As a former integrator, I’m guilty of being reactive to the day-to-day punches — doing the best to clear the deck, only to be surprised by a new email notification, phone call, text message, or carrier pigeon demanding your immediate attention. While it can be hard to anticipate what lurks beneath, I wish I’d paid more attention to our process of internal communication instead of letting a sleeping dog lie.
You see, at my previous company, we relied heavily on email as our primary form of internal communication. “What time is that meeting again?” — send. “What do you think about this?” — send. I found myself drowning in a sea of 200+ emails per day, many of which required my specific attention or action. It was overwhelming and stressful. I’d respond and archive one email then two more would appear - not too dissimilar from a game of whack-a-mole!
Now, with the benefit of hindsight and learning from the experiences of a fully-remote workplace, I’ve witnessed the firsthand benefits of using alternative forms of communication, like Slack. Not only does it encourage collaboration and promote transparency, but it also significantly cuts down on response times and reduces key-person dependency. In fact, studies have shown that teams that use Slack or other messaging platforms are 23% more productive than those who rely solely on email. It’s not all about productivity though, it’s also about sanity. I now only manage about 5-10 emails per day — nearly none of which are internal communications. Wild!
So my advice to all integrators out there is this: even if you’ve ditched email for Slack or another messaging platform, don't be afraid to shake things up and try new things. You might be surprised at the positive changes that can come from reevaluating areas of your business that you thought were "good enough”.
(Image: Work life before Slack)