your colleagues are irritated with you
• playing table tennis all afternoon is not the same as working
• It’s your responsibility to get yourself here on time, saying your mum forgot to wake you up is not an excuse

And these lessons are essential for their future careers.

What’s the answer?

Although new starters and those in their first job don’t need to be in the office the whole time I think a hybrid situation as a minimum is essential. Even if things change in time, those first few months it is essential to have some time with colleagues. This of course also means that we need other colleagues in the office too! So perhaps if we ask most colleagues to come into the office two or three days a week then that would accommodate the new starters’ needs but it would also allow flexibility for everyone else. 

What else do we need to consider?

Communication! It’s great making these decisions but how do we communicate with all these groups?  Talk to them!  Don’t just impose rules without explaining why.  Ensure that you ask for their concerns and answer them, don’t brush issues under the carpet, bring them back into the open, and help them talk through issues to come to a solution.

After all, if we want to make sure we have the best workforce, access the best people for the job, and accommodate all their needs then communicate your decisions.

If you need some help then speaking with a business coach can help you untangle your thoughts, if this would help you contact me for a chat.

Jacqui Hanbury is the Managing Director of The Pathway Communication Company Limited and is a specialist in helping you find the thing that is stopping your business from achieving as much as it could be.  Follow her on LinkedIn to find out more.

The Pathway Communication Company Ltd provides a personalised plan to help you and your business move forward. We might help you set goals, a strategy, a communication plan, facilitate a meeting, be a coach or mentor. Whatever it takes. Find out more at: www.pathwaycc.co.uk

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As a business owner, you have grown your business from nothing, and you are proud of how you have done that.  But now your business has plateaued and you are not sure how to move forward. You have a few ideas but they are things you have tried before. You could do with a few more ideas and some energy to implement them.

Have you considered asking your team?  They might surprise you!

When we manage a multi-generational, multi-cultural, diverse team and we don’t ask them for help we are restricting our business growth by only bringing our ideas to the table. Each of these people has their own life experience to call on, they may hear ideas from their friends and families on how other businesses do things and they will definitely have different perspectives to ours.  Each one of these elements means you cannot afford to NOT ask them! 

After all, you don’t occupy their lives, so you are not going to have their ideas! And if they have ideas they will be happy and excited to help the business implement them.

How do we ask them though?  Here are a couple of ideas:

• Run a workshop where you present your vision for the business and ask your team for new ideas to achieve the vision
• Communicate that ideas are welcome and set up a method for them to be sent to you (a Teams channel for instance)
• Make a point of asking in meetings what ideas people have

Once you have some great ideas you can work with your team to implement them, that could be by getting them involved or even taking on the action themselves. Always check that they are happy to do this though, especially if it was not their idea. Don’t underestimate the enthusiasm of someone who comes up with an idea being trusted to implement it.

Warning! 

Always, always, go back to the person who suggested the idea and say thank you. Even if it is not a good idea, go back to them and explain why that idea won’t work (e.g. it doesn’t fit your values or is too expensive).  They need to know you appreciate them taking the time to submit or share an idea.  Otherwise word will soon get round that you don’t mean it, that you don’t really want ideas!  And the ideas will tail off….  And then the next idea, the one that will change everything, may not ever be suggested

In conclusion

Ask your team, they may surprise you!

And if you need any more ideas on how to ask your team for ideas, ask me for some of my ideas

Jacqui Hanbury is the Managing Director of The Pathway Communication Company Limited and is a specialist in helping you find the thing that is stopping your business from achieving as much as it could be.  Follow her on LinkedIn to find out more.

The Pathway Communication Company Ltd provides a personalised plan to help you and your business move forward. We might help you set goals, a strategy, a communication plan, facilitate a meeting, be a coach or mentor. Whatever it takes. Find out more at: www.pathwaycc.co.uk

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In these days of email fatigue is it possible to write an email that is read by most people you send it to? Or – at least read enough so that the message will be understood? Yes!! How though? How can you write an email that people will read?

When we write emails we normally write them as we would want to receive them.

If you are a detailed person you will write all the details of your message in the email overwhelming those who just want to know what the key message is.

If you are someone who only reads the first paragraph then that is all you may write. And frustrate the detail people massively!

The problem is that if we write an email as we want to see it then it will only be read by those who are similar to us and read in the same way. But you have lots of different people in your company. And you want them all to get the message you are putting out there.

The most effective emails are written to accommodate all types of readers. Here are a few pointers to improve your emails:

• Title: make this about the subject, no room for being mysterious here!
• First few lines: summarise your message in a few short sentences or even bullet points. Some personality types will only read these few lines so you need to get the key parts of your message into their brains!
• Rest of email: if you are one of those who only read the first few lines don’t be tempted to stop there. The detailed people will want more information so now write the detail! Include links and as much information as you need to give to the most detailed person you can think of!
• Consider an image or diagram: some people don’t like reading, they may be dyslexic or maybe English is not their first language. Consider whether your message can be put into a diagram. If you need everyone to do something by a certain date – put that in an image. If this is your key message then even if that is all people read – you have a win!

