As a business leader, you have most likely heard of the term ‘synergy.’ Put simply; it’s the act of optimizing the communication between departments and the synchronicity between them in behavior and result of outcome. It’s important to be wise about how this is implemented for it to stay truly effective. Every employee needs to be on the same page from the get-go for your business to work well, no matter how much capital or opportunity your firm starts life with, if you struggle to make departments work together, you will struggle to operate for long at all. For that reason, it’s important to look at how your employees work from their level and provide them all with the same blanket experience to work with. Here are a few ideas for you to make the most of this:
Blanket IT Equipment & Software Apps
Your departments all need to work from the same technological canvas. To this end, it’s important to identify and implement the most effective and communicative app suites that can allow for diversified business requirements while all staying within the same software suite. Of course, for some businesses, especially production houses, specialist software will need to be licensed and implemented. However, for the vast majority of businesses small and large alike, developing the basis for a functional communication between the working environments used by all departments is key for the firm to work together. Consider using multi-purpose and cloud-storage compatible suites such as Microsoft Office 365. This famous suite includes Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Access, Outlook and Publisher. With all of these software potentials at your fingertips via this
, you can be sure your employees will be able to complete any task which comes across their desk, and more importantly, communicate within the apps they are using.
Goals, Planning, Targets
The ‘how’ of your daily business enterprise is unanswerable without knowing the ‘why.’ For that reason, every department should understand themselves as a small part of a larger whole, all
working towards the actualization of a potential goal
. These targets should be constantly reviewed, updated and assessed in how well they are met. When the team has a unifying target shared by all, everyone feels as though they are on the same page, and this fosters communication. It’s also healthy to have a little competition between departments and employees through the use of incentives, but make sure these are applied with wisdom and contribute to a positive working atmosphere.
Don’t Be Afraid To Ask
There are multiple hard questions to ask during the course of a business's lifetime. If they go unanswered or ignored, employees have a hard time merging with the apparent necessities of their role, as solutions go unfound to problems they can’t express to you they are having. For this reason, it’s essential to
foster an environment of ‘everyone matters
.’ Allow anyone to come to you with complaints, comments or insights about how the business is functioning, and reward such candor. It’s important to get a clear and precise view of all the functionings within your business department for the whole affair to be worthwhile, so be sure to start here for the best results. When an employee feels valued in this way, they are more likely to freely and respectfully communicate about issues with their peers and management, which allows for problems to be reported as soon as they are found.