Workplace Communication: 7 Ways to Effectively Manage Communication at Work
Communication is king.
It can be the difference between a happy workplace with productive, engaged, and fulfilled employees all working together towards the company’s goals and a workplace where conflicts and dissatisfaction are the order of the day.
Research shows that communication breakdowns in the workplace have terrible consequences for the staff members and the overall health of the organization.
These issues manifest as things like the inability to complete projects, increased stress levels, and loss of revenue.
However, companies with effective communication practices enjoy 20 to 25% more productivity from their employees, increased customer retention rates, and generate 47% higher returns.
Other benefits of great workplace communication include:
- Higher employee job satisfaction
- Reduced turnover rates
- Increased self-esteem amongst workers.
- Stronger team spirit and ease of collaboration
- Faster conflict resolution and less misunderstanding
No matter the size of your company, you can’t accomplish or surpass your business goals and stay afloat for very long if you continue to uphold poor communication practices.
As a leader, it is your job to increase the quality of communication across all levels and foster an environment where feedback, collaboration, and positive company culture can thrive.
So how do you do that?
Let’s explore some highly effective strategies you can implement to create a more communication-friendly workplace without spending a lot of money or expending a lot of time.
1. Make use of the right technology
Choosing the right channels and technology is integral to the success of your communication efforts. Your workplace communication has to be delivered through mediums that your employees prefer and are easy for them to adopt.
Think Slack, Google Hangouts, Zoom, ProofHub, Chanty, HipChat, Taskworld, Office 365, Jive, Donut, and even social media.
Find what works for your people and run with it. This is especially important if you’re managing a remote team.
For example if you have a remote sales team, you can leverage the power of everyone’s knowledge by centralizing the CRM database. This means your employees can access everything they need in one convenient cloud location.
Furthermore, there’s a good chance that most of your employees are using tablets and smartphones for all kinds of tasks, especially when they’re away from the office.
To be able to constantly engage them and enable them to communicate with one another, you need to prioritize mobile-oriented communication and task management solutions.
Identify the communication methods you currently use and analyze them to see which ones are effective and where changes need to be made to create a seamless experience for your workers.
For example, if you’re using emails to communicate with your employees, assess their deliverability and overall effectiveness. Automation could boost engagement levels by simplifying the process and making it more prompt.
On the other hand, rather than relying on emails, in-person meetings, and phone calls for all your communication needs, consider adding instant messaging software, video conferencing, and collaboration tools to your lineup.
This’ll be particularly useful if you have a part-time or full-time remote workforce as it’ll foster a greater sense of belonging and enable them to be in the loop on all company activities.
You can even create a special channel for strategic communications such as an internal newsletter — someplace where people can go to find all the important and relevant news or information about the company like policy updates and organizational or leadership change.
2. Encourage participation and feedback
A key part of improving communication at work is creating an environment where people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, opinions, and ideas, and are actively encouraged to do so without fear of repercussions.
If your workers don’t feel safe speaking up, especially when it comes to difficult subjects, a lot of important issues are going to slip through the cracks, and your organization will suffer as a result.
When you’re working to mitigate remote communication challenges, try to get everyone involved in the process. They’re more likely to understand and work harder towards achieving your business goals when it’s their vision too. You can, for example, do this through live webinars.
Allow people to share their thoughts and actually listen. Welcome, all ideas even the seemingly silly ones.
Let your workers know that their opinions are valued and won’t be dismissed.
Studies show that 69% of managers are uncomfortable communicating with employees and 4 out of 10 employees get disengaged when they receive little or no feedback.
Giving constructive feedback with specific examples can help your employees know when they’re performing or when they’re not and motivate them to do better.
Remember that your delivery is as important as your message. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. If you’re going to be hurt, offended, angry, or defensive receiving the same feedback, then find a better way to phrase it.
3. Define roles and responsibilities clearly
There are very few things that are more disorienting in the workplace than being unsure of the scope of your job and unable to understand what is expected of you.
It may help to create an internal knowledge base that outlines every position’s responsibilities. This way, your employees always have a place to refer to if they’re unsure of their role.
By clearly defining everyone’s job roles and their responsibilities at any point in time, you can improve productivity, communication, efficiency, and employee satisfaction all at once. Collectively, this will help boost sales as well.
