Shift-to-shift businesses heavily rely on effective and efficient communication. Without effective communication, shift changes, swaps, drops, updates, you name it, fall through the cracks and people are left wondering what was, and what could've been. Improving your team's shift-to-shift communication shouldn't be a daunting task. It should be a welcomed opportunity to find where you currently stand, how you can improve, and how you can run a more efficient shift-to-shift business.

Benefits of Effective Communication

Shift-to-shift employees rely on their management team to communicate when they're working, where they're working, the role they'll be in for the shift, and any other important notes for that shift. When schedules are created without any details, or display inaccurate information, employees are forced to contact a manager to find answers. This not only creates confusion, but multiple people are now involved in what should have been a five-minute task.

Increase Employee Engagement
When employees' voices and opinions are heard, it makes them feel valued. When employees feel valued, they become more engaged with their work and have a better relationship with coworkers. Striking up a conversation with someone in a different department or just saying "hey, how are you today" can go a long way in fostering a more engaging work environment.

Consistently and Frequently Provide Updates
Consistent messaging from shift to shift helps keep everything...consistent. It's nice to know that when one person finishes their shift and another replaces them, there is a smooth transition of log notes, messages, and other pertinent information. Consistently updating employees and sharing information helps foster a well-informed and great environment.

Help Resolve Conflicts Before They Arise
There are times when situations could have been prevented if only someone picked up on the signs. In your business, there may be issues that have gone unattended or unnoticed. Consistent, frequent, and effective communication helps resolve conflicts before they arise. When employees have the opportunity and platform to communicate the highs and lows of your business, they can present elements that need attention or could be addressed by a manager before it ever becomes a larger issue.

Ways to Improve Shift-to-Shift Communication

There is a multitude of ways you can help improve your team's communication efforts. However, it's important to note that there isn't just one solution that will work. It may be a combination of practices that leads to improved communication throughout your team.

Staff Meetings
We know, we know. Meetings can often be boring, monotonous, and sometimes pointless. But when run properly, they're an extremely powerful tool for your team to utilize. Having a meeting bi-weekly or once a month can help keep everyone aligned and updates communicated effectively and efficiently. They don't need to be long, drawn out meetings. They can be 15-30 minutes and give a high-level overview of recent high notes, where the team may have fallen short, the plan going forward, and what's coming in the pipeline.

Logging Daily Activities
Logging and tracking daily activities can help improve your team's communication. This will allow employees to enter what happened, when, how it happened, and anything else so a manager can review it and create a course of action. While using a paper log book is a start, implementing a digital log book will help keep everyone aligned at all times of the day.

Employee Messaging
If you choose to switch to a digital log book, not only will all records update across all platforms, you'll also be able to message and communicate with employees. Create announcements, send messages, create notifications, and more with a digital solution.

Utilizing a digital solution isn't a must-have in today's world, but goes a long way to help keep everyone aligned and improve your team's communication. ShiftForce is an all-in-one workforce management solution designed to help improve all elements of your shift-to-shift business. Included is a digital log book, team communication, employee scheduling, task management, and more.

Schedule a demo today to learn more about how you can improve your teams communication with our all-in-one workforce management solution.