Effective Communication in the Workplace for Building Stronger Teams

Poor workplace communication negatively impacts trust among team members and their leaders. But at the same time, one of the most important things to understand about communication is that there is no "one size fits all" approach to getting it right.

Different people will naturally have differing styles and, as a leader, one must make sure they all fit into the cohesive whole they were meant to be. Getting to that point isn't necessarily difficult, but it will depend on your ability to lean into a number of core best practices along the way.

The Importance of Effective Communication

The chasm between communication and effective communication can be a deep one.

Whether it be effective or positive communication, this creates a two-way street. It's not just about relaying information, but rather explaining things in a way that makes it easy for people to understand even complicated ideas. It's about providing solutions to tasks that enhance collaboration.

Benefits of Effective Communication in the Workplace

A team is nothing if not a relationship between several people who are all focused on the same goal. For any relationship to be successful, it needs to support trust, respect, empathy, and have an understanding for all involved. This is accomplished by clearing up confusion, particularly when it comes to spending. If policies and protocols make company purchases confusing, employees can't be expected to do it right - at least on the first try. Likewise, teams need accurate information to work from, especially regarding financial matters. They can't be going from a gut instinct or feeling - the budget is the budget, after all. Effective communication can help clear up these pain points and more, bringing people closer together in the process.

Effective communication does that, particularly when it comes to something as important for the long-term success of the business as communicating spending policy. It allows for the effective management of relationships between not only staff members but also customers and other key stakeholders. Never forget that the reverse is also true: poor communication can damage those relationships in a way that harms company culture, pushing away clients through lowered productivity or poor-quality work, which often results in lost sales. When you also consider the long-term reputational damage that a business can sustain, it's easy to see why this is so essential.

Not only does this improve productivity and increase employee engagement, but it also helps to keep people motivated as well.

Effective Communication in the Workplace Examples

Effective communication in the workplace can happen in many formats - from verbal to nonverbal, written or visual communication, and more. Verbal communication includes one-on-one conversations between team members and leaders, as well as meetings for an entire department. Alternatively, written communication can take the form of an email or memo, while visual communication is demonstrated through charts, graphs, or types of image-based guides.

Regardless of the delivery mechanism, all effective communication tends to share common characteristics in that it sends a clear, correct, and complete message.

Understanding Different Communication Styles

One common type of communication style in the workplace is what is called being an assertive communicator.  This means that regardless of any disagreements or conflicts, you still value the feelings of the person you're talking to. You're willing to stand your ground in a disagreement to stick up for yourself or your beliefs, but you're not willing to let it hurt someone else.

Aggressive communicators, on the other hand, lack care for the feelings of others. This doesn't mean they don't care about them as a person - however in this context the choose that a more direct attitude is appropriate. For effective communication, you will likely need to adapt your own style based on who you're speaking to.

Why Active Listening Matters

Whilst in conversation with another person, try to avoid missing essential information. Don't wait for someone to stop speaking so that you can talk. Meaning, don't politely stand in silence, not listening, until you can convey whatever information you wanted to. Listen to what they're saying, digest that information, and be prepared to respond and add to it.

Avoid ignoring the information and continuing to say what you planned to in the first place. That's not a conversation. Listen to what someone is conveying and make an effort to understand them. Maintain eye contact with them. Show them you're listening. This is called active listening which helps make sure all parties feel both seen and understood.

The Power of Nonverbal Communication

Often, what you don’t say when you’re communicating is just as important as what you do. Certain gestures or facial expressions can also convey a message. Paying attention to things like body language, can tell when someone is angry, confused, unhappy even if they never directly state and tell you this is the case. Then, you can respond accordingly.

Be mindful, however, as your own facial expressions and body language convey the same thing. Be sure to always use the most appropriate gestures given how you really feel.

Building Trust Through Communication

The easiest way to build workplace trust through communication, is to always "say what you mean, and mean what you say," as the old phrase reminds us. Be mindful of the ways in which communication can show how we actually distrust someone in a given situation. Micromanaging certainly doesn't convey trust in someone's abilities, even if your words are meant to reassure them.

Likewise, avoid setting expectations for people that you are unwilling to follow. Insisting on one thing and then failing to practice such, harms trust, morale, and the ability for a team to function.

Setting Clear Expectations

If you're trying to communicate effectively with another person, you need to be as clear as possible about what your goal is or what your expectations are in each situation. The words you use should be easy to understand, speaking in complete sentences whenever possible.

This is especially evident when you're talking about something like the communication of travel and expense-related matters and invoice policies. The financial stability of any team or business depends on employee compliance with spending guidelines. But again, people can't comply with those guidelines if they’re too confusing, hard to understand or are unaware they exist at all. Those expectations must be crystal clear to everyone involved, if the group, both as individuals and a collective, has a hope of meeting them.

It’s beneficial to keep any policy clear and concise whilst maintaining coverage of the fundamentals. Have key stakeholders and department heads review drafts, making sure everything remains fair and the policies are easy to understand, removing anything that is confusing or ambiguous. These actions can be applied to not only travel policies, but any company-wide policy created.

This is one of the many ways in which technology and automation can also offer positive ways to communicate important information, as well as help reduce communication errors. Not only can tech-driven tools help streamline the document creation process, but they can also distribute it to key stakeholders for review, and with a paper trail. This allows you to know who has viewed and contributed to the document, before it is disseminated to the larger business.

In the end, effective communication in the workplace is about so much more than just understanding what someone is saying. Encouraging people to actively listen and to embrace diversity is equally as important. It's about adequately resolving conflicts through action rather than allowing them to negatively impact morale. In doing so, trust, empath and stronger and more productive teams are built, which is the most important benefit of all.

If you'd like to find out more information about the importance of communication in the workplace, or if you're interested in related topics on how employee experience can be driven by finance executives, please contact us today or follow us on social media.