Working in recruitment means the focus of communication naturally gravitates outwards towards the way we work with candidates and clients. Of course this is important; it’s a process that’s intrinsically linked with the profession, and it’s the route that allows us to make placements and ultimately bring in money.
Communication within our recruiting teams is just as important, but it often falls by the wayside. Take the time to implement a few simple strategies and techniques, and internal communication can thrive. This will allow for a more efficient and motivated workforce to effectively support outbound communication – and that usually means more money.
Read on for our top strategies to improve communication within your agency.
1. Make an Effort to Build Internal Relationships
This may seem obvious, but with the culture of home working and a reliance on technology, growing relationships can be difficult.. Make an effort to ensure your team bonds. This will benefit their working life, and their motivation will rocket too.
Facilitate relationship building by providing coffee and cakes once a month and encouraging staff to step away from the phones for 20 minutes. It won’t cost you much and your staff will begin to feel more at ease with each other, facilitating better communication when they get back to work.
2. Create a Collaborative Culture
We’ve all been in environments where a colleague received the credit for your placement or worse still, the boss has taken all the glory.
Create a working environment that’s focused heavily on collaboration and you should go some way to avoid this. If every member of your team works together to drive placements forward, you can almost guarantee that the bitterness will decline. Everyone will know that they’ll be helped out at some stage in the same way as they’ve supported their colleagues previously.
Collaboration doesn’t only decrease inter-office spats, it could help you source better candidates and fill more jobs too. As they say, two heads are better than one, so if a member of your team is struggling with a role, encourage them to ask a colleague for help.
Brainstorming sessions and bouncing ideas off each other can uncover potential new sources, searches, and skills that the ‘right’ candidate should have. This works to bring a fresh perspective to the process and leaves the original recruiter feeling more supported, enthusiastic, and determined to fill the role.
3. Time is Valuable
We all know that we spend too much of our time in meetings, strategy sessions, and progress reviews. It’s become a running joke throughout offices that these reduce productivity, and it’s time to change things!
Keep meetings as short as possible and only schedule them as frequently as necessary to ensure that you don’t frustrate your team with interruptions.
Saying that, when you need to make changes or have important discussions with your team, face to face time is valuable and will demonstrate that you respect and value your team’s time. Don't swerve a difficult face-to-face meeting in place of a telephone or Skype call. Face-to-face may not be the most efficient way, but it’s definitely the best way to keep your team on side.
In recruitment, we can spend the day talking non-stop, but we’re shockingly bad at communicating to the colleagues we share an office with. Building rapport with your team and encouraging them to gel together is the first step in creating an efficient and happy working environment. Establish a culture where colleagues feel compelled to collaborate, and ease off on the overly frequent meetings, and you’re well on your way to building a effective team.
Communication is key, and it’s important to make sure that your team feels valued by you – for that reason face-to-face will always win in tricky situations.
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