An example of writing an email that people will read

Imagine you have a critical training course to roll out to your team. You send an email out telling everyone that they have to do the course, why they have to do it and by when. You are someone who likes to explain thoroughly the why, what, how and when of the task you are giving them. You write an email that if printed would be 2 pages long and it contains all the information that people will need to do the course, know when to do it and the outcomes you expect. Perfect!

Except maybe it isn’t. The two or three people in the company who read every email immediately, however long it is, are on it and finish the training. But in the system, you can’t see if anyone else has even started it yet. So you go and ask a few people and get various responses. “I saw how long it was and flagged it to read later when I have time”, ” I saw it was about a course but couldn’t easily see the link so will go back to it another time”, “I didn’t understand what I was meant to do”. Oh no, you thought your email contained everything people wanted and would be easy to understand! What could you have done differently?

I would recommend resending the email with a clear heading, then in the first few lines put the action you want everyone to do, when to do it and how to do it. Let’s see how it looks:

After this, you can put all the text from your first email explaining in more detail the why, what, how and when. Adding these bullet points to your message is unambiguous and will be understood by everyone! And those who want more information can keep reading!

It does take a bit longer, but nowhere near as long as chasing everyone to do the task!

What do you think?

This feels a bit different for most companies. Will people take it well, will it seem too much like an instruction? If you are struggling with writing an email like this add a little bit more context into the first paragraph before the bullet points. However always ensure the bullet points are visible when the email is opened, if someone has to scroll down to see them there will be no impact. Those who glance at it will not scroll down, that is for sure!

Will it work for your company? Will it help you write an email that people will read? Have a try and let me know what you think!

Note: These email tips are based on DISC, a simple-to-use and easy-to-understand personality profiling tool. I have found it can really help you understand your way of communicating and how others communicate too. Have you done DISC or maybe another personality profile tool? If so, think about your email and how the different types of personalities would read it – and try to ensure it has parts for them all. (If you are interested in DISC let me know – I can run a session for you )

Jacqui Hanbury is the Managing Director of The Pathway Communication Company Limited and is a specialist in helping you find the thing that is stopping your business from achieving as much as it could be. Follow her on LinkedIn to find out more.

The Pathway Communication Company Ltd provides a personalised plan to help you and your business move forward. We might help you set goals, a strategy, a communication plan, facilitate a meeting, be a coach or mentor. Whatever it takes. Find out more at: www.pathwaycc.co.uk

The post How to write an email that people will read appeared first on The Pathway Communication Company.

It’s easy to spend most of our time communicating with our front-line, customer-facing teams, after all, it is vital that these teams present your company to your customers in the best light possible. And this is of course essential; demotivated sales teams are not good at winning business! But it is essential you don’t forget your non customer-facing teams too.

But why? How do the non customer-facing people help sales or the success of my company?

Consider how they leave your sales team feeling when they speak to them. Do they leave the sales team fed up and frustrated?

Or perhaps some of your backroom teams do talk to customers? Finance, despatch, logistics, all of these and more will sometimes talk to your customers.

You need to ensure they know about the company, its values, vision, and what the company does. And ensure they are motivated and want to work for your company.

How do we do that? Sometimes you need to look at it from a different angle. Let’s look at an example.

A Finance Department

A few years ago I was asked by a Financial Director to talk to her team.  She was struggling with their engagement and didn’t know how to resolve it. They had had the same training as everyone else on the values, vision and mission of the company. But they were still indifferent.

After talking to them we realised that the problem was that they had no feeling of belonging to the company as they had no idea what the company did.  The problem is that the company made engineering components, these components went into machines, the machines went into factories and the factories made products that you and I use.  For non-technical people to follow this trail and relate the products to things they know about is hard on their own. 

I was asked if I could break this down so that the team could really engage in what the company did and hopefully change the way they viewed their employer. 

I ran an informal workshop, not going through the products the company made, but going through the applications they were used in, ensuring that I spoke about the end products.  So for instance instead of saying the company made a cylinder, I described the cylinder being used on a conveyor belt to move a box of chocolates.  Or a piece of tubing being used to supply a vacuum to put a windscreen into a car.  I then asked them to name a product that they used and I described which of our products would be used to manufacture the product. 

As a previous Product Manager I had seen all of the products they named in production, they ranged from face cream to contact lenses and garden products!  It was a challenge of my knowledge too!

We also discussed some of the largest customers they spoke to and what they did.  And talked through what end products the machines they made may be used for. 

What was the reaction?

The reaction was instant! Your non customer-facing team’s motivation was now through the roof!

The FD reported that many of the team said it was the best training they had been on as they now understood what the company did and crucially now felt that they were part of the company. After all, they used the products that the company made so they were now engaged.  

From an indifferent team, she now had a team eager to meet with colleagues and show off their newfound knowledge!  She heard conversations afterwards where the team were quizzing the sales team about their clients, now having the confidence to ask questions where they hadn’t before. 

There was a huge change to the motivation of the team, meaning that the FD now had an engaged and enthusiastic team, who were ready to ‘sell’ the company to others, increasing retention and helping in recruitment.  They helped to motivate the sales team, what we traditionally call the front-line staff. No longer did the sales team leave conversations with them frustrated, now the finance team made suggestions and helped the sales team sort out issues.

