About Effective Communication

One of the most important challenges at work is communication. Teamwork benefits greatly from effective communication, and it also helps individual employees feel heard and understood by their coworkers. As a result, having good communication techniques at work has several advantages for everyone involved in the organization—employees, employers, and other stakeholders.

Asking questions is one of the best professional communication techniques. Contrary to the common misconception that asking questions irritates management, asking the proper and pertinent questions at work significantly contributes to guaranteeing successful communication in the workplace. In the workplace, the right questions can excite, stimulate, motivate, and inform other workers or employers (Bradley & Campbell, 2016). Besides, asking questions is a means of learning, exploring the unknown, and adapting to changes in the workplace. Relevant questions are also helpful in shifting the way an employee or employers perceive or think about things that have the potential of enhancing positive change within an organization. Therefore, by seeking clarity and advice through questions in the workplace, employers and employees get an opportunity to learn from co-workers, as well as understand each other (Bradley & Campbell, 2016).

Another effective communication strategy in the workplace is the use of gestures. Work environments may sometimes appear too serious and quiet, with everyone fully concentrating on various assigned tasks. In such situations, loud verbal communication is usually viewed as a cause of disruption and is often kept at a minimum (Bratu & Miricescu, 2017). The use of gestures, such as hand signals and body postures, therefore, become more appropriate and most effective in such work settings. In fact, the use of gestures or body language contributes significantly to passing on information to other people within the organization without necessarily having to use additional written or verbal explanations (Bratu & Miricescu, 2017).

The use of facial expression is another example of effective communication strategy in the workplace. Employees can express their emotions to their colleagues and employers, without necessarily making written or verbal statements, through facial expressions (Bradley & Campbell, 2016). Facial expressions can also be used by both employees and employers to express happiness with the organization’s performance, as well as the general mood of an individual. The use of facial expression as a communication strategy, therefore, contributes significantly to conveying information within the workplace, especially when there is a fear of victimization when such information is expressed verbally or in writing. Besides, the use of facial expression in the workplace encourages interaction within the work environment and strengthens the relationship between the employees and the employers (Bradley & Campbell, 2016).

Regardless of the communication strategy used, both employees and employers must always exercise decorum and professionalism in all their levels of communication. The leadership of organizations is responsible for setting communication tones in the workplace, and leaders, therefore, have an urgent and critical role to play in ensuring that employees have the freedom to use different communications strategies in expression their views regarding various work aspects. While improving communication within the workplace may be viewed as a challenging task, it can be achieved with great success if people embrace the culture of practicing. Besides, there exist other effective workplace communication strategies apart from the ones discussed in this paper, which equally play a pivotal role in creating a friendly and healthy work environment.

References

Bradley, G., & Campbell, A. (2016). Managing Difficult Workplace Conversations. International Journal of Business Communication, 53(4), 443-464. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2329488414525468

Bratu, M., & Miricescu, D. (2017). Study on heredity value in communication skills, for improving individual performance in the workplace. MATEC Web of Conferences, 121, 07002. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201712107002