The secret to a successful and efficient company culture is transparent communication. This is especially true when you need to announce big news to your team in a way that will make them feel confident about the company’s direction and decisions.
To help you do this, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:
“How can small businesses be more transparent when communicating big news (key hires, funding, etc.) to their employees? What’s one strategy they could use?”
Here are some methods they recommend you follow.
1. Have a Dedicated Slack Channel
“This team collaboration tool is perfect for sharing news with employees. Create a channel in Slack for all employees to keep up on company news. It can take time to pull together a company-wide meeting, particularly if employees work different shifts or are spread across locations (or working remotely). A Slack channel used for this purpose keeps everyone in the know in a timely manner.” ~ Jonathan Prichard, MattressInsider.com
2. Get Employees Involved Before the Decision Is Made
“Honestly, if you are a small business, many of the employees you would be ‘sharing’ this news with should be in on the decision-making process in the first place. If you have a culture of sharing and inclusion, then you won’t need to blast big news via email; your employees will have been on the ground floor of making such an important decision and will be excited about what this means for the company.” ~ Ashley Sharp, Dwell with Dignity
3. Host a Facebook Live
“One way small businesses could be more transparent when communicating big news to their employees is by announcing the news via Facebook Live. It can be hosted by the CEO of the company and they can invite all employees to participate and ask as many live questions around the topic as they feel necessary.” ~ Alfredo Atanacio, Uassist.ME
4. Create a Continuous Information-Sharing Loop
“Try to create a continuous information-sharing loop with your team. Find a time and place that works for everyone, that allows the team members to vent and relax, and use it as an opportunity to also discuss and share the latest announcements. Using that time to both laugh and address issues will create a stronger, more transparent culture in the long run — and a loyal team.” ~ Blair Thomas, eMerchantBroker
5. Share It Via a Direct Source
“Shoot the news straight to them. Give them a link to the article or otherwise give them the actual source. That way, they won’t think that it’s been watered down in some way, shape or form.” ~ Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
6. Use a Centralized Website Hub
“Our company communicates big news via our website hub. This includes other important information such as holidays, onboarding documents, organizational charts and more so everyone’s on the same page and knows what to expect. It’s one place with all the information our employees need to work with us.” ~ Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
7. Earmark a Recurring Time to Share News
“Have a specific day in the week or month that you can use to make announcements, talk about big decisions, share updates and goals, celebrate milestones or have a general face-to-face conversation with your employees. We generally do that in Townhall. Having such a system helps you create a continuous information-sharing loop and keeps things transparent.” ~ Josh Kohlbach, Wholesale Suite
8. Send It Out in an Email
“This is pretty simple. When you have a mixed remote and in-house team, do an email blast. Be concise and clear about the real changes in, say, chain of command, job title or personnel. Sometimes the most important details can get lost in the mix if you call a meeting. Play to a short attention span and be clear about the real impact of the changes.” ~ Tyler Bray, TK Trailer Parts
9. Create a Monthly Newsletter
“One way we communicate with our team is through a monthly newsletter. We include all of the latest updates from our various brands and what we have in store for them next. We also include a section about new hires, partners and acquisitions. At the end of the email, we encourage our team to respond if they have questions or want to know more about a specific topic mentioned in the email.” ~ John Turner, SeedProd LLC
10. Tailor the Mode of Communication to the Announcement
“It is important to have different modes of communication to effectively communicate with your employees and allow them to respond in an appropriate fashion. For example, we have a weekly newsletter to the entire organization for weekly organization updates, while we also hold monthly Zoom meetings with the entire company to introduce the new hires and have discussions around larger updates and news.” ~ Ryan D Matzner, Fueled
11. Discuss With Key Company Leaders First
“First, big news should be discussed in advance with key members of the company. Get buy-in before the event happens. After the event happens, start filtering the news out during team meetings, email, in-person meetings or a web conference. If it is positive news or bad news, then plan a specific meeting to discuss. Be ready for questions and answers.” ~ Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design
12. Hold a Quick Company-Wide Meeting
“In our company, we like to hold a quick company-wide meeting whenever we have to announce any big news to our employees. This gives you the chance to talk to your employees face-to-face so they can clear any questions or doubts right there if there are any. Also, I believe it’s better to announce any such news on your own instead of relying on any third-party communication channel.” ~ Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
13. Invite Regular Feedback from Employees
“Businesses can be more transparent with their employees by welcoming regular feedback. Whether anonymous or not, feedback can give you vital information about how to improve the company’s transparency and how everyone can be more open with each other. You can hold a meeting to specifically address the issue or send a more casual email to collect employee feedback and do better.” ~ Jared Atchison, WPForms
14. Announce It as Early as Possible
“Telling your employees about important news early on is important. Before you make major announcements to the public, it’s good to share them with the people in your business first. In this way, you show that you value them and that you’re transparent. Also, you can ask them to support your announcements by engaging with them via social media and other means.” ~ Blair Williams, MemberPress
15. Build Communication Into Your Culture
“If you don’t have one, start building now. You want to have a way of collaborating with your team members on projects while getting feedback during the process. How else are you going to know a team member has a better way of executing an idea? Or that your plan is bad? You build such a level of trust that can withstand hard times.” ~ Samuel Thimothy, OneIMS
Image: Depositphotos
This article, “Follow These 15 Strategies for Better, More Transparent Communication About Big Company News” was first published on Small Business Trends