16 Ways to Improve Communication in the Workplace

It's no secret that communication in the workplace is an important factor for your organization's success. For nearly 95% of recently surveyed company leaders, effective communication is the single biggest influencer of employee commitment at work. But only 22% of leaders think their companies are communicating effectively. So how can you help your team to communicate better? Here's a clue: improving communication starts with you.

Most company leaders will say that communication is the glue that connects all the moving parts of their organization. It's the cornerstone of their operational strategy for creating value, scaling their growth, and achieving success.

At least 86% of leaders and employees acknowledge that the main reason why failure happens in the workplace is due to a lack of effective communication. For a project to be handled properly, 94% of people say it's absolutely necessary to be kept up to date on the status of all associated deliverables. In other words, great communication skills are key.

Improved communication at work influences the productivity levels of your team:

• 97% of workers believe communication affects their ability to get work done every day.
• People who work with company strategies that minimize communication silos and make information, knowledge, and data available to all are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers.
• "Improved communication and collaboration through social technologies could raise the productivity of teams by 20 to 25%," says the McKinsey Global Institute.

Improved communication at work keeps the right people in the right seats:

• 96% of workers believe empathetic communication is important for retaining a great workforce.
• Top priorities for leaders include effectively communicating company strategy, values, and purpose to their employees (64%) and enhancing leadership communication (46%).

Improved communication at work boosts engagement:

• According to Gallup, organizational elements that rely on clear communication like understanding roles, accountabilities, and responsibilities (RARs); the right tools for the job; and working toward common goals and a clear Vision are determining factors in elevated employee engagement.
• 92% of employees feel their performance would improve if they received corrective feedback delivered positively. While 43% of highly engaged workers receive feedback at least once per week, only 18% of low-engaged workers do.

Improved communication at work enables trust among leaders and teams:

• 63% of leaders and teams think trust at work must be earned.
• More than 80% of workers in the United States say a key factor in developing trust with employers is company communication skills.
• Trusted companies see 106% more "energy" at work, have a 50% higher employee productivity level, and outperform companies with low trust levels by 186%.

Better communication is the essential solution for creating a culture of transparency and trust, dissolving confusion, resolving internal conflicts, and ensuring everyone knows what they're responsible for. It keeps everyone engaged and creates an effective and enjoyable atmosphere.

Here are 16 ways to improve communication in your workplace:

1. Develop your own communication skills first. 

By communicating with our colleagues at work, we accomplish things like leading teams, delegating responsibilities, explaining concepts, and building relationships. This knowledge-share is only effective when our communication skills are refined for better understanding and a thoughtful response.

Every day, we communicate in four ways:

• Verbally communication can be immediate and efficient (when done thoughtfully). Here's how to hone your verbal communication skills:
  • Speak slowly with a confident, even voice so people can easily hear you. 
  • Get to the point with succinct, simple sentences so your ideas are easily understood. 
  • Prioritize active listening so you can genuinely understand the meaning and intent of the speaker's message before you respond appropriately and empathetically.
• Written communication provides a record of each interaction for reference. You can refine your writing skills by: 
  • Craft simple messaging with detailed information or descriptions so your ideas are concise and easy to understand. 
  • Proofread your written messages to identify typos and confusing wording.
  • Check your written tone of voice to ensure you sound positive and encouraging because you won't have body language to help convey your intentions.

• Nonverbal communication helps to convey emotion. Here's how you can improve your nonverbal communication: 
  • Notice how your emotions affect your body and how others' body language affects you. Observe your posture, facial expressions, breathing patterns, muscle tension, and limb positions when speaking and listening.
  • Practice body language that makes people feel at ease and shows that you're receptive to what they're saying, such as uncrossed arms and legs, shoulders back, and steady and relaxed eye contact.
  • Take a deep breath and adjust yourself whenever you notice you are expressing defensive and unreceptive body language, like crossing your arms or avoiding eye contact.
• Visual communication helps with different learning styles and a person's ability to comprehend ideas. Here's how to improve visual communication skills: 
  • Choose visuals that help people identify and understand the knowledge and information you're communicating. This could include graphs, charts, photos, illustrations, or videos.
  • Consider where you can add visuals to what you're expressing verbally and on a page. This is a proven technique to help improve understanding of an idea or concept.
  • Provide context to visuals, like a key or legend, to help people translate visual data. 

2. Review and refine your communication process.

Consider how good communication skills benefit the workplace, and assess whether your organization's communication process:

• Enables employee engagement: Once you have a greater understanding of team members' skills and needs, you'll have a more satisfying work environment.

• Provides a customized experience for workers: People expect personalized communication in their home lives, so they expect the same from their employers.

• Helps build a positive culture: Once you mitigate misunderstandings, any conflicts, and possible feelings of disrespect, you'll have team members who perform better.

• Allows for well-timed messages: Information should be communicated appropriately when required.

• Improves customer relationships: Once you provide great solutions for customers' needs, you'll have happy customers.

• Is strategy-based: Unclear communication that confuses more than it explains won't help keep employees engaged or connected.

• Boosts performance and productivity: Once you have workers who feel good about expressing their ideas at work, you'll have workers who take ownership and problem-solve creatively.

• Values openness and trust: When you have a communication process that acts as a dialogue for the entire organization, you enable clear messaging and active listening among all members of an organization, whether in an office or remote.

People also read: How to Communicate with Remote Teams [3 Methods to Try Now]

3. Show you're trustworthy by communicating with compassion. 

Research shows that at least 25% of employees don't trust their employer. As leaders, we should strive to express genuine interest in conversations with our team, show empathy for others' point of view, and follow through on our offer to work together and find a solution.

