Tips and Strategies for Effective Interdepartmental Collaboration

Interdepartmental communication and collaboration are crucial to the success of a company, but organizations of all sizes face communication challenges that negatively impact the productivity and morale of their employees. This commonly leads to issues such as low job satisfaction, poor work performance, and a lack of engagement between team members and departments. When employees are satisfied, productive, and engaged, however, companies are more likely to drive sales and achieve their goals and objectives.

Below, Lead2Goals discusses the importance of effective cross-departmental communication and collaboration and highlights a few tips and strategies for improving collaboration in the workplace.

Why Interdepartmental Communication & Collaboration Matters

As we mentioned above, interdepartmental communication and collaboration are vital to an organization’s success. Without it, employees become disengaged, dissatisfied with their jobs, and misinformed — leading to unproductivity and inefficiency in the workplace. With effective cross-departmental communication, however, organizations experience improved collaboration and productivity, fewer misunderstandings and conflicts, and empowered teams and departments

Common Communication & Collaboration Issues

Many organizations struggle with their cross-departmental communications, leading to poor collaboration in the workplace. One study showed that 74 percent of workers felt they were not receiving important company news and information, and another study showed that 69 percent of managers were uncomfortable communicating with their workers. If employees aren’t receiving updates from their managers or internal communicators, how can we expect them to communicate and collaborate with other leaders and departments?

In the workplace, several other failure points include:

• Not having an internal communications strategy.
• Not giving employees clear direction, feedback, or praise.
• Not communicating company goals and objectives.
• Not utilizing communication and collaboration tools.

Strategies to Improve Workplace Collaboration & Communication

Time tracking software also allows you to keep up with hours spent on particular projects or customers, in addition to suggesting how many employee hours you can schedule.

Fortunately, improving cross-departmental communication and collaboration is possible. Start by using business process management & intelligent automation (BPM) tools to get a better idea of how the teams, systems, and data within your organization are presently interacting with one another. After using a BPM tool to monitor your business processes, you’ll then know which processes should be automated in order to streamline and improve workplace collaboration and productivity.

Another way to improve workplace communication and collaboration includes the use of team collaboration software. These tools can be used to share files and documents across departments, send instant messages, collaborate on projects and tasks, and share screens during virtual meetings. Collaboration tools can be used alongside project management software, internal messaging tools, and employee advocacy software.

Some other ways to improve communication and collaboration between departments include the following:

• Holding regular company meetings, either in person or virtually.
• Sending emails, memos, and newsletters to communicate company updates.
• Sharing company updates and announcements via digital signal screens in offices.
• Establishing a clear chain of command.
• Setting interdepartmental goals and rewarding teams for achieving them.

Tips for Better Interdepartmental Reports & Presentations

When it comes to reporting or presenting information to interdepartmental leaders and investors, it’s best to keep the presentation short, clean, attractive, and to the point. Include data findings whenever possible, use free software tools to design the presentation, and only include key information or you’ll risk losing your audience’s attention.

Moreover, the business and professional communications course from Lead2Goals can help you to deliver effective and efficient presentations in just 11 weeks. In this course, you’ll learn how to effectively communicate with managers, colleagues, and groups, both verbally and nonverbally.

In Conclusion

Behind every successful company is a great internal communications strategy, and these tips will help you to develop an internal communications plan of your own. With effective interdepartmental communication comes exceptional collaboration between departments, helping to improve workplace productivity, engagement, and employee satisfaction.

Lead2Goals provides individual coaching, counseling, and training to help businesses develop strong leaders, effective communications, and emotionally intelligent teams. To learn more, visit lead2goals.com, call 949-202-5763, or email info@lead2goals.com.