Team Communications
Consistent, clear, and concise information shared equally among members of your team, their families and the public is very important. Assigning communication efforts to select members of your coaching staff will ensure message and tone consistency through the many communication channels typically used for a team. Multiple communications from multiple people to the same audience is not recommended.
- Determine the most effective way to communicate with athletes and parents. Options include email, text, social media, website, or online team communication tools such as Google Calendar.
- Create a custom email address (ie: yourteam@gmail.com) for team-related correspondence only. Free email services include Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, iCloud, Zoho and others.
- Setup email accounts in the team’s name rather than individuals.
- Research options of using social media to communicate certain information. Facebook and Twitter are just a couple of options.
- If your school has a “Social Media Policy”, make sure you understand it and adhere to the requirements.
- Seek out trusted and reliable third party messaging services as a means to communicate effectively.
- There are many free and low-cost website options available for teams.
- Send out information in a positive, timely and responsible manner.
- DO NOT over communicate! Athletes and parents will tune you out from too many emails.
- Be creative and think out your thoughts before sending something out to the team.
- Limit who can reach the team on a broad basis.
- Respect the privacy of everyone when sharing communications. Do not share contact information with others unless you have their consent
- Understand that you may have to use many different forms of communication to get your points across.
- Face-to-face communication is always preferred and is generally the most effective.
- Keep all references to communication. You will use enhanced versions of these to communicate to future athletes, parents and coaches for years to come.