Poor communication can be costly for organizations. When employees and leaders are not communicating effectively, it can have a number of negative impacts on organizational culture and profitability. In a recent study, 93% of business leaders agreed that communication is the backbone of business. The ability to share ideas within the organization and with your clients is one of the foundations of high achieving teams.

This article will discuss the effects of poor communication and what you can do to improve communication between amongst your colleagues.

THE IMPACT OF POOR COMMUNICATION 

Recently Grammarly released a study that outlined the impact of poor communication in the workplace. This study was ground-breaking because of the challenge of relating the impact of poor communication to the bottom line of the business.

The study found that teams lose approximately 7.47 hours per week due to poor communication.[1] This is almost the equivalent of one full working day in most work places. That equates to a loss of more than 300 hours per year. Imagine what your team could do with an additional work day? How much more productive could your organization be with 300 more hours per year?

Poor communication was also reported to cost companies $12,506 per employee per year. This was based on the estimated loss of 7.47 hours per week with an average salary of $66,967. When poor communication was related to lost business, more than 80% of business leaders reportedly estimated revenue loss due to poor communication was at least $10,000 or higher. So not only are businesses losing time due to poor communication, they are also losing money.

Finally, the study found that there are three other areas where the consequences of ineffective communication is seen:

BUILDING COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE

The workplace communication landscape is constantly evolving. These days, employees are spending almost 50% of their workweek communicating in writing. This does not include non-writing tasks. Essentially, employees are constantly communicating but, based on the report, not always effectively.

There are three common false assumptions that the study found related to communication:

With these assumptions in mind, let’s turn our minds to how to improve communication. To build communication in your organization, it is important to start with a few recommendations.

The first step towards better communication is to build self-awareness. Ask yourself and encourage your team to ask themselves about their communication skills. How effective are you at communicating your thoughts? Ask trusted colleagues about ways you can improve.  Often, I have found that although I have the best intentions about communicating effectively, that does not always translate to the hearer’s understanding what I have shared.

Do some work to consider ways to improve your communication style. Asking yourself the following questions can be a start:

If we assume that communication comes naturally, it is unlikely that we will focus on developing our communication skills. There might also be some trepidation about talking to someone else about their communication skills because people often assume they are clearer than they are in effect.

So, what can we do? Consider developing our team’s communication through training. Many organizations have training on their Learning Management Systems that focus on communication skills. This might also come in the form of sharing resources (videos, books, articles etc.) that you have found helpful for improving your communication.

Consider different styles of training for your team. It might be easy to consume information but often interactive training can also have profound impacts on the team’s ability to communicate. Interactive training with other members of the team can also create a space for individuals to practice their skills in an environment where they feel comfortable and with those they will be communicating most frequently. We specialize in developing interacting learning environments that focus on how to build your confidence when having difficult conversations and how to deal with difficult people. These workshops run throughout the year and focus on building confidence in communication. We can also provide customized training for your team that vary in length depending on the learning outcomes you are hoping to achieve.

Another important strategy to improve communication is to plan for miscommunication. Does your team know what to do when miscommunication occurs? Is this something you have discussed? Are they all on the same page about managing the tensions when miscommunication occurs?

Planning effectively will vary depending on your role and the culture of your organization. Planning might mean having meetings to develop an informal strategy for miscommunication or it might mean working with your Human Resources department to develop policies around managing different forms of miscommunication or missed opportunities for communication.

Finally, often the result of miscommunication is conflict. Some have estimated that conflict costs organizations hundreds of billions of dollars per year.[2] Whether that conflict is within the team, with an external stakeholder or even a conflict within an individual that is not shared with a colleague – conflict can be costly. This is why it is crucial for you and your team to have highly developed conflict resolution skills.

Conflict resolution is a form of communication. In many instances, when conflicts arise, it can help to develop your team’s conflict resolution skills so they can navigate conflicts with colleagues before bringing it to a manager, union representative or organizational leader. This can decrease the costs associated with conflict in the workplace.

Similar to other skills, conflict resolution skills can be developed. We offer conflict resolution training for all levels of your organization. Our workshops can be customized to your team’s needs or members of your team can attend our public workshops to develop their conflict resolution abilities to positively impact your team.

CONCLUSION

There is no doubt that poor communication is costing organizations time and money each year. Through the strategies discussed in this article, organizations can develop their ability to communicate both verbally and in writing. These strategies can also help to lower the financial costs of poor communication and improve the productivity of your team.

Witten by Mark Lawrence, Instructor, Stitt Feld Handy Group

[1] https://www.grammarly.com/business/business-communication-report

[2] https://www.mediate.com/cost-of-workplace-conflict/

To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.