4. Approach workplace communication as the free flow of information. 

Emphasize transparency, adaptable processes, open communication, and continuous improvement of both communication skills and technology.

Create a culture of accountability where:

• Team members take ownership of their RARs and answer for their actions.
• Leaders value initiative, self-direction, personal responsibility, and integrity.
• Team members use their work time efficiently.
• Leaders allocate resources appropriately.
• Companies recognize that taking responsibility creates a more open communication channel for honest feedback and thorough understanding.

5. Start with understanding before assumption. 

Some people make up their minds first about what a message means before absorbing and comprehending the communication. This can cause inappropriate reactions and confusion. Strengthen this practice by ensuring you have all the information before deciding. Ask questions that allow the communicator to clarify their message, and give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to positive intent.

6. Become a better listener.

Good communicators are always active listeners. They take time to consider what a message means before responding with care. Start by observing your listening habits. When are you not listening? What draws your attention away the most? Work on your listening skills every time you're talking with someone. It's the first step toward learning how to enhance communication in the workplace.

7. Use your company's preferred communication tools. 

Leaders and team members have many options to connect with others at work, such as in-person meetings, live video conferences, chat, phone, email, productivity software, and more. Each communication channel has its benefits and drawbacks to effective messaging. Different types of communication require different types of channels for success, and most companies need to use a variety of them to communicate effectively. Take time to learn the technology and become a proficient user.

8. Make feedback a positive experience. 

Whether giving it or getting it, feedback enables people to better understand and respond to communication of all kinds. Pay attention to how you offer feedback. The words and methods you use are part of what makes for actionable feedback. Also, use care in your response to feedback. A good rule of thumb is to focus on the work and leave judgment out of it. Offer suggestions and alternatives rather than opinions of the work or the communicator.

As an organization, provide ways for employees to offer feedback both confidentially and company-wide. When leaders and team members feel comfortable to freely share their thoughts and ideas, voice their concerns and fears, and ask questions, it creates a more trusting culture they want to invest in.

9. Change your approach to meetings. 

All companies use meetings as an integral element of their communication strategies. Make sure yours are great (and there's great technology out there that can help). As Mark Abbott, founder of Ninety, explains, "Now more than ever, our employees want to feel connected; they want to feel heard and understood; they want to feel like they know what's going on and what's working and/or could be better."

People also read: How to Communicate with Remote Employees [And the Best Tools to Use]

10. Make workflows transparent. 

You can improve communication and transparency by integrating your data, opportunities, issues, processes, and people. There are extraordinarily simple tech tools out there that can help you:

• Create clear agreements, measurable results, and confident decisions.
• Share a Vision of the future based on what needs to happen now.
• Enable leaders and team members to see their roles and how performance is measured.
• Create clarity and connection.
• Document core processes.

11. Respect the importance of accountability. 

When people clearly understand their RARs and the work to be done as part of a team, it makes it easy for them to be accountable.

Establish a framework for communication around accountability through:

• A common purpose: Explain what your team is accountable for and why they're doing it.

• Clear agreements (rather than expectations): Forming agreements prevents miscommunication and ensures everyone knows who's doing what and how performance is measured.

• A pathway for achievement: Establish how you and your team will get the desired result.

• Collaboration: Work together to identify challenges, answer questions, recognize when help is required, and determine when it's time to step away to let work progress.

• The possible results: Discuss positive and negative outcomes and how they might set the stage for future successes.

12. Streamline operational processes and document them. 

When communication does break down (and it can), take the opportunity to improve the process so it's less likely to happen again. Document the new procedure and make it available to all of your Ideal Stakeholders. Then take it one step further: Ask for feedback on what's working so it can inform future processes.

13. Explain how tasks and projects fit together when delegating. 

Making sure leaders and team members understand the importance of  what they're being asked to accomplish in a positive, informative way helps them see how their work will directly affect company goals and create value.

14. Observe others' preferred communication styles. 

Notice how people communicate with others. Get to know the strengths and weaknesses of their communication skills. Pay attention to the platforms they like to use. Ask them about the ones they like least. This way, it's easier to have purposeful conversations in places where people can respond in a positive, helpful, energized way.

15. Follow up on agreements. 

Regular check-ins on how projects are proceeding are a great way to maintain improved workplace communication. People will have a convenient time and place to ask questions. They'll remain clear about deadlines and what's needed for the finished project.

16. Talk it out, 1-on-1. 

Sometimes just talking about it is the most efficient way to gain alignment. Set up regular feedback sessions and recurring meetings where you connect with people to find out how projects are going, their opinions on operational processes, constructive feedback or criticism — whatever's on their minds. It's also an opportunity to get to know them, ask questions, and show you care.

Better Communication, Better Results

It takes consistent effort to improve communication in the workplace, but the extra time and attention will pay off. You will:

• See greater alignment and faster agreements
• Spend less time clarifying and unwinding miscommunication
• Experience fewer missed deadlines
• Avoid frustrations caused by miscommunication and confusion regarding assignments and data
• Enjoy stronger working relationships with genuine, thoughtful, and empathetic interactions

Leaders who invest time and energy in clear communication work with team members who communicate well with fellow team members and customers. Improved communication builds trust, elevates engagement, increases productivity for every employee at all levels of an organization, and drives growth.

Ninety is built to transform the way you communicate through meetings, documented processes, assignments, data, RARs, feedback, and more. Find out how Ninety can help you easily improve communication in the workplace right now with tools built to elevate your team.

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