How Important is Communication in the Workplace?

Workplace communication is vital for any business to run successfully. It doesn’t matter if you’re offering a trade, you sell stock online or you’re a logistics company. Without an effective communication strategy, your business will surely fail, which is not a sign of a good leader. Here are just some of the reasons why communication is important in the workplace.

Communication good practices

It may be simple when broken down, but many do forget how to achieve the basic form of good communication. As a leader you’ll need to be a good listener and speaker. To do this well you’ll need to learn these common conversational skills and work them into your natural behavior:

• Keeping good eye contact and maintaining positive body language
• Being aware of how you’re being perceived in conversation in person or online
• Dealing with difficult situations and different points of view
• Showing empathy and respect
• Speaking with a clear and direct manner to deliver your message
• Understanding non-verbal signals.

Communication and project management

One of the most effective ways you can showcase good communication skills is during an ongoing project. From organization, to problem solving, you need a workable system. You need a forum that will let you have open discussions with your team to spark creativity. The environment and company culture should allow for risks and mistakes to happen, without the fear of total failure. You’ll need to make sure the right people are involved in the project from the beginning and are updated regularly, to ensure any project runs smoothly.

Good communication is key for the success of any project and can save you financially if the project is completed within the set deadline. Make sure you’re setting up regular meetings and clearly marking out the status of work to keep track of the project’s main aims.

Communication and transparency

As we immerse ourselves in the information age, transparency in the workplace is becoming even more important. It’s all well and good sending out regular emails to staff and customers, but if those emails contain personal data, they could be doing more harm than good.

From asking for explicit consent from external customers, to HR needing permission to store your personal data, GDPR is going to affect how you communicate. Make sure all company-wide emails are sent to the right people with GDPR adhering content on it. It can be a good idea to have a GDPR expert in your team. It’ll be their job to ensure all important GDPR regulation is followed.

Communication and leadership

Having respect as a leader from your employees is all about having a natural communication practice. From a recent study, unbelievably nearly one in three UK employees have no confidence in their company’s leadership. This might be because their leadership are not leading the company at all. They’re managing workloads, ticking boxes and going about their day inside of the managerial bubble. But, an important part of being a successful leader in business that, on a whole, is moving faster than anyone anticipated, is being able to adapt.

If you’re able to adapt to the growing digital age, you’ll need to listen and learn from your peers. In order for your business to grow, you’ll need to be a part of the team, a part of the growth and a part of the challenges. Communicate with your staff and delegate tasks. After all, you’re all working towards the same goal; the success of the company.