How to Eliminate the Biggest Barriers to Employee Alignment

Do you feel your team works in silos? Is there a lack of teamwork in your company? Departmental silos can suppress growth and hamper the customer experience. Today, more than ever, it is critical to break down those barriers, communicate, and achieve success as a team working toward a common goal. As you have already realized by now, establishing alignment in your organization isn’t an easy task, but it is, however, one of the crucial tasks for making the business a success. 

Employee alignment is critical to the success of any firm. Working in a siloed organization leaves gaps in your client experience that are undiscovered. It also eliminates any accountability or openness among departments. Delivering simplified and personalized client experiences is more vital than ever in today’s digital environment. 

Organizational alignment is the only way to truly achieve this. A well-aligned organization is critical to a company’s success. Organizational alignment is a powerful tool for developing joint objectives, maximizing staff skills, motivating leadership, and promoting positive company culture. Understanding the significance, benefits, and methods for attaining organizational alignment will help you achieve your operational objectives more successfully.

Employee alignment and its importance

The process of implementing tactics and philosophies to guarantee that every member of an organization, from entry-level employees to executive managers, shares a common aim and vision for the business’s success is known as organizational alignment. Organizational alignment enables an organization’s personnel to collaborate to achieve common goals while communicating honestly and retaining accountability across departments. 

Organizational alignment is crucial because it encourages collaboration and the mutual pursuit of business goals, which has various long-term benefits for an organization’s performance and productivity. Organizational alignment may also boost staff happiness and customer experiences. All of these factors add to the following:

• A safe and healthy working environment
• Enhanced brand image
• Reduced employee turnover Improved client and customer relationships Increased productivity.
• A favorable corporate culture
• A boost in client loyalty

Employee alignment is essential for smooth and efficient company processes both within and outside (the customer experience). It also promotes teamwork, which results in happier, more effective teams. Without collaboration, each department operates separately, with its own set of goals, data sets, and technological applications. This is referred to as a siloed organization. 

The difficulty with a siloed company is that each department works with a different, limited data set, executing different duties at various stages of the customer lifecycle. They do not exchange information with other departments, resulting in gaps in the client experience. We regularly observe opposing efforts in this setting since there is little to no communication between departments. The most productive firms will be those that prioritize and incorporate employee alignment into their company culture.

Eliminating the barriers to employee alignment

1. Establish a unified vision for your teams.

This is perhaps the most critical factor to consider regarding team alignment. Without a clear vision, the team is unable to chart a course. Management is where most silos begin. Each department leader is focused on achieving their own set of goals without considering the rest of the team. This silo mentality undermines team alignment. Having said that, team alignment begins with management. 

Collaboration, communication, and the open flow of information must be prioritized by the leadership team. The idea is to shift from a “me” mentality to a “us” mentality. Start investing in each team member and celebrating their success; when the team wins, you also win.

2. Provide the right technologies

Having the right technology is crucial to establishing employee alignment and removing the barriers to employee alignment. CRM, for example, isn’t just for salespeople, and marketing automation isn’t only for marketers. CRM (customer relationship management) should be at the bottom of your technological stack, with each team member having permission-based access to relevant data elements. For example, everyone can observe progress toward a common goal when every team member, regardless of department, has access to a CRM and can examine critical growth measures. 

In addition to the CRMs, you must ensure that your employees have the tools to communicate and collaborate. Integrated tools enable teams to communicate more successfully, allowing every department to view important data from throughout the corporation rather than just their own.

3. Establish a culture of effective communication

Communication is essential to establish a culture of employee alignment. While working individually is beneficial for focus, it does not imply that your employees actively communicate with the rest of the team. The goal is to promote the free flow of knowledge. Remove departmental barriers and allow everyone to communicate openly in the office or via conferencing facilities if you have a virtual team. To effectively develop team collaboration, it is necessary to form mixed teams that work toward a common purpose. 

For example, if you want to create better content to address consumer pain points, your strategy and planning team should include sales, marketing, and customer support, representatives. This allows for interdepartmental communication and a broader, more thorough understanding of the customer’s needs.

Need more insights into removing barriers to employee alignment in your organization? Speak to our experts today! 

FAQs

• Which tools can help in establishing alignment in the organization?

Amongst the numerous options available, tools such as OKR software, performance management tool, and agile collaboration tool can is known to be quite effective in establishing well-aligned teams. 

• How is non-alignment problematic for the business?

Having non-aligned teams hampers the functioning of the organization in multiple ways. The employees usually struggle to find the information they need, deadlines are routinely forgotten, and teams spend tons of time on unproductive discussions.