As our team grows, it becomes more and more necessary to keep everyone on the same page. Communication not only facilitates discussion and teamwork, but also urges cohesion across the entire company. And when you’re surrounded by the same group of people 40+ hours a week, getting to know them makes it easier to work together (and have fun doing it!).
Here are a few tools and tricks to keep the lines of communication open at your office:
- Slack. We <3 Slack for chatting with co-workers. Slack provides easy, real-time messaging, plus a slew of features and settings (including support for custom emojis!). While it may seem silly to talk to your next-seat neighbor via chat, it’s handy for sharing stuff like files, links, and code snippets. Create small, private groups for team members to collaborate, discuss ideas, ask for feedback, and enhance overall productivity on projects. Add a few public channels for the entire company to share articles and encourage quick fun chats during downtime (Our #random chat is one of our favorite channels!).
- Google Drive. We’ve tried a few other services for collaborating on documents and presentations, but nothing seems to beat Google Drive. It supports a variety of file types with custom sharing settings. The best part? Multiple people can be working on the same document simultaneously without overwriting each other’s edits. We group files into folders that serve as central and accessible hubs for ideas, information, and projects.
- Open Office Environment. What’s the deal with cubicles? It’s like being in time out while you work! Who wants that? We sure don’t. That’s why we have an open floor plan with long tables of teams, making it easy to communicate and collaborate. Employees can work at their desks or set up their laptops anywhere that strikes their fancy.
- An Employee directory. It’s really convenient to have a directory with employee names, photos, and job titles that everyone at the company can access. This makes it easy for new hires to put a name to the face of the girl she talked to at the Keurig (Plus, it can save some embarrassment for anyone who’s just plain bad at remembering names.).
- Organize casual events. Happy hours in the office, company lunches, friendly competitions, and celebrations bring people together for an easy way to network and get to know one another. Learning about co-workers away from the desk creates a more comfortable workspace, and people are more likely to collaborate when they’re comfortable with one another.
We’re always open to suggestions for improving communication and collaboration at the office. Have any ideas we missed? Share them in the comments!