Talk the Talk: Mastering Workplace Communication + Collaboration

At Setup, we’ve delivered countless marketing agency team assessments that always have one insight in common - Improve Departmental Collaboration + Communication. 

Our yearly Marketing Relationship Survey reveals the disconnects between Agencies and their Clients year after year. Just like a good old-fashioned “he said, she said” story, the 2023 results indicated that Brands and Agencies don’t see eye to eye when it comes to what is valued most. 

Coming out of the global pandemic and into the current job market where many companies have moved to a hybrid working environment, company cultures are rebuilding. We have some insights that might help.

People overall are not feeling heard or understood. When that happens, team members don’t feel valued, and they usually leave a place of employment or end a partnership. 

Here are some recent survey statistics that may cause company leaders to wake up, invest in effective communication processes, and improve their culture:

• Project.co’s 2024 Survey uncovered that…

• 53% of people have suffered from burnout, stress, and fatigue due to communication issues in their business

• 66% of clients have reported switching to competitors because of poor communication skills - meaning companies are losing business

• Communication problems have led to 36% of people dealing with missing or lost files

• Gallup’s 2023 reports stated…

• 41% of employees would like to see a change in their company culture or engagement

• Alludo’s 2022 research showed…

• About 64% of workers report losing at least three hours of productivity per week due to poor collaboration

• Poor workplace collaboration would lead 41% of workers to consider leaving their job

• HubSpot’s 2022 report showed…

• 40% of remote workers miss spontaneous, in-person connections with their colleagues

What can leaders do about employees looking to leave jobs where communication is poor?

Below are some action items we suggest to teams that are struggling with Collaboration and effective Communication. At the end of the day, you have to find what works and resonates with and for your people the best. The important thing is to take action so that you don’t lose any more staff members or clients.

• Opening up the space or having dedicated places for collaboration will improve the office environment and make people want to work in the space and work together - thus improving the overall culture.

• Investing in resources to improve collaboration and growth for remote offices.

• Develop a “Culture Club” (a dedicated team assigned to monitor and grow Culture) to: build community, increase collaboration, and create consistency.

• Create more cross department/office collaboration, sharing staff’s role in each client project, setting expectations, and aligning goals. 

• Establish PVTV (Purpose, Vision, Tenets, Values) and incorporate it into meeting cadences to motivate the full team with an aligned path forward and improved culture.

• Utilize feedback from the team and clients using surveys to understand their needs and wants. Demonstrate through actions that you heard them.

• Leadership should create a regularly-scheduled forum or town hall to listen to team input and determine small but tangible ways to empower team members to thrive in their roles and contribute with their best thinking.

• Create clear Communications Guidelines with the WHY to clarify which channels should be used when (Slack vs. Microsoft Teams vs. email, etc.). 

• Conduct a communications tool audit to decide which should be used in various scenarios to reduce isolation and confusion.

Lastly, host more events to unite the team across departments and to foster culture. Connecting teams in person brings a new energy and investment into work and relationships. Luckily, we have the PERFECT offering for you that not only brings fun into the mix, but will breed creativity, collaboration, support, trust, and communication. 

Setup offers a Team Building experience based on improv elements to help your team foster a stronger culture. 

Why Improv for Building Team Culture? 

Because it’s all based on “yes, and…” Read more about how Improv can make you a better marketer here, and sign up for the Team Building Workshop here. 

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Not ready to commit your full team? No worries! We are giving client-side marketing leaders a taste of the workshop at our next #MarketersBreakfast event. Here, marketing leaders can learn fun tools to bring into the office to encourage more collaboration and connection across teams, departments, clients, and people. RSVP here.