The effects of poor communication in the workplace can be detrimental to your business and your bottom line. Employees who are uninformed and lack the tools to communicate properly can become stressed, and the business could experience reduced profit.
When businesses and their management don't have the means to communicate with employees properly, the following areas can become affected:
Efficiency
Sometimes the result of poor communication is a lack of direction. For example, when managers' communication is vague, employees may find it challenging to fulfil their assigned tasks. This can result in inefficiencies and a lack of motivation to exceed performance and get the job done.
Culture
Employees who thrive in a workplace understand the business goals and contribute. It becomes more than just a job; they come to work feeling motivated to do what they can to help the business succeed. The effects of poor communication in the workplace can send the company culture into the dumps and leave employees with no motivation to come to work and succeed.
Stress
Without clear direction and feedback, employees may experience more mistakes and errors in their day-to-day tasks. These continuous errors can lead to unwanted stress and become a vicious cycle. In addition, poor communication leads to stress, leading to even worse communication and additional stress.
Innovation
Creating a top-down culture where everyone from junior employees to the boss encourages and supports innovation is essential. However, when there is poor communication in the workplace, there can be increased confusion and whether every employee's ideas are welcomed and encouraged. Encouraging employees to share their thoughts or carve out time weekly will inspire innovation.
Leadership
Employees rely on their managers to provide direction, updates and feedback. Managers who are poor at communicating will find it challenging to lead and thus send miscommunication out to all employees, creating a workplace with poor communication and a lack of awareness to recognize a problem. Therefore, leadership's top skill must be communication.
Behaviours that create poor communication
There are certain behaviours you can adjust to avoid the effects of poor communication in the workplace. These include:
- Providing incomplete answers
- The format in which you communicate
- Improvising or guessing
- Providing too much information
- Spreading gossip or feeding into gossip
When your business is experiencing poor communication, observe your leadership team and employees' following behaviours. Then, you can start to restructure from the group up and slowly improve the team's communication efforts.
Leading a team can be challenging, with lots to think about and new fires to put out every day. These tips for new managers are a great start to getting your team on the right foot in 2021.
Are you considering managing your team all in one place? Try RosterElf's workforce management tool to keep your communication streamlined and employees informed.
