Improve Communication With These Tips for a More Organized Work Force

An efficient communication culture is one of the key ingredients to establishing strong relationships, getting projects done faster and more effectively and building successful, performing teams.

In this piece, we share with you some important tips in creating a more organised workforce with the system and quality of communication.

Keep Communication Constant

Communication shouldn’t be a one-off thing that occurs very occasionally such as at annual reviews. Create a schedule of one-on-one meetings with your employees to keep up to speed with their progress, job satisfaction level and needs to perform at their best level.

Doing such chats on a monthly basis and you may be surprised how much they are willing to say or contribute to move the organisation forward.

Master Your Body Language

People who understand the critical elements of communication know that non-verbal communication or body language has important impacts on people around them.  Therefore as organisational leaders or managers, they learn to master the art of body language and ensure that at all times they are giving of positive and motivational vibes to keep everyone in the right spirit and the workplace vibrant and productive.

Mastering your body language is basically about leading by example by keeping an open, upbeat and approachable appearance at all times.  Other tips include:

• Keeping your arms uncrossed
• Keeping an upright posture
• Smiling
• Maintaining eye contact, and
• Keeping your mobile phones and other work gadgets aside when conversing with people.

Listen to What People Are Not Saying

This is another key aspect of non-verbal communication. You hear what people are telling you, but can you also hear what they are not saying or are trying to hide? This could be just as important — or even more. A business owner or manager must have emotional intelligence and know how to ‘hear’ what workers are not saying and rummage through the debris to find the truth.

Give Positive Feedback

Feedbacks are powerful, and positive feedbacks even more powerful. It’s easy to spot and point out people’s mistake to them, but how often do people do the reverse and praise, even when an employee does something impressive or commendable?

Is a worker showing a good example with work efficiency or customer care? Commend the person. Perhaps it’s a worker’s good hygiene and general cleanliness in his or her workspace. Give positive feedback. Never underestimate the power of positive feedback in boosting employee morale and productivity.

Give Negative Feedback Properly

Positive feedbacks are great and can be an effective morale-boosting tool, so use whenever necessary. But giving positive feedback when the appropriate feedback to give in a particular situation is a negative one, will do more harm than good in the end. Do not reward bad behaviour or unjustified low productivity or gloss over them. Give negative feedback, but give it in an appropriate manner. Disagree without being disagreeable.

Write Better Emails

Learn to write emails that are clear, succinct and straight to the point. Don’t waste people’s time and money with sloppily written emails. Writing better emails ensures everyone understands and appreciates you better, and you don’t have to keep repeating the same instruction or communication face to face or over the phone later.