How to Make Staff Communicating Fruitfully Who Work Varied Shifts

Effective communication at the workplace is crucial for every kind of business but it becomes even more critical when the company employs shift workers. Typically, companies that use shiftwork split the shifts into three different eight-hour shifts within a twenty-four-hour period.

Therefore, different people will work at different times, which applies to workers, supervisors, managers, and others; like those who work in human resources.

In turn, that means communication between everyone who works for the company can be more challenging compared to a company that follows the traditional nine-to-five pattern in which everyone works the same hours.

To facilitate effective communication between employees and between employees and managers and other people and departments, your company will need to plan carefully and use various types of communication channels.Troop Messenger is one of the best tools in the market that helps office teams of different teams of all shifts communicate and collaborate. You can chat, call, meet, and schedule meetings with internal teams and guest users.

And when staff communication is effective, productivity will become more fruitful.

The Benefits of Effective Communication for Staff Who Work Varied Shifts

Before we look at how to enhance staff communication between people who work varied shifts at your company, it is worthwhile looking at why effective communication is so important.

Here are some of the top reasons why you need to make fruitful communication a priority in your business.

Employee Engagement Can Become Enhanced

First off, when staff members communicate with one another efficiently and effectively, it means they feel their voices are heard and valued by supervisors and managers. It also means they are happy with the way their supervisors or managers impart information.

That then generates enhanced employee engagement and, in turn, creates a more efficient and productive workforce.

Efficiency and Productivity Can Be Boosted

Following on from the last point, when staff members understand their precise responsibilities, they can work more efficiently and productively. It also ensures employees do not overlook important tasks or end up doing tasks, or not doing tasks, that have a negative impact on the shift workers that follow their shift.

Ultimately, when workers are given clear instructions, they can ensure they complete their assigned jobs in the right way and on time.

Employees Can Become More Loyal

When workers, supervisors, managers, and others communicate effectively with one another, it helps to build solid relationships in the workplace. Therefore, workers do not only form better relationships with each other. They also build happy relationships with the company itself.

In turn, that means employees are happier and more loyal. Therefore, by adopting effective communication throughout the workplace, companies can increase employee retention and reduce employee turnover.

Sure, there are other ways of increasing employee retention. For instance, if a brewery business wants to attract and retain top talent, it can do so by making sure managers ask candidates the right brewery interview questions during the hiring process.

But once employees begin working for a company, ensuring effective communication is implemented is one of the top ways of creating employee loyalty.

Companies Can Create Better Team Building

In companies where communication is effectively used every day, teams work better together. And when each team working a different shift works well together, there will be fewer knock-on problems affecting that team and the team that takes over when the whistle blows.

With the right communication skills, each member of staff can understand their roles better and contribute to better team building.

Misunderstandings and Conflicts Can Be Resolved More Easily

With effective communication, there will be fewer misunderstandings between employees and between employees and supervisors or managers. And when misunderstandings or conflicts do happen, they can be resolved much quicker and more easily when effective communication is utilized.

How to Create More Effective Communication in a Shift-working Company

There are lots of ways staff members can enhance their own communication skills, such as using active listening techniques and learning how to use the right language to get points across in the right way.

But companies that use varied shifts have more challenges because each shift team needs to have some form of communication with the other shift teams. To ensure the right information gets passed on between different shift workers, companies need to employ rotating management shifts.

That means designating an upper manager to be available on shifts at least once a week to oversee different groups of shift workers and ensure everyone is following the same procedures and completing tasks in the same way.

The manager will also be able to address any questions or concerns that the shift workers have and tell members of staff about any important policy changes or company announcements.

Having a manager in place to oversee different groups of shift workers on a regular basis is undoubtedly the best way of making communication more fruitful, but companies also need to utilize other methods to ensure workers and everyone who works for the company are on the same page and aware of all the latest news and policies.

So, companies that utilize varied shift work should implement the following.

Company Announcements

Yes, managers overseeing different shift worker groups can impart company announcements, but it is important that such announcements are delivered in other ways too in order to make certain all employees are aware of the announcements.

Companies can use methods like emails, text messages, memos, and bulletin boards to do that. Then, regardless of which shift someone is working, an employee can always be kept in the loop and productivity can remain high.

Email Communication

Following on from the last tip, using email communication for all kinds of communications can make sure that every worker never misses important information. But email communication should not only be used for company announcements.

Email and other digital communication methods, such as using platforms like Zoom, help to keep everybody connected to one another. So, when an employee has a question or issue, he or she can easily and quickly get in touch with managers, supervisors, or other workers to get answers.

Indeed, email communication can be used for all kinds of purposes, such as lodging complaints, requesting time off, and clarifying policies and procedures.

With email communication, or even an intranet in place, employees from different shifts can communicate with one another, too. In turn, that will help to build more effective teams and increase employee engagement and productivity.

Accessible Human Resources

With email and other out-of-the-office communication methods that employees can access anytime and anywhere, employees can communicate much better with members of staff that work in human resources, and other departments, who work more traditional nine-to-five hours.

Without a digital communication process in place, it can be very challenging for, say, night shift workers to communicate with day shift employees. But with a proper communication system in place, workers can always get in touch with people who do not work the same hours.

It could also be useful to have someone in human resources work during the night, perhaps once a week, so that night shift workers can actually speak to someone in person when they need to.

All-Staff Meetings

Periodically, companies that use shift work should hold staff meetings for every worker in the company. Companies will need to plan the meetings in a timely manner to ensure productivity is not greatly affected, and all-staff meetings could happen just twice a year.

But it is important that all-staff meetings are held now and then to bring everyone together, create a sense of unity, and enable everyone from different departments and shifts to meet with one another in person and communicate with one another effectively.

Conclusion

As we have seen, effective communication between employees who work different shifts is of the utmost importance to ensure operations run smoothly.

With excellent communication between shift-workers, employee engagement becomes enhanced, productivity can be boosted, employees can become more loyal, companies can create better team building, and misunderstandings can be resolved more easily.

So, to create a high level of communication between people working varied shifts in your company, remember to utilize:

• Company announcements
• Email communication
• Accessible human resources
• All-staff meetings