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Think about a typical workday. You reach the office, fix yourself a cup of coffee and greet your colleagues. After powering up your laptop, the first thing you do is to check your emails and reply to any important ones.
Then you send an email to your team asking for work status. Next, you check your to-do list for the day. You send a quick message to remind your colleagues about today’s meeting regarding a new project.
By the time you check your phone, it’s 11 am already!
Many of us don’t pay enough attention to how much time we spend communicating at the workplace. Want to know an interesting fact? Research says that leaders spend about 80% of their time engaging in verbal and non verbal communication.
No doubt, business communication, be it with clients or your team, is of utmost importance. And yes, poor communication costs you more than you think. It’s been seen that most small and mid-size businesses spend around 17 hours clarifying previous communication.
Need more reasons why effective business communication is important for success? Let’s understand in detail.
1.Fewer emails in inbox (and replying to them)
Corporate employees spend around 25% of their time on email-related tasks. And what types of email do they typically receive? Information, employee requests, feedback, work status, project-related tasks, communication from customers and vendors, birthday wishes, and more.
There’s only a handful of emails that need your immediate attention. And how do you prioritize emails? By reading the subject line.
So not only verbal but different types of communication play key roles in your time management and success strategy.
And you can always refine your email drafting skills or help your team do the same with online courses to improve communication.
2. Increases employee engagement and productivity
Effective communication between the team and the manager directly affects the team’s performance.
How easily and quickly your team can communicate helps them solve doubts, resolve conflict, and support each other’s tasks.
Did you know that employees on average spend 2.5 hours a day searching for information? Easy and quick communication on your part might save them time and improve your team’s productivity.
3. Strengthen inter-team communication
Let’s face it; we all play the blame-game when something goes wrong in a project. Your team missed the deadline, why? Perhaps because they didn’t get the relevant information on time from the sales department. And what’s the sales department’s reasoning? Your team didn’t communicate their needs properly.
Can you feel the lack of communication here? It’s simple, inter-departmental communication needs to be strong and effective. This way different teams can work together towards achieving project goals.
4. Improves communication with remote teams
The COVID-19 pandemic and an almost year-long lockdown were testing times for remote communication. Leaders and managers had to adopt a different approach to handle this situation. Coordinating across time zones, keeping meetings short and meaningful, and overcoming lack of other resources, remote teams face many more challenges.
And the biggest challenge? Distance makes it difficult for team members to feel like a team. That’s where better internal communication steps in to iron things out.
5. Improves knowledge sharing
Employees today are always looking to grow and learn. Investing in better internal business communication will help employers encourage knowledge sharing among team members. This will lead to improved organizational knowledge and of course, improved team productivity.
6. Improves employee advocacy
Would you rather buy from a brand that only focuses on making sales? Or from a brand that also prioritizes customer experience by offering a personalized experience? The choice is simple.
Same works in employee advocacy. Employees who feel involved and cared for will be more than ready to be brand advocates for your company. All you need to do is establish transparency across your communication channels.
7. Improve customer satisfaction
“Customer is the boss”, and you should always make them feel like one. This is where your team can mess up due to poor internal communication. If employees lack knowledge of processes and services, the customer will most likely leave with a bad impression. This can result in a negative review for your company.
8. Improves a company culture
Think about it. When employees at work spend around 50% of their time investing in better internal communication it will only improve the work environment. Result? Stronger teamwork, improved team productivity, happy employees, and in turn satisfied customers. That’s what leads any organization to success.
Already thinking about the ways to improve internal communication in your organization? Learn about the effective frameworks and models from professionals.
Join the online courses crafted and held by the industry experts. And start implementing the insiders’ tips to establish better business communication.