How To Improve Communication Skills In The Workplace?

Communication Skills are vital for confidence building, teamwork, improvement in productivity, and better career growth opportunities. It is essential to have an open approach towards others in the office to ensure growth and learning new skills. To do so, an employee needs to develop certain habits to be a better communicator at the workplace.

Given its importance for career and life, how to improve communication skills in the workplace. It is of utmost essential for getting a good job, excels at the workplace, and doing great at annual or quarterly evaluation.

Some of the tips to improve communication skills:

Better Listener

Before saying, learn to listen because most often, answers lie in the question itself. Right at the interview stage, the person needs to listen to all questions and tasks properly to communicate answers and replies. At the workplace, listening is essential to understand the instructions of the trainer during the training period, guidelines of senior management before starting working on the project.

If a person is handling clients, listening to the client’s brief carefully is essential in a meeting. If an employee misses any point in the haste of replying, it could cause severe trouble at the project’s execution.

So, to become a great communicator, start learning to listen carefully. Listening gives time to understand and give a befitting reply to any questions, queries, and client meetings.

If a person is a good listener, it will positively impact overall performance and evaluation by the HR team.

Take a breather

One of the most common methods to de-stress is the 10 seconds/24 hours technique. It happens with everyone so, give yourself a breather. If a person is stuck somewhere at work or stressed out after a morning team meeting or sales target, try this method. It is simply to stop everything for 10 seconds and count 1 to 10.

It improves communication skills by developing stress-taking capability, non-aggressive approach at the workplace towards any problem.

If a person has more time, he/she can try to go off-grid for one day. It will de-stress, and the employee will start the next day with a fresh perspective and energy.

A little break from work proves to be an effective remedy for improving overall communication skills.

Communication Methods

Though it might sound like a traditional way of communication, the best way to interact is a face-to-face meeting. An in-person meeting helps to express better and more comfortably. It helps in listening and understanding comparatively and adequately better than other modes of communication.

In times of Corona, people are doing video meetings mostly, which makes communications skills more relevant than ever. If a person is attending a video meeting, he/she needs to be extra careful not to miss any point from the client or management. The person has to be attentive, concentrated, and transparent in replies.

To improve communication, a person has to be an expert in all forms of communication. An employee needs to use various methods, including emails, messages, social networking, phone calls, and different written material for interaction. These communication tools can be used in interacting with co-workers, management, vendors, and clients.

In an email, phone, and other communication where no video is involved, a person’s voice, accent, and tonality should be clear and transparent. A person should talk with all the required pauses, soft tones, and gentle manners.

Who, Why, How, and When of Communication?

This is a crucial point for improving communication skills in the workplace.

Who: The person could be a client, fellow worker, management, and vendor. As an employee, the content of the message should be as per the person concerned. Content and message can not be exact for the reporting manager and HR or Client or any other stakeholder.

Why: Reason for communication. The intention should be clear and distinctive according to the concerned person. 

How: Type of communication. Content for mail can not be similar to a phone call or any other mode of communication. So, give some thought before drafting a mail or dialing a number.

When: This is more relevant for clients or if the person is calling HR for an interview. There should be formal appointments for clients, even for the call through mail or primary phone call.

These points should be taken seriously if someone wants to be great at communication at the workplace or wants to land the dream job.

Be Approachable and active during work from home

Work from home is the new normal today. To improve communication skills during online meetings, video conferences, live launches, etc., an employee must excel in communication skills to perform better.

Working at home should not affect productivity. An employee should be available during office hours and active on video calls. These are challenging times and the best time to show communication skills.

Good team management, teamwork, and supporting colleagues will help performance evaluation and post-covid physical office work.

How to improve communication skills in the workplace during Covid-19 times?

For more than one year, offices have been communicating through digital mediums. It is pretty challenging for day-to-day office work, client meetings, and event-related activities. Some of the tips for better communication during remote work are:

  • Be attentive and ready as in the office. Employees should not seem lazy and distracted during office meetings online.
  • The Internet should be fast, reliable, and of good bandwidth. Broken connection, error in audio and video can be irritating if a client is involved in the meeting.
  • In case everyone is interacting with messages, type short, concise, and clear messages. The communication should be clear and transparent. Written messages could be misinterpreted, so read the message, and send only when tonality is gentle and transparent.
  • Check and reply to emails properly. Emails are the most common form of official communication. Make the email short, meaningful, and, if possible, decorative.
  • If a client or someone in the office needs further elaboration, call them and explain the point. 

Conclusion

Communication skills have become a vital part of the screening process for the job and at the workplace. An employee needs to follow the tips mentioned above to understand how to improve communication skills in the workplace and apply them for making a successful career.