Funded by the Scottish Government, StaffWise is a practical online resource, designed to improve organisational wellbeing in Scottish schools and early education centres by providing local authorities, managers and individual staff across Scotland with guides and tools that enable them to achieve excellence in wellbeing at work. Each week we will be looking at a different element of the site. This week: think about guides – communications.

Over the next few weeks we will be looking at the Think about guides which include information on support, role, relationships, demands, control, change and communications.

Communications

This section will help you to understand what is meant by employee communications about good practice and what it involves and how to ensure that information flow is two-way.

The following tips will help you communicate better with your staff and have more successful interactions.

• Be aware of the things that are important to communicate well – i.e. clearly stating employee terms and conditions including the role individuals have, instructions on how to carry out tasks and the standards of performance required.
• Think about the methods of communication – good practice would suggest using a wide range of methods to communicate with staff e.g.
• Communicating verbally by passing on information to individuals face-to-face or by phone for example, or more formally at face-to-face meetings/briefings to a wider audience. Quality circles could be used to discuss specific issues or a cascade method could be adopted where a small number of people are briefed who are then responsible for passing information on to others.
• Written communication could include e-mail, newsletters, circulars, diary entries, intranet, school websites, posters, memos, briefing notes, employee handbooks, departmental bulletins, notice boards, letters to individuals etc.
• It's vitally important to ensure that your communications are reaching all of the relevant people in the most timely fashion so think about part-time workers, seconded employees, those on maternity, and those absent from work through ill-health for example.
• Think about when to use specific approaches and who should be responsible – for example, face-to-face communication would be the best approach to take when either controversial or sensitive issues need to be discussed.

Are you providing opportunities for them to come and talk? Examples of ways to do this might include having an open door policy, setting aside specific times of the day for staff to drop in.

Are you actively listening? Think about the importance of listening attentively to the views, opinions or feedback of employees and that you are genuinely interested in and value what they have to say.

Are you feeding back constructively? Think about the use of positive language and identifying strengths in what is being said rather than automatically rejecting a point of view.

• Consultation
• Collegiate Meetings
• Communicating Change
• Restorative Conversation