Our company runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. How do we handle team communications between shifts? We have discovered our shift teams aren’t sharing and this is causing problems.
The Team Doc Says…
Twenty-four hour operations add an additional dimension of complication to working in teams. You’ve recognized an issue that is very common to this type of environment.
The key to your success is having each shift communicate critical issues to the next shift so they can be successful. Too many times companies end up with shift teams working against – rather than with – each other. It’s critical that you consistently communicate how each shift team contributes to the success of the whole. That will help you keep their communication lines open.
Here are some tactics you can try that have worked successfully in other companies.
· Overlap shifts by thirty minutes. Use that time to have a shift transition meeting to identify key issues and successes that were encountered by the outgoing shift.
· Place easels around the team work space. Designate what items will be updated on the easel by each shift.
· Distribute a shift transition email. This email should be in a standard format that’s been communicated to all shift workers so they can quickly read it and get on with their work.
· Create a ‘communicator’ role on each shift. This role would be responsible for meeting with the previous and following shifts at shift transition time to communicate key issues.
Best regards,
Denise O’Berry
aka ‘Team Doc’
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