13 Benefits of Having Strong Employee Communications
According to Team Stage, “companies with effective programs for communication and support are 3.5 times more likely to beat our their rivals, while well-informed employees outperformed their peers by 77%”. Effective communication is a critical element and impacts the success of any business.
Managers and decision-makers must communicate with employees about organizational goals, policies, and pass along instructions. Likewise, employees must communicate with management about deliverables and provide feedback about workplace culture for productivity. Lastly, employees have to communicate with each other. With all three elements executed, only then can there be proper collaboration. In today’s dynamic workplace with remote workers, effective communication is critical to achieving collaboration.
With a proper communication strategy in place and using diverse communication tools or mediums, you can look forward to the following benefits of employee communication:
1. Create Cohesion
Effective employee communication is key to building a cohesive team. In the end, team members are different parts of a system, working together towards realizing common goals. With effective communication, employees are aware of the common goal and all work together to reach those goals. An effective strategy includes communication of KPIs, production metrics, and branding. With this in mind, you can boost team building and improve workflows when team members communicate well with each other.
2. Eliminate Confusion
One of the top benefits of effective communication is ensuring every team member is on the same page about their roles and responsibilities. Of course, every member of the team who understands what is expected of them will have an easier time executing their duties. The same will apply when working together with the rest of the team.
This way, you can avoid the chaos and wastage of time and other resources that come with having several team members handling the same task at the expense of other tasks.
3. Build Trust
A work environment with an open communication policy fosters trust between team members. Knowing that you can air your opinions and these opinions are valued will build a trust-based bond between co-workers as well as between the staff and management.
4. Drive Employee Engagement
Disengaged employees are 12x more likely to leave their job within the current year. Implementing effective communication will keep everyone on your team more engaged with the organization and inspire a sense of belonging. Highly-engaged team members will be more concerned about your business success, both short and long-term, as they recognize that their efforts and views matter.
5. Boost Employee Morale and Job Satisfaction
Among the benefits of employee communication is that it helps boost morale and employee satisfaction as team members develop a positive attitude toward each other and the organization.
High employee engagement will impart a sense of job satisfaction among your employees. Consequently, you will have a team that is loyal to the organization. Under these circumstances, employee retention will be at its best. You don’t have to worry about your top talent looking for new opportunities with recruitment agencies or on LinkedIn.
6. Increased Employee Productivity
Good internal communications drive 25% higher employee productivity. Effective communication will drive productivity by ensuring that team members understand their responsibilities. To put it in another way, employees will have a better understanding of how to align their roles and responsibilities to the organizational goals.
In a production or manufacturing facility, production/metric displays can be critical in helping everyone on their task. Again, morale and job satisfaction will significantly impact employee productivity. An employee who enjoys doing their job and being at their workplace will undoubtedly be more productive.
7. Driving Innovation
A workplace communication framework that allows for the free flow of information and exchanging ideas will drive innovation in any organization. Such an atmosphere encourages creativity, and team members will feel empowered to come up with and share innovations. In the end, these innovations and coming up with new and better ways to task do execution will improve organizational efficiencies and spur growth.
8. Mitigate Conflict
Poor communication can quickly bring on tensions in the workplace, standing in the way of a good employee experience. On the other hand, good communication can help to avoid such tension and any conflicts that may arise.
For one thing, when team members can communicate a difference of opinion civilly and respectfully, it leaves no room for unnecessary tension and conflict. As such, you will have a healthy workplace held together by employees who enjoy healthy relationships.
9. Improve Adaptability
Change is, indeed, an inevitable action. As an organization, you will go through various changes throughout your lifecycle. Some of these changes can be quite disruptive, and without proper adoption and adjustments, these disruptions can affect employee performance and output.
With proper communication, you can onboard your team members in advance and help them adapt to these changes. Additionally, letting your employees have a say in the changes will make them more amenable when it is time to implement them.
10. Enhance Employer Brand Image
Today, top talents look at more than just the benefits package you have to offer. Whether in healthcare or banking, potential hires want to understand your workplace culture and initiatives to enhance the company culture when researching company information.
Embracing open communication is one of the ways to build your employer brand image. The best the talent tool pool has to offer will be more than eager to work for your organization.
11. Improve Public Relations
Away from internal communications, you also need to put your best foot forward when dealing with clients, investors, vendors, and other external parties.
When these external parties feel listened to and valued, it inspires loyalty to your brand. Remember that effective communication is at the heart of excellent customer service. This concept applies to face-to-face interactions as well as interactions on social media and through any other communication platform.
12. Build Leadership
Effective communication is a crucial leadership skill. As a leader, you should do your best to be accessible and approachable to others in the organization.
To that end, you want to ensure there is a framework for open dialogue. Whatever the communication channels you use, be it on email or through communication apps, ensure you deliver a sense of direction while giving room for interaction and allowing input from others.
13. Faster Problem Solving
You may come against a few challenges while running your business from time to time. How well you handle and overcome these challenges will impact your standing as a business.
Effective communication allows everyone to freely exchange ideas and arrive at the best solution in a shorter time. The senior management can then go through the various proposed solutions, vet them on their merits, and implement the right one for the business.
Measuring Outcome
How can you measure the success of adopting an effective communication channel in your organization? Working off these highlighted benefits, you can keep track of your talent acquisition and retention numbers, collaboration between team members, customer retention, and more.
By all means, go back to the drawing board and revise your communication strategy if you realize that it is not yielding the desired results.
Employee Communication: The Most Effective ROI
Listening and giving room for feedback, transparency, and being concise are some of the pillars of effective employee communication. With attention to these fundamentals, you can develop, implement, monitor, and improve a communication strategy for the benefit of your employees, external parties, and, the success of your organization.
In conclusion, whatever your industry, or the size of your organization, it is worth investing resources towards a proper employee communication framework. Once that is in place, you can look forward to enjoying these and many more benefits of employee communications.
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