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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We chatted about my career in engineering and how, along the way, I learned about good (and bad!) communication and how this shaped my business. I explain what the animal shift was and how things have changed, and how I managed the good and bad managers I had!

I give a few communication tips too – enjoy!

You can also find it on Spotify and Amazon Music:

Spotify: https://lnkd.in/evz5VA_w
Amazon Music: https://lnkd.in/eyB4qkb8

and I would recommend subscribing to his YouTube channel too!

Let me know what you think. And if you need some help with communication in your business contact me now.

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 The animal shift – a podcast appeared first on The Pathway Communication Company.

One of the ways many companies think about communications in their company is by using an employee survey package.  There are many and they vary from weekly to monthly questions. These are sent out to your team and then the answers are summarised back to you for action.  The summary should then score you against different aspects of the business and give you a basis to make changes.  In addition, your team can make comments that people can make at the end of the standard questions. But what do you need to think about before you buy in to one of these packages?

Let’s look at what Forbes says about why we should have an employee survey tool

1. It Identifies Where Improvements Are Needed
2. It’s User-Friendly And Anonymous
3. It Drives Employee Engagement
4. It Reports Data Across Population Segments
5. It Aligns With Company Values And Best Practices
6. It Enables Managers To Take Action   

I’d like to comment specifically on number 2: ‘user-friendly and anonymous’. These are key issues as many employees are not as tech-friendly as we would like and are busy, busy, busy!  Adding a survey to their workload is not what they need.  So ensuring it is quick and easy to complete is key.  If they have to faff around following links they won’t do it!  If they can click on the email, and immediately answer the question then they are far more likely to do this.  Some packages use gamification instead of responses having to be written which I have seen to be far more effective as it is often simply a slider to move or an image to click on (happy to sad faces maybe). Not a guarantee but more likely to ensure they fill it in.

And then there is the anonymous part – this is a hard one to crack – you can tell people till you’re blue in the face that you will not see who has written a comment or put a specific score but the only way to prove this to many people is by getting on with it.  I used to work with someone who would not fill in a survey because he believed everything written in it would be held against him, despite the senior leadership team telling him they wanted to hear his thoughts, be they negative or positive.  Eventually, after evidence from his peers that they had written about issues and had whole conversations online without the management team knowing who they were talking to, he started putting his honest thoughts down!  Only took a year!!

The biggest risk

The biggest risk to using this sort of software is having managers in the organisation who do not know how to react to comments. If you get a negative comment and answer by denying it happened or with any negative reaction then the person who wrote the comment will not do it again!  But this isn’t what you want, you are running the survey to hear the good and the bad.

How do you counter this?  In my experience, you do this by training your managers.  Don’t assume they will know what to write and how to handle negative and even targeted comments towards them or the business.  Start by setting out your expectations to your managers and ensure they understand the true value of the feedback they will see. Having unfiltered comments from your staff is invaluable – it is the equivalent of having a management consultant or similar interview each of your staff.  BUT only if you handle it properly. 

My three tips:

1. All the senior team has brought into the software – each manager needs to be handling the feedback from their department – and if you are the MD or owner – you need to see it all!
2. Be prepared that it is not an instant fix – it takes time to win over the team to really be honest and trust that it is anonymous and also that you will not jump down their throats if they give you negative feedback
3. You keep checking on the answers from your managers, and intervene if needs be!

As long as you consider these three tips then I have seen that the employee survey is well worth embarking on. And if you need any help, especially with training your managers, 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

The post Three things to consider before you buy an employee survey tool appeared first on The Pathway Communication Company.

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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Understanding the role of communication in your business is essential! And once you understand the impact it can fundamentally change your businesses success!

Have a read of this list, does anything apply to you or your business? 

• The enthusiasm and passion I once had for my business has gone and I  want to get it back.
• The atmosphere in my business is awful! 
• My two key teams are at loggerheads? I feel like I am in a classroom with everyone fighting!
• I employed the best person ever – but they just handed in their notice!
• My salespeople are amazing, but they’re so busy working with existing customers, there’s no time to find new ones!

All common problems in many businesses! However a change in the way you communicate can help with these issues. 

Sounds far-fetched but it’s true.  Let’s take the most common issue of these: the atmosphere in your business is not good – in fact when you login in the morning your heart sinks as you know the day will consist of people bringing problem after problem to your desk. And not just bringing the problem but also complaining about all the other people or departments in the company whilst they are doing it!  

How can we solve this issue?

Communicate differently! 

