Communication, communication, communication! | by Katie Pinion

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a mind reader. I can’t look across the room at somebody and know what they’re thinking. Maybe it’s “I can’t wait for my lunch break,” or maybe it’s “I forgot to feed the fish this morning.” Although it’d be my chosen superpower if I could have one, I, unfortunately, lack this skill.
 
But, with the technological advances we’ve made over the past 100 – even the past 30 years, we’re left with a huge amount of different communication methods; emails, phone calls, text messages and facetime to name just a few. Within the workplace, these have become incredibly helpful.
 
Emails and text messages, for example. Not only does this allow us not only to send a load of information across to multiple people at once but also to maintain a record of what we’ve said. My team specifically send emails to one another to let us know of any updates, if someone’s interested in a job, to delegate tasks and to chat in general if we’re not in the office. We’re also capable of sending text messages on our call system to candidates to grab their attention, as I think we all reply to texts more so than we do to emails.
 
Additionally, having the accessibility to Zoom or Microsoft Teams is a huge benefit as we’re now able to speak to people whilst still being face-to-face with them rather than just a phone call or an email or the time spent travelling to meet people in person.
 
Personally, I work within a recruitment company and as everyone knows, recruiters are consistently making phone calls whether this be to clients, candidates or one another. A phone call can allow you to build a rapport with people much faster than an email can as you’re able to show more of your personality when directly speaking to someone, and it is a much quicker form of communication than a message.
 
Another example of a communication method we use as a team is meetings. Personally, we hold a ‘Jobs Meeting’ every morning at 8:30 am (8:00 am every Tuesday) to go through what we think we’re doing well/not so well currently, to go through any updates on any jobs/candidates and set our targets for the day. This is such a vital form of communication, I think, for many companies to sit down as a team and go through everything so that everyone is kept up to date which is a benefit to every team as it gives people a chance to catch up with one another and plan targets for the following week.
 
All in all, no matter what kind of communication your team or company uses, it’s always important to maintain the amount of interaction that is required for the rest of the team that you work within.
 

Katie Pinion is an apprentice in the Digital Business Accelerator programme at Multiverse and has been writing for the Apprentice Lens

Here’s more about her:

“I started this apprenticeship not knowing what to expect or how I would develop over the next year of my life. Now, I wonder how I've changed so much throughout the course of this apprenticeship- and think about how much of the change in me is due to Multiverse and the experiences and lessons I've learnt being an apprentice thanks to the community and my coach.”