Effective Ways to Share Work Updates

How to Effectively Share Work Updates with Your Team

While COVID-19 certainly normalized the concept of remote work, the necessity of sharing work updates with your team has existed since your business was born. It doesn't matter if your business has essential employees who work in the office or facility or if you have a team that is spread across the globe working from home.

It also doesn't matter if you have a close-knit team of three or four people or if you employ hundreds or thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of people. Sharing work updates are essential to keeping everyone on the same page to ensure that departmental and overall business goals are met.

So, how can you effectively share work updates with your team? While there are several methods available, what works best depends on your organization. You should consider-

• Whether you are disseminating information to your department or to the entire organization
• The size of the department or the organization
• The time zone of the individuals involved, particularly if you're working with a remote team

• Scheduling a daily call- With a daily call, everyone on the team calls in at the same time and shares any updates they have related to their projects. This can be done using traditional phones or it can be done utilizing web conferencing software such as Zoom or Google Meetings.
  
  If you have a team that is located in different time zones, it would be important to find a time that works best for most of the team. It may also be important to determine whether having everyone share updates is an actual requirement.
  
  
• Weekly stand-up meeting- A weekly stand-up meeting is an in-person meeting where you meet weekly with your entire team. It is known as a stand-up meeting because everyone meets together once a week for a brief period of time.
  
  As the leader, it would be your time to listen to updates as well as for you to share work updates about the business. If you're working with a remote team, this would be the equivalent of having a mandatory weekly online meeting.
  
  
• Create a weekly video update- Instead of sending out an email newsletter, create a weekly video update to share work updates. According to Smart Insights, video continues to grow in popularity.
  
  It is estimated that the average person will spend more than an hour and a half each day watching online videos in 2021. That is a 19% increase from 2019's 84 minutes each day.
  
  
• Provide a real-time news feed for work updates- Providing a real-time news feed for work updates allows your team members to access information any time they want it or need it. It also provides a social media feel which makes the consumption of information more user friendly.

How to Effectively Share Work Updates with Your Boss

Sharing work updates with your boss is essential. Sure, they told you to keep them updated. You know it is important for you to do so, but you're worried about providing too much information and feeling as if you're being a pest, especially through email.

How can you make sure that you're effectively sharing work updates with your boss? Here are some tips to help you-

• Being considered effective ultimately depends on the personality of your boss. Communication is a two-way street. What one boss might consider effective communication may be considered ineffective to another, and you may consider it great or awful because you have your own definition of effective communication.
  
  What sort of boss do you have? Do they need to be involved in every decision or need to know everything? If so, share more often and include more information. Do you have a boss that only wants to know what is important?
  
  Fewer updates, but only what is necessary. And if something important comes up? Always, always update because, at the end of the day, you are always the one who is involved.
  
  
• Ask how often they would like to receive work updates. It is so much easier to ask how often they would like to receive updates. This can help ensure that you're not giving yourself more to do.
  
  
• Ask what type of information they would like for the updates for each project. For routine projects that you work on daily or weekly, you'll find that understanding what you should include in each update will make it easier for you to provide the proper metrics.
  
  You won't be left scrambling for data that you don't have (or never had) at the last minute that you weren't aware that you should have tracked. For larger projects, knowing what needs to be tracked for your boss can help you feel more confident and prepared for future meetings as well as for work updates.
  
  
• Think about the impression you want to present. Language is everything. What you write in your work update emails directly reflects on how you are perceived, whether you recognize it or not.
  
  Be very careful in the words that you choose. Always remember that the email could be forwarded, printed, or even screenshotted and shared.

In Conclusion...

Whether you are part of the management team or an employee, sharing work updates are crucial. If you're in management-

• Consider using a daily call or weekly call
• Consider using a video update or a news feed style update

• Keep the personality of your boss in mind when you create your work update
• Ask how often you should update them
• Ask if there is specific information you should include
• Always think about the impression you want to present