Help people find meaning in their work and feel like what they’re doing is adding real value to the business. Even the most tedious and unglamorous tasks can be handled with vigor if you can make it seem like a part of a grander initiative.
If you have to assign responsibilities to your staff that doesn’t fit into their job descriptions, be upfront and honest about it rather than trying to sneak it past them and hoping they won’t notice or will be intimidated to call you out on it.
4. Engage in two-way conversations
You can’t expect your workers to communicate effectively when their leaders are incapable of doing so. To improve communications, start by working on your own communication skills.
Your word shouldn’t be the only one that counts. Give other people a chance to critique your ideas and contribute their own. Being part of the dialogue will help your employees align and better understand company objectives.
Adhere to office-wide communication standards. Implement an open-door policy. Be personable, approachable, kind, warm, and empathetic towards your employees. Don’t take too long to respond to employee messages, questions, or concerns.
Try to get to know the people who work for you on a more personal level. You don’t have to be a fire breathing dragon for your employees to respect you and trust in your leadership.
Over 75% of employees quit their jobs because of bad relationships with their supervisors.
You can close communication gaps, foster stronger working relationships, and boost transparency and engagement by encouraging two-way interactions and collaborations between employees and higher-ups.
5. Recognize people for jobs well done
Employees who receive recognition from their managers are 60% more engaged than their counterparts who get no recognition.
Humans thrive on recognition. You can get the best out of almost anyone by simply appreciating their efforts and showing that you believe in them. If you can afford to, try offering a few perks in addition to the words of praise.
Recognition not only impacts the person whose performance is being acknowledged and rewarded, but it also communicates to others what kinds of behavior or actions they should emulate if they also want time in the spotlight.
Depending on the intranet software or internal communication tools you use, you can make the rewards process more fun and build healthy competition by making a game out of it, whereby people get badges, stars, or points when they take initiative or complete tasks.
6. Schedule regular check-ins with your team
Organizing quick calls and online or in-person meetings from time to time can work wonders for your workplace communication.
During this time, employees can reconnect with each other as well as company priorities, discuss projects, give feedback about current situations, and offer suggestions on how to move forward.
This doesn’t always have to be a general check-in.
It’s also important that you make time for one-on-one meetings with employees.
This’ll allow you to get to know how you can help each team-member handle their responsibilities, achieve their goals, and resolve any underlying management issues.
It’s much easier for employees to speak freely in a private setting than in group gatherings where they might be afraid of saying the wrong thing or stepping on someone else’s toes.
Schedule these sessions in your calendar as a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly recurring event and make sure you show up for the.
If for some reason you have to cancel or reschedule, let the other person know beforehand, but try not to make a habit of missing appointments or you’ll risk creating distrust and communication breakdowns.
7. Test employees to see how engaged they are
You won’t really know how well you’re implementing effective communication practices until you start tracking your emails, content, or other internal communication methods and measuring your results.
You can kick things off by sending a survey asking your employees what they think about current management strategies, how they like to receive internal communication, what changes they’d like to see implemented, and more.
Make sure everyone knows they won’t be punished expressly or overtly for being honest.
The goal is to understand how well company communications are received, not to squash dissent. You can also go one step further by making the feedback or survey process anonymous.
Conducting tests to see how engaged your employees are can help them feel heard and cared for. It can also provide actionable insight on how to improve team collaboration in the workplace from the point of view and lived experiences of the people who it actually concerns.
After carrying out your surveys, measurements, and tests and aggregating results, make sure you swing into action to address the issues they raised and administer solutions as quickly as possible.
Start improving your workplace communication
Effectively managing communications at work can be a difficult task. This is because it requires genuine commitment, but the positive impact on your workforce and organization makes it well worth it.
With healthy and strong communication on your side, there are no workplace challenges you can’t overcome as a team. You’ll have a community that’s bound together by free and open interactions, productivity, and success.
Good communication requires conscious, constant, and consistent effort so don’t just implement these practices once and forget about them. It’s an ongoing process.
It’s important to continuously listen to your team members, give them opportunities to air opinions and complaints, and provide feedback. Continuous improvement is key to creating a collaborative work environment for everyone involved.
