I LOVE ICE!!! Okay, before the “Don’t use all caps police” come after me get started, let me explain why I chose to use all caps.
From 5 years of age until around 15, I was a chronic ice chewer. I mean, it wasn’t just to cool my drinks but it was a must for me to have a large plastic tumbler cup always filled with it. From when I woke up in the morning until I went to bed Ice was there. I’m sure you’re asking if I had an Iron deficiency as some medical experts believe that people who constantly eat ice have. Nope. My mother had me checked for that and that wasn’t the case. So, as you can imagine, there was a need for my parents to keep a lot of ice available for not just the whole house but to also keep my ice cube eating habit fueled.
Way before there were refrigerators with built in ice makers, metal ice cube trays were king.
You had to fill it up with water and once the water solidified, you then had to go through the often arduous process of loosening the cubes, unlatching the lever and then twist the metal case until the cubes freely dislodge. By the end of the entire process, you had shards of ice all over the place, your hands were frozen and your drink wasn’t as cold as you wanted it to be. Needless to say, I am happy that we’ve evolved to more user friendly ice making capabilities.
I began to wonder about the similarities of those old metal ice trays and business.
Most business owners are aware of the importance of communicating well with their staff regarding company policies, product/services features, updates and more but many companies in operation for more than 5 years fall short is that the way they began and continue to communicate with your team is, like the metal ice cube trays long ago, isn’t motivating, effective or good for the future of your company.
Wait, I can hear you now… “As long as the information is getting out and everything is running smoothly, that’s all that matters, right?” But just because your communication process is sending out necessary information doesn’t mean things are running smoothly.
Here is how you know.
Your sales department sends an email to your marketing department on Tuesday at 8am that a particular product is going on sale that same weekend. The email was received by the marketing department on Thursday because they’ve been working on other projects. They then feverishly work to get the necessary components to have it done by the weekend.
In your eyes, it was done so what’s the problem?
Let’s explore these issues
- Lack of Respect: People in your sales department should learn from the marketing team how much time they need to create a concept, get approval, start production and execute the sale campaign.
- Quality Control Suffers: Due to a halt being placed on jobs already in the marketing team’s workflow, they must sacrifice giving their best to those projects and the new more pressing project won’t receive the team’s best because of having to push out a campaign on time thus, all projects aren’t of the best quality.
- Resentment Builds: Both teams feel the struggle to pull this off and get it done on time. This creates the beginnings of resentment towards each other, from them to the executives or towards you because who likes extra unnecessary stress when it could have been avoided in the first place.
The secondary issue is outdated communication. Most companies have not updated their communication methods in a way that their work talent enjoys and believe it or not, it causes your team to feel a certain kind of way.
People are spending many hours on social media daily and it’s not just teenagers and young adults. It’s all ages and they are on it while at work even if you have a policy in place against it. It is the way of our world. Like it or not. So, why not take advantage of it and use a fun social media platform to inform your staff of upcoming meetings, company success stories, customer satisfaction reels, employee of the month posts, birthday announcements or promotions.
Personnel morale increases when people are enjoying various aspects about their work environment together and trust me, if done well and in a fun spirit, your employees will appreciate your effort to reach them in a way they already engage. Of course, for the sake of staying consistent with what you have already been doing, keep doing it but slowly and intentionally begin to integrate social media updates. You can even bring on board someone within your company that has the social bug and likes to connect people to help spearhead what and who to highlight on your social post. You don’t have to have fancy equipment and it doesn’t have to have high production but it should be well thought out and done with excellence.
Will you, the owner of the company, get on TikTok and make a fool of yourself? Probably not but hey, if it stirs your team to get excited about working for you and making your company better, then you may want to reconsider and GO FOR IT.
Letra Davis