Good communication in the workplace enables employees to build a positive personal brand. Leaders can take focused steps to leverage their workplace communication to accelerate their organisation’s growth.
The ability to exchange information and ideas at the workplace is a prerequisite for any professional. Workplace communication starts with the individual but it transcends beyond teams and departments in an organisation to outside stakeholders. Whether you are working in a small startup or a well-established business, having good communication is a must for every individual irrespective of their hierarchy level. Effective communication in the workplace helps build relationships and work as productively as possible.
What is Workplace Communication?
Communication in the workplace is not just about how well you speak with your colleagues. It includes face-to-face conversations, phone calls, chat messages, emails, videoconferencing, and other methods used to convey information. Nonverbal communication cues like eye contact, body language, and tone of voice are also significant for good workplace communication.
Different etiquette and rules apply to different ways of workplace communication. While facial expressions and body language are add to the impact during presentations and in-person meetings, tone of voice is more important over a telephonic conversation, whereas putting emoticons in emails is seen as an unprofessional and reckless attribute.
Importance of Good Workplace Communication
Miscommunication has real consequences for a business and the importance of effective communication in the workplace cannot be emphasized enough. A survey by Expert Market says that 28% of employees cited poor communication as the reason why they could not finish projects on time.
Also, it has been found in a study done on businesses with 100 or more employees that miscommunications caused losses of approximately $420,000 or more a year on average. Effective workplace communication contributes to an organisation’s growth in many ways.
● Builds strong teams
● Encourages innovation
● Ensures transparency
● Mitigates conflict
● Accelerates operations
● Facilitates effective management
● Builds and embraces relationships
You can read more on why effective communication is important in the workplace.
5 Powerful Strategies to Improve Communication in The Workplace
These five strategies will help improve and enhance the quality of your workplace communication.
1. Sharpen individual communication skills
Communicating effectively with colleagues is key to having a positive experience at work. If you want to sharpen your communication skills as a professional, follow the tips mentioned below:
● Practise active and empathic listening
● Practise critical thinking
● Develop negotiation skills
● Learn to determine and pay attention to nonverbal cues
● Provide constructive feedback regularly
2. Make meetings efficient
Don't let bad meetings steal your and your colleagues’ time. Research indicates that only 50% of time spent in meetings is considered meaningful by attendees. Follow the appropriate ways to improve the efficiency of meetings in your organisation to make sure you and other attendees get the most out of it:.
● Always have clear objectives
● Plan and share the agenda
● Gather ideas from your team
● Note and reflect on your points beforehand
● Anticipate obstacles beforehand
● Robust meeting setup
● Make your meeting interactive
● End the meeting summing up the action items and the person responsible
3. Use the appropriate communication medium
Not every issue requires a meeting. Consider the importance, urgency, and complexity of the matter and accordingly choose the right communication channel . Sometimes a gentle reminder sent through an email can be enough to accomplish the objective. Choose phone calls over Zoom meetings and make your one-to-one interactions smoother. This approach also saves you from complications like Zoom fatigue.
4. Assign One Professional for Communication Between Departments
Effective workplace communication may vary according to the way two different employees are interacting with each other. If they are in the same department, ensure an employee has easy access. If they are from different departments who have much less regular contact with each other, implement suitable ways to avoid any confusion.
Assign one member of each department to communicate with other departments. It will reduce the chances of messages getting lost in transition and will be conveyed quickly too.
5. Create an open and inclusive culture
Creating a trusting environment is key to making your employees feel empowered to discuss the challenges they face at work. It cannot be effective communication in the workplace without the inclusion of every employee in your organisation.
● Organise bi-weekly or monthly lunch meetings
● Offer different ways of participating
● Give equal chance to all the voices
● Praise positive things when you see them
● Involve remote workers
Bring good communication practices to your workplace through effective communication strategies. It improves productivity and also increases profitability. Incorporate them into your daily routine at your workplace and endorse the same for your colleagues to accelerate your own and your organisation’s growth.
Do you communicate smartly or need help to enhance your communication skills? Take the Free Communication Skills Assessment to take the first step to speak with confidence.
Smita D Jain is a Certified Life Coach, Executive Coach and NLP Practitioner. Smita’s ‘Empower Yourself’ Performance Enhancement Coaching Programs enable introverted executives to speak with confidence and communicate with impact so that they emerge leaders sooner than envisaged.
Prior to her journey as a coach, Smita had extensive experience of 14 years as a corporate and business strategy professional with Fortune 500 companies. She is also a TEDx speaker, a panellist cum speaker at various public forums, a published writer, and an Amazon bestselling author.
You can learn more about Personal Empowerment Life Coach and Executive Coach Smita D Jain’s ‘Empower Yourself’ Coaching Programs by visiting www.lifecoachsmitadjain.com and book a strategy session at https://www.lifecoachsmitadjain.com/booking.
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