Good or Effective Communication Techniques in the Workplace
These days, communication skill has become critical in almost every walk of life where effective communication in the workplace is critical to corporate success of an organization. While interacting with managers, subordinates, colleagues, customers or vendors, the ability to communicate effectively requires the employment of variety of techniques.
For a good communication environment to prevail in the workplace, it is critical to determine the communication objective and its purpose which happens to be the first step for introducing effective communication to either influence, inform, persuade or sell to other people whom one comes into contact with. Another technique to promote good and healthy communication is to determine and analyze the target audience. The more one knows about target audience, the better and easy it would be for employees to communicate with each other.
One of the effective techniques to communicate in good form is the creation of key messages to not only avoid ambiguity but exaggeration as well. One must decide what the most important points are by using and focusing on no more than four to six main points. Depending upon the nature of target audience, one must establish a mixture of effective communication tools which may include the use of email messages, the phone call and some face-to-face discussions.
In other words, for a good communication to foster in the workplace, every employee should listen and learn effectively. For this, open meetings, email messages, one-on-one discussions, training, usage of simple words, effective listening and use of proper body language as well as appropriate tone of voice are the most effective techniques which help to implement good communication in the workplace.
How Effective Communication Solves Problems
Interpersonal communication, in today’s complex environment, is a practice which helps two people to transmit and receive messages. Spoken words and non-verbal components of communication are most commonly used for conveying the message’s meaning. Other effective communications tools include components include paralinguistics, eye contact, posture and positioning, gestures, facial expressions, touch and proximity as well as personal appearance.
One effective reason, particularly for which communication helps to solve problems, is the appropriate usage of active listening that helps two people to understand emotions and concerns of each other. Effective communication helps to clarify as well as understand the needs and purpose of the other party through appropriate questioning in an attempt to solve any given problem.
Through active listening behavior of effective communication, recipients of the message are able to interpret what is being communicated reflecting understanding the associated feelings and concerns of the speaker which, in itself, is enough to solve any problem. Effective communication helps problem solving because it enables the speaker to feel supported, confident and acknowledged that he is being understood in full.
A good communication environment encourages speakers to continue displaying their expressions, clarify and garner support to solve issues constructively. By using an effective form of communication (such as active listening tool), senders are able to send a strong message to recipients that they care for them genuinely which is a better way to solve every problem without raising further conflicts.
The scenario considered here ia about a phone call where Rose calls Iris. However, the accent barrier comes into play when Iris could not understand Rose’s accent that what is she saying. The script reflecting the effective communication by Iris is as follows:
Rose (calling): Hi, who is this?
Iris: Hello, This is me, Iris. May I please know who is there?
Rose: Hey it is me, Rose. It has been so long that we have not spoken to each other.
Iris: Yes, indeed. Tell me, how is everything going in your life?
Rose: Not that much complicated. However, I wanted to ask you for favor and teach
me how to use and operate MS-Excel and make presentations using MS-
Power point in a professional manner.
Iris: Yes, why not sure. I will be delighted to help. When do you like me to help
you out?
Rose: Could you please meet me today in the university library, I will be waiting for
you outside.
Iris: Sorry, I did not hear you. Where do you want to meet?
Rose: Outside the university library, today.
Iris: What, there is a lots of distraction here and I cannot understand your accent.
Could you please send me the text message mentioning when and where to
meet?
Rose: Oh dear, okay, it is fine; I am sending you the text message.
Iris: WhatHelloHello. Could not understand you Rose.
What are you saying.? Why don’t you call me later or some other time?
Rose: I am sending you the text message.
Iris: What are you saying?
Rose ends the call and sends the text message
In my current workplace where I work, it has been observed that the business has been incurring lots of opportunity costs and suffering from the problems of delaying the projects as well as failing to deliver appropriate information on time. The management is also facing problems where it is required to handle large quantities of paper based documents which has become quite cumbersome for employees assuming key responsibilities in the organization.
It is now proposed that Business Process Automation (BPA) should be introduced because this can be an effective and cost-efficient way to deliver customer experience in an exceptional manner.
Step-1 involves the documentation of existing manual business processes and communication flows. Here, it is important to observe staff members while they are performing their work, interviewing all those key individuals who keep themselves involved and understand the work process in their department. Conducting a meeting with clients is also beneficial because they can provide an external perspective of the manual business process.
Step-2 involves the examination of how the existing process intersects with other business and work processes. In this step, it is of prime importance to determine the effectiveness of any specific process and how introduction of potential changes will influence other workflows of the firm.
Step-3 attempts to analyze the existing workflows with a clear objectivity in mind. Here, expert team will be required to review the documentation of every business process to determine the next step while implementing the Business Process Automation (BPA).
Step-4 magnifies the ways in which, based on different answers to the questions gathered in the previous step, the team starts to develop an implementation plan to deal with activities required to introduce the automated change. After having the existing process analyzed thoroughly and addressing any gap identified while examination of current workflows as well as their documentation. The proposed plan is finally implemented after review.
Step-5 involves the search for the right partner and technology. Securing the right partner and technology will be necessary to achieve the objectives of change and corporate success.
Step-6 involves the Post-change calibration after many business dynamics and workflows change both internally and from a client’s perspective. In order to deal effectively with the implemented change with proactive steps in dealing with it, it is proposed that the organization should adopt continuous improvement culture.
