5 top tips for effective communication between departments

The lack of effective communication between departments is a common issue within organizations. In fact, inadequate communication harms many businesses.

Many strive to bridge these communication gaps but struggle trying to break down information silos.

In this article, we’ll dive deeper in the problems these information silos cause. In addition to that, we’ll share five tips for bringing people together and ensuring effective communication between departments.

According to a survey, two out of every three employees believe that the communication between departments within their organization is poor.

The danger of information silos in your business is that it causes people to lose sight of the big picture and focus narrowly on the best outcomes for their department. “That’s not my job”, “This is how my department works” or “It’s not in the agenda/priority list of my team” are typical mindsets in siloed teams.

As Patrick Lencioni wrote in his book, Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars, “Silos are nothing more than the barriers that exist between departments within an organization, causing people who are supposed to be on the same team to work against one another.”

On top of that, this may result in missing many great opportunities, successes or ideas achieved through cross-functional team collaboration.

In a nutshell, internal silos mean less information sharing, which leads to productivity loss, poor teamwork, and even mistrust between teams.

The benefits of effective cross-departmental collaboration are clear to organizations and their employees. Here are five tips for bringing people together and boosting the connectivity between teams in your organization.

Getting people on the same page is the first step of improving collaboration. Employees need to understand clearly what for and why they are working. A shared vision and values brings common ground and leads the entire organization towards the same direction.

The role of department leaders is super important. Here are a few ideas the leadership can do to ensure alignment between teams.

• Hold weekly or bi-weekly meetings where all department heads share their insights and updates.

• Explain the great benefits of having an aligned workforce.

• Dedicate a section on the organization’s shared communication platform, such as the company intranet, to communicate (and repeat) the common goals, vision and values.

• Ask department heads to encourage their team members to support colleagues in other teams.

• Celebrate wins and successes achieved through cross-departmental collaboration.
• Bring the entire organization together through all-hand meetings.

Tearing down (and preventing) silos is the first step of ensuring effective cross-department collaboration. Here are a few steps you can take.

• Provide communication tools that make sharing documents and files between employees easy and secure.

• Create a centralized data management system that allows everyone to have immediate access to important information when they need it.

• Encourage departments to regularly post their updates or insights on the company communication platform.

• Foster a culture of feedback, motivate people to give their opinions and exchange ideas.

• Simplify the processes or work flows between departments and avoid duplicate work.

• Redesign or reorganize the office space to foster the connection and interaction between employees

Often, employees are reluctant to reach out to colleagues in different teams because they don’t know each other well enough. There are many ways organizations can encourage connectivity and strengthen relationships between employees.

For example, organizing team activities is a great way to foster interactions and create bonds among employees. Consider hosting a team building event, Employee Appreciation Day or monthly happy hour where all employees are invited to have a drink together.

Your intranet too can help to facilitate opportunities for employees to get to know each other on a more personal level. Everyone will notice the upcoming colleagues’ birthdays, work anniversaries and get informed when new employees join the team. Rich employee profiles cover everything from basic contact info to more details such as expertise, skills, projects people are working on, etc. This helps colleagues identify experts with specific skill sets when needed.

Another effective way to break down the organizational silos is to bring people from different teams onto a project. Building a company intranet is an example of a cross-functional team project as it requires participants of different departments including IT, Communications, HR and Operations.

When people work together on the same project to achieve a common goal, they are more likely to establish a sense of solidarity. This is the foundation of building and maintaining a collaborative culture.

On top of that, cross-functional team projects offer opportunities for everyone to extend their skill set, to learn new things. Also, this helps people to understand the strength of other teams, as well as recognize each other’s struggles.

Effective communication in the workplace, whether within or across departments, means a constant flow of communication across the entire organization.

To achieve that, especially in large enterprises, it’s necessary to have communication tools or platforms that streamline internal communication and allow immediate interactions as needed.

The benefits of a communication platform, such as the intranet are clear to organizations. It’s vital to provide employees with the right technology that supports them to be at their best at work and enables them to easily collaborate with colleagues. Especially today, when organizations shift to hybrid workplaces.

Not surprisingly, team collaboration tools will remain an enterprise priority in the coming year. According to a recent survey from 451 Research’s, nearly four in five respondents expect their organizations to either maintain or increase spending on employee productivity, communication and collaboration technologies.

An intranet acts as the digital hub for your organization, breaking down silos and facilitating seamless communication across teams. Involv takes this capability to new heights with its modern, user-friendly platform designed to get everyone engaged and working together effectively.

Involv empowers seamless cross-departmental collaboration through:

• A centralized knowledge base providing secure, real-time access to critical information sources across the organization

• Spaces for cross-functional project teams to collaborate on shared initiatives, co-author documents, exchange ideas, and track progress toward common goals

• Open forums that spark casual conversations, creating an inclusive environment where every voice is valued

• Social tools that strengthen connections by showcasing engaging employee profiles, spotlighting new hires, and celebrating milestones like birthdays, work anniversaries

• Internal blogs and groups that facilitate knowledge sharing between subject matter experts across teams and locations

Over 200 organizations worldwide trust Involv to transform their internal communication and unlock the power of cross-functional synergies.

If you want to learn more about how Involv can bring people together across your departments, let’s get in touch!