Business, like nearly every aspect of human activity, is based on interactions. Those interactions, in turn, are governed by communication. The conclusion is fairly obvious: effective communication promotes effective business interactions, which generally translate into more effective business operations. Business leaders and entrepreneurs usually understand the need for effective workplace communication to ensure harmonized efficiency among individuals, teams, departments, customers, and even B2B interactions.
However, business communication has progressively grown more complex over the decades, especially with the move to digital technology. With the additional complications posed by the COVID-19 pandemic such as remote working, maintaining effective communication in the workplace can seem challenging in the current business landscape. However, the advantages a business can reap are well worth the extra thought and effort business leaders can put into improving communication quality and effectiveness, such as the ones that follow below.
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Enhance Productivity and Output
Productive and synergized teams characterize a successful business process. However, employees can’t synergize and work at optimal productivity if they don’t understand tasks or workflows. This is usually the case among teams with ineffective communication. This doesn’t just impact team productivity, but individual output as well. You can expect errors and more time wasted in rectifying them. Resources will be locked down with remedial activities instead of progressing to more productive tasks.
All of this can be fixed with strong and clear workplace communication. Each member of a team will clearly understand the specifics of what is required of them. They will know which teammates are working on parallel or supporting workflows. Most importantly, they will be able to communicate with each other and work around bottlenecks and obstacles much faster. All of this benefits the business with more productivity and output, and team members with better performance appraisals.
Improve Interpersonal Interactions
Business managers encourage optimal productivity from their teams every day of the week. Aside from receiving clear instructions, however, team members need to be able to have a working relationship with each other to execute tasks. While working professionals spend significant time each day with their colleagues, that alone is not enough to build trust and compatibility. Business leaders should set up team events where individuals can engage with other members of their teams outside a business setting. Building effective interpersonal interactions generally improve team communication, which in turn improves team functioning.
Create an Innovation Nurturing Culture
Innovation is one of the most valuable traits businesses give importance to when searching for talent. In fact, many organizations list it as a key requirement both for their direct hiring as well as third-party-supplemented efforts such as a staffing agency. Innovative ability among teams frequently leads to finding newer, better, and more efficient ways to do things. In order to foster innovation, you need to offer workers the right space and conditions to exercise their innovative talent. One of the best ways to show workers that you are an innovation-friendly employer is to communicate effectively. A communicative workplace offers the confidence and comfort workers look for when moving in bold new directions.
Build Stronger Loyalty among Workers
Talent acquisition strategies can only take your workforce capability so far. For a truly valuable workforce that drives sustainable growth, your talent retention management plays an equally valuable role. You could hire the best talent in the world, but if you’re unable to retain workers, you’ll never reap the long-term benefits of having them in your workforce. The only employees that stick with an employer long-term are those who trust the business and its leadership.
Building trust among workers begins with their first exposure to the organization: i.e., recruiting, onboarding, retention, growth, and creation of loyal alumni. At every stage, in nearly every interaction, effective communication will serve as the foundation to build a relationship of trust. Without it, you leave too much latitude for uncertainty, inaccurate assumptions, or even friction and conflict.
Offer Better Customer Experiences
Businesses exist for profit, which they generally earn by selling their products (such as hardware, software, FMCG, or perishables) or services (such as cybersecurity consulting)
to customers. As any business veteran can tell you, acquiring new customers is the only way for a business to grow and expand revenue streams. That does not mean you should overlook the customer retention aspect of your business. Depending on your product/service lifecycle, your existing customers will likely buy from you several times during the lifecycle. Each customer you lose represents lost future revenue. And you have to remember it is much harder (and therefore expensive) to acquire a new customer than it is to sell to a returning customer.
To encourage customers to come back for more, you need to offer an outstanding customer experience. The customer experience consists of many facets, but one of the most significant ones is clear and effective communication. This is even more important in voice-based contact centers that essentially represent your business to customers over the phone.
A great experience sets you apart from the competition, and can often make or break a buying decision, so the experience must be consistent and rich. This is one reason why mortgage recruiters place a lot of value on communication skills for front-end talent. Even in non-voice customer service, communication plays a key role in enhancing and improving the experience. You just can’t manage a business without effective communication, inside and outside the workplace.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Why is communication important in the workplace?
Effective communication improves productivity, work culture, and customer experiences.
How to improve communication skills in the workplace?
Identify areas with communication hurdles and solve them with technology.
What is effective communication in the workplace?
Clear and unambiguous, preferably two-way communication through effective channels.
How can internal communication be improved in the workplace?
Offer opportunities for interpersonal communication, training, and education.
How to fix communication issues in the workplace?
Use better technology, eliminate obsolete channels, and build positive working relationships.