And of course, conversations with the customers’ finance teams were now more positive, and this was noticed by the sales team in their conversations with customers.

So don’t forget your non customer-facing teams!

They can have a huge influence on the general company environment and, sometimes on your customers too! Let’s ensure we motivate your non customer-facing teams too.

Jacqui Hanbury is the Managing Director of The Pathway Communication Company Limited and is a specialist in helping you find the thing that is stopping your business from achieving as much as it could be. Follow her on LinkedIn to find out more.

The Pathway Communication Company Ltd provides a personalised plan to help you and your business move forward. We might help you set goals, a strategy, a communication plan, facilitate a meeting, be a coach or mentor. Whatever it takes. Find out more at: www.pathwaycc.co.uk

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What’s your communication challenge?

When you are communicating something new to your company, or communicating anything at all it is important to think through your communication strategy.

Maybe you want to roll out a new training course, launch a new employee program, or change your expenses policy. Whatever it is you need to ensure that your team are all on board and embrace the actions you need them to take. You need them to do the action in a timely manner, and you need them not to moan about it!

But you know that going by your past experience this is going to be a problem!

One thing is for sure – writing a quick send-to-all email that says ‘please do this thing’ is not going to ensure success. After all, it probably took you a long time to plan the new course or policy, so you also need to spend time on communication to ensure that the implementation goes well.

What can you do?

Your team needs warning, to be prepared for the change, and to understand why change is needed. They need to be told about the change more than once, in different ways and be clear about what things they need to do to implement the change. Perhaps you need to pilot it and get some key staff on board.

Although this may seem like overkill, and a lot of preparation time, imagine if your team are supportive and implements the change when needed, without any fuss! And imagine if they are so clear about what they are implementing that they don’t ask you a million questions! And that means you don’t have to keep chasing them. Imagine the time you will save!

Your steps to successfully communicate something new to your company

Ask yourself these questions to to ensure that your message is communicated as effectively as possible:

Step 1 – be sure that you are clear on what the change is and what you want your people to do, each step they need to take and when. And ensure that your senior team also understand and can speak about it too. This will ensure your communication is clear and understandable and can be repeated by anyone.

Step 2 – create a communication strategy by answering these questions:

• how (email, company meeting, face-to-face, online.. ),
• what (a clear message – keep it simple!)
• when (how long beforehand do you start, during implementation and after)

Step 3 – Implement your strategy – right to the end! Even if it appears your team are on board you need to keep going until you can see action has been taken!

Of course, these steps each take time. But when done well it makes a huge difference to the implementation.

And if we can help let us know .

Jacqui Hanbury is the Managing Director of The Pathway Communication Company Limited and is a specialist in helping you find the thing that is stopping your business from achieving as much as it could be. Follow her on LinkedIn to find out more.

The Pathway Communication Company Ltd provides a personalised plan to help you and your business move forward. We might help you set goals, a strategy, a communication plan, facilitate a meeting, be a coach or mentor. Whatever it takes. Find out more at: www.pathwaycc.co.uk

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Communication is a huge subject, isn’t it? And when most companies think about communication they think about communication with their customers. But what about communication with your employees too? Internal communication? They are the ones talking to your customers, and they need to have the best view of the company to ensure they pass that on to your customers.

Imagine the scene. An employee has heard a rumour that things are not going well in the company, that sales are down and therefore some people will lose their jobs. When they speak to the customer their voice is flat, they have no enthusiasm and the customer goes away thinking twice about working with you. Or if it is an existing customer that your employee knows well they may even share the rumour with them! Eeek!

The truth is that you have lost one of your major customers, yes sales are down this month, but you can see that there are some great orders in the pipeline. And you are not worried, and you are definitely not thinking about redundancies! But all your employees heard was a major customer was lost, the rest of the story was made up as it was passed around the company!

What if you had communicated to all employees about the customer being lost, and also shared about the orders on the way? What a difference it would have made to the feel of the company – the gossip would have been stopped immediately and the new and existing customers would have spoken to a happy, motivated staff member.

I set up The Pathway Communication Company Ltd to help companies like yours improve their internal communications. Changing not just the small things (do you listen to your staff when they talk to you?) but the big things too. The whole company communication strategy, sharing your goals and asking for your employees to share theirs too. Asking them for ideas about how the company can move forward and listening to their answers.

Still unsure? Worried about the time it will take and whether it will really change anything, would it work for your staff? Let’s talk. Tell me more about the issues and I can see if I think I can help.

Jacqui Hanbury is the Managing Director of The Pathway Communication Company Limited and is a specialist in helping you find the thing that is stopping your business from achieving as much as it could be.  Follow her on LinkedIn to find out more.

The Pathway Communication Company Ltd provides a personalised plan to help you and your business move forward. We might help you set goals, a strategy, a communication plan, facilitate a meeting, be a coach or mentor. Whatever it takes. Find out more at: www.pathwaycc.co.uk

The post Internal Communication? What is it and why is it important? appeared first on The Pathway Communication Company.