The importance of communication in the workplace shouldn’t be understated. Effective communication can help to form lasting connections between teammates and employees, improve productivity and efficiency, and minimize errors and misunderstandings. It can significantly improve employee engagement and employees’ overall performance and the general organization of a company or business, especially when working with a large number of people. Without communication, a business can fall apart in an instant.
Here are four ways you can practice effective communication between you and your employees in the workplace:
1. Brush Up on Your Business Language
Written and verbal language is the most basic form of communication, if not the foundation itself. Although you might already consider yourself an expert in communication in your native language, it still won’t hurt to brush up on your business or corporate language. This is especially true if you use it in the office daily. People often surprise themselves by citing words whose meanings are lost to them or don’t mean the same thing that they think. A run-through or review on the basics of corporate language can help you to understand better how to speak it, in what context it is appropriate, and how to best use it to communicate a concept efficiently.
This is true for people who speak English as a second language, in which case it’s best to get refreshers from companies like ESL Tutoring Services. Knowing the ins and outs of the language you speak daily not only improves your grammar and vocabulary but also establishes you as an authority figure who knows what they’re talking about. Your employees will be more likely to listen to you if you sound authoritative and certain. But try not to overdo it too much, or you’ll just come off as pretentious.
2. Give and Ask for Feedback
Getting feedback is an essential process in communication and shouldn’t be a one-way street. Giving constant feedback to your employees, good or bad, opens up the lines between you and establishes a healthy working relationship. However, you must know how to give feedback as well. Don’t be too harsh on your criticisms and suggest ways to improve or correct their mistakes rather than just pointing out what they did wrong. At the same time, you also want to draw attention to what they did right and give credit where credit’s due. A healthy balance of criticism and praise is the key to improving your employees’ mindset and productivity on a task.
However, you also need to be able to take feedback on yourself. Just because you’re the boss doesn’t mean that your employees cannot question or criticize you. That will reflect poorly on you as an employer.
Ensure that your employees know that they can trust you enough to listen to their complaints or concerns about your decisions. Be open to their suggestions and try not to take personal offense. Just as you give negative feedback on an employee performing poorly, so too should you expect your employees to speak up if you’ve been unkind and unfair. It helps to see it as an opportunity to grow and improve your company or business.
3. Find Remote Communication Options
With most workplaces adopting a work-from-home or hybrid set-up, remote communication via online or electronic means has never been more critical. Offer your employees the choice of remote communication if they want to. Even if you’re all in the same working space, it helps to give them the option, nevertheless, if they communicate better through that medium.
Not only are remote options easily accessible anytime and anywhere, but you can send a variety of information through the internet or any cloud-based tools and programs. It makes working from any setting more efficient. It is just one more method you can use to connect to your employees even further.
4. Foster a Healthy and Accepting Environment
The goal of effective communication should always be about fostering a healthy and efficient work environment. Through communication, you can better understand your employees, especially their particular needs and expertise. At the same time, your employees will get to understand your reasoning as well. When you build a working relationship on mutual trust and understanding, you ensure that nobody gets waylaid or misunderstood. You avoid any arguments and conflict that can have caused you plenty of grief and frustration and you grow more empathetic towards others. All of this contributes to creating a safe and healthy workplace that can greatly improve employee satisfaction and retention.
When your employees feel like they can trust you and that you, in turn, count on them, they’ll feel more involved in the company and more important. They’re more likely to stay, be present on critical working days, and turn in high-quality work. Plus, if they ever decide to leave, they might recommend your company or business to any prospective new hires. You can achieve all this through effective communication.
Don’t aim for effective communication so that you can make yourself and your company look good. Strive for effective communication. That way, you can build a lasting relationship with your employees, understand them better, and help them realize their talents to their full potential. When it comes to the workplace, don’t leave everything to chance and assumptions. Communicate clearly and directly, and the rest will follow.
