Is your team missing things or duplicating efforts? It might be time to improve staff communication.
How can you improve staff communication? This question gets asked over and over by business owners, supervisors, managers, and even employees. Unfortunately, the answer is often vague and difficult to put into place. In fact, sometimes the answer you get when you ask how to improve staff communication is just that “they need to communicate more.”
While that might be true, it’s not particularly helpful. There’s also more to it than “communicating more.” Good communication in a business isn’t just among employees; everyone has to take part. How?
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Learn how to improve staff communication so you and your team can work more effectively
It’s especially important in the janitorial industry to have good team communication. It’s far too easy to mix the wrong cleaning products or walk into a situation without the proper PPE. Good communication can help prevent slips and falls, and injuries to your team and your customers. It can help your team work better together, making the job easier to do and easier to do well.
Luckily, we have a number of tools at our disposal that can help us improve staff communication both verbally and visually. Here are some that you can use to help your team communicate better.
1. Janitorial Manager. A little self-promotion never hurts anyone, right? One of the benefits of Janitorial Manager is that you and your teams can communicate more quickly and effectively. Here’s a look at three of the communication tools built into the software:
- Translation. Translate your messages so anyone can read them, no matter whether you speak the same language or not. Send a message in your preferred language and the receiver can read it in their preferred language. In an industry as diverse as this, translation isn’t just a nice add-on; it’s an essential part of good communication.
- QR codes. Aren’t sure if one of your coworkers already cleaned an area? Scan a QR code and find out! Scan4Clean lets you quickly see which tasks were completed and who performed the work. That way, if there are any questions, it’s easy to direct them to the right person.
- JM Connect. The messaging service in Janitorial Manager allows you to send direct messages based on location. So all the employees at Facility X would get a message about that facility, while employees at another facility would not need to worry about the message. Similarly, employees can reach others in the same facility. This is a vital part of good communication, especially in large facilities where employees may not cross each other’s paths regularly.
2. Color-coded cleaning systems. We explored color-coded systems in another post, which you can read here. The short version is this: you use certain colors to indicate where or when a product or supplies can be used. For example, red cleaning cloths might be reserved specifically for bathrooms, while green might be for food prep surfaces. Along with helping to improve staff communication, a color-coded system can also be beneficial in preventing cross-contamination.
3. Digital cleaning checklists. A digital, real-time cleaning task list makes it easy for anyone on your team to see what’s already done and what’s left to be completed. This also helps you avoid things like duplicating tasks and skipping things because everyone thought someone else would take care of it.
4. Lead by example. One way to help improve staff communication in your commercial cleaning company is to lead by example. When you communicate effectively and make it part of your system, people will follow you. In fact, this is a great way to implement most changes.
5. Host weekly or monthly team meetings. Meetings give you the opportunity to introduce new hires, discuss any changes in operating procedures, orient your team to new customers, or host short trainings. These meetings don’t need to take long. Barring some significant news or in-depth training, you can often keep the time to a minimum.
Communication is essential for your team to work safely and effectively. So any steps you take in making that happen will only improve your business.
Harness the value of Janitorial Manager to streamline your cleaning operation like never before. Learn more today with a discovery call and find out how to make your cleaning operation more efficient and cost effective!