Your team need to hear what is happening in the company, they need you to lead by example and they need you to bring the vibe you want to see within the company. It’s hard as you feed on their energy and when that is negative it’s hard to be positive in response.  But that is what you need to do!  However you do it – whether it is by chanting ‘I am a positive person’ to yourself, putting a mascot on your desk or listening to a motivational podcast before work you need to bring a different energy to your communication. 

How can you do this?

• A cheery good morning message or walking around the office saying hi to everyone will immediately lift spirits. 
• Talk to them, it’s easy when there is a bad atmosphere to avoid speaking to the people who cause you the most problems, but these are the one you need to win over the most! 
• Encourage them to only bring problems to you when they have already spent some time thinking of solutions that they also bring.  And when they only bring a problem ask them what they would do and wait till they answer!  The message will soon get out there

Try a few of these and see whether it starts to make a difference. It’s not a quick fix, it took time to get to that place and it will take time to turn it around.  But it is possible. 

Need some help?

If you need any help in understanding the role of communications in your business, with some ideas of what to change or just someone to be a sounding board who can also cheer you on from the sidelines let us know.  We have helped companies just like yours to make a positive change.  And we can help you 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 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 The Power of Communication: Understanding Its Role in your Business’ Success appeared first on The Pathway Communication Company.

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

The post Don’t forget your non-customer facing teams! appeared first on The Pathway Communication Company.

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

The post Communicating something new to your company? appeared first on The Pathway Communication Company.

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.

Since lockdown ended and we all started to try to get back to normal the conversation around home working versus hybrid or full-time return to the office has been constant. And recently more people have been asking me my opinion – especially about how to communicate the company’s needs versus the employee’s needs.

One of the main issues seems to be that employees are not seeing the need to return to the office at all. They argue that they can do their job from home, they did it in lockdown and therefore they can do it now too.

How do companies feel about this?

I am hearing that this is affecting the culture and the relationships in the company. Without the casual conversations at the coffee machine and in the corridor, there is not the same feel in the company. And it is also affecting the work being done, especially the standard of work. People are not learning from their peers through the overheard conversations or the casual questions in the office. This is not affecting scheduled training and development but the ad-hoc continuous learning is definitely being affected.

How do we reconcile the two views though?

Lots of companies are now insisting on hybrid working which at least brings people back into the office. Managers can then have face-to-face conversations with their staff. But the team themselves all chose different days to come in. And that causes meetings to be held on Teams, and employees therefore don’t see the point of coming into the office! It becomes a cycle!

I was recently speaking to the Commercial Director of a large charity who is struggling with these issues. She would like her staff to be back at work for at least three days a week, but is being met with resistance as they are unable to see the benefit, they like the convenience and cost benefit of working at home. We discussed how she is communicating her requirement to have them back in the office and she realised that she was not offering any clear and compelling reason for the employees to come into the office. We discussed what that could be and I suggested that she no longer has any team or larger company meetings online, that she always holds these on the days that everyone is in the office. Then they become as much a social occasion as a meeting. She has to ensure that they are not death by PowerPoint meetings(!) but interactive, in the way you cannot do with an online meeting. This, of course, necessitates all staff coming in on the same days, but now she has a real, valid reason for insisting on this.

This made me wonder if we need to change our expectations of the time in the office? And communicate that? Perhaps the time in the office is not going to be as visibly productive as the time at home, because we do chat to each other, we do go to meetings a few minutes early to get a coffee and catch up with our colleagues. And perhaps we start to talk about the value of that to our teams.

We can of course TELL our staff that we have to them in the office, either full time as some large companies are doing, or for a number of days a week which appears to be more common. But to ensure that we have happy staff, who want to work for us, and are not at risk of leaving, we need to communicate the WHY to them. Why will it be beneficial to the company and to them? Just saying because we said so is not enough!

So maybe, before you communicate with your teams, think about the WHY, why do you need them back in the office? It may be, like the charity, that they will build relationships and benefit from seeing their colleagues. It may be that it is about them building their future careers, learning from their peers and mentors, to continue the informal learning. It may be about their communication skills. Many people have suffered through lockdown with their communication skills, and some of our younger employees have never had the opportunity to learn good communication. How can you present that to them as a great reason to want to come into the office?

And maybe you need to lead the way, be in the office and be available yourself on the days you want them in! It’s no good bringing them in only for them to see you working at home.

And once you communicate the why, hopefully it will be easier to change the working patterns and directly impact your company culture.

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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