A Guest Post by Mary Walton
Workplace communication is incredibly important, no matter where you work. You need to be able to communicate effectively with your colleagues and your customers alike. If you can master this skill, you can get far in your career. These strategies have been proven to help anyone with their workplace communication, so try putting some of them into practice today.
Offer Your Full Attention
Can you remember the last time that you gave someone your full, undivided attention? These days, you’re likely to be being pulled in several different directions at once. If you’re not being hailed over IMs, you’re fielding emails or conference calls. How can you talk to someone in real life, too? The best thing to do is to turn everything off, and just listen to them. The messages and emails will still be waiting for you when you’re finished.
Make Internal Knowledge Easily Accessible
When you’re a new employee, it can be hard to catch up with the rest of the team. After all, everyone already knows what they’re doing. How can you help them get up to speed? Project manager Adrian King from Assignment Help has a solution. “You’ll most likely have an online training course as part of the employee’s induction,” he says. “As part of that training, make your internal knowledge easily accessible. Documents detailing important processes can be a lifesaver for them.”
Remember Your Body Language
It’s important to remember that your words make up only a tiny fraction of your communication with others. Your body language says an awful lot, probably more than you realise. This is why it’s so important for you to be aware of it, especially in the workplace. Try and relax ymy posture when speaking with others, and keep arms by your sides as crossed arms can look defensive. Smile when appropriate, and nod your head to show you’re listening.
Use Online Tools To Assist You
Whether you’re communicating within your own office, or as part of a remote team, there are plenty of tools out there that will help you get your message across. Try some of these tools out, as they’re trusted by companies to help them communicate better.
- Flowdock: If you’re working remotely, or as part of a team, a group chat can help you get things done. This tool brings everything together in one neat package.
- AcademAdvisor: It’s much easier to communicate when it’s clear what you’re saying. This writing guide can help you improve your writing and your clarity.
- OxEssays: Writing the perfect email is an art. Use this service to improve your email writing skills.
- Uber Conference: Sometimes you need to see each other face to face. This tools helps you get together, no matter where you are.
- Grade On Fire: Huffington Post recommends this site in Dissertation Writing Service feature, and other academic writing services, for proofreading any messages you send.
- MikoGo: Screen sharing is a great and effective way of showing co-workers something, quickly. This tool makes screen sharing easy.
- Essay Writing Service: Business writing is a specific skill that many people don’t hone. Use this service to help you improve yours.
- Cite It In: No matter where you’re writing, you need to cite your sources. This tool gives you the correct source for anything you include.
- Australian Help: Use this tool to improve your grammar skills, and so improve your communication.
- Calendly: This tool is designed to help you arrange meetings easily, without the hassle and back and forth it usually entails.
Assess Your Current Communication Tools
As a business, you’ll have certain communication tools already in place. For example, you may use email to send information to each other on a regular basis. However, this may not be the best way of communicating with each other. Assess how you use these tools, and look into whether another method may be better. In the email example, you may be better off using internal communication software.
Rearrange The Office
How is your office set up? Do you use cubicle walls and partitions? These have their advantages, but they do isolate workers when they’re in the office. Try rearranging the space to improve communication. Open plan offices have been shown to increase communication between employees, and help them solve problems faster. It also makes the space much more personable to work in.
Give Employees The Chance To Recharge
If you’re working on a project, it can start to feel rather overwhelming. This goes especially for all the messages you can receive as you work on this project. Give employees the chance to step away when they need to. This could mean they turn off their notifications when they really need to focus on something, or they actually step away from the computer for a bit. This can help them feel refreshed when they come back to work, and get back to their task.
Follow Up In Writing
No matter how engaging a meeting was, you’re not going to be able to remember everything. When you have a meeting, the best way to ensure the message got across is to follow up in writing. This allows you to sum up the meeting quickly, and give the recipient a copy of that summary. It also gives them the chance to ask questions, as they may have thought of more things after they left the meeting.
These strategies have all bee3n proven to help improve communication in the workplace. When it’s been shown that communication is so important, it’s well worth trying these out in your office. You’ll find that they make a huge difference to how you communicate and work with others.
As you can see, improving communication in the workplace is all about communicating more effectively, rather than just communicating more. If you can find the right way for your team to communicate with each other, then you’ll find you can get a lot more done. Try these methods out and see what you can do.
Mary Walton is a CV editor at Resume Writing Service. She also is a proofreader for Revieweal, service that provides reviews of popular writing services, and Best British Essays, review service for UK students.
