Effective Business Communication Skills

Get the most from your team by highlighting workplace communication

Team-building exercises, loved by managers, are often looked upon by employees as time-wasters. But beyond the touchy-feely stuff is what managers know well: Information gets trapped when people don't have communication skills, or when they think communication in the workplace is happening but simply isn't.

Freeing up the flow is a matter of building trust, but it's also hard behaviors that often have to be learned through practice. People talk a lot, but communication in the workplace, getting through -- and listening well -- are necessary business communication skills.

Covered in this guide:

1. Communication skills as a learned skill
2. Training for effective business communication
3. Electronic means of workplace communication and employee communication.
4. The importance of consistent employee communication.

 

Communication skills are learned, and that means consultants

One of the keys to driving better performance, and any kind of change process, is to get your team aligned behind a goal. If employee communication skills in the workplace are lacking, no amount of management pressure will make it happen.
Try: What specialists have long called interpersonal communication skills are now taught at the corporate level through structured programs over short periods to meet a specific goal. Some providers of workplace communication skills programs include Engagement Strategies, Trident Communications, Dix & Eaton and Joan Lloyd.

Communication in the workplace means training

Sometimes the issue is not some cultural bottleneck but simply underskilled middle managers. Teach your employees new skills with communications skills workshops and presentation training. To be effective, business communication requires know-how.
Try: Booher Consultants does communications skills training for employees. If things are out of hand or seem they might be, consider conflict management training from Mediation Training Institute International.

Effective business communication can be electronic

In large organizations, and even some small ones, it can be reasonable to expect communication in the workplace among teams but impossible for the larger institution to understand what is going on. Imagine how lost managers must feel at times.
Try: One means of understanding workplace communication, although not enough by itself, of course, is software. Pollstream and EmailOpen do electronic employee polling, while GoalCentrix links communication to business intelligence.

Workplace communication is a two-way street

Employment alone, let alone management goals, involves a lot of effective business communication. From day of hire through the entire life cycle of an employee, communication in the workplace means reaching them with clear and effective business communication while allowing feedback that can be effectively processed -- crucial to employee communication.
Try: See Business.com directory topics on communication skills, employee communication and effective business communication.

 

• Get out ahead of the information. Whether it's informal "town hall" gatherings, company blogs, a company newsletter or internal electronic mail, effective business communication is important. Letting a competitor or the media make news for your own people can make you look bad or, at least, incompetent when it comes to communication skills.
• Understand that office chatter is normal. If the watercooler talk is about the latest movie or the game, fine. But it will also be about the company, prospects, promotions and the like. Within reason, as workplace communication goes, this is a good thing. Imagine if no one cared enough about their work to even discuss it.
• Give your people permission to talk and ask questions. Be in the hallways, stop by social events (but don't linger!), be available, and effective business communication happens. In terms of employee communication, an open door policy is good. Managing by walking around is better.

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