Most of us know how to talk to other people but real communication lies when both parties understand each other. Having clear communication devoid of any barrier or curtain is considered being open-minded that has contributed a lot towards reaching the goals. Besides, a good communicator will make sure that all the needed information is being passed on to the right person at right time without any misuse.
The rate of success an organization achieves is directly proportional to the rate of employee engagement. A solid employee engagement always makes sure that there is transparency between colleagues. Healthy workplace communication skills include the capabilities of employees to have crystal clear communication with peers, seniors, and juniors.
It is not just how an employee is speaking but the active listening skills, body language, eye contact, etc., define how he/she can communicate effectively. Corporate trainers never leave a chance to take the initiative of enhancing communication at a workplace by training the employees. To polish the skills of trainers, train the trainer program has framed exercises to develop communication skills in its curriculum.
This curriculum has a study plan framed by referring to the latest methodologies keeping in my mind the actual need for training and development. Real-life learning sessions are being practiced in this program where participants belong from a freelance trainer to a soft skill trainer, human resource executive, training manager, coordinator, facilitator, insurance trainer, process trainer, or voice accent trainer.
Regular conflict at the workplace?
To be very honest, I do not know if you believe that there is a sign before anything occurrence but the universe never leaves a chance to send you a signal moments before something is going to happen. If you find out that conflict among employees has become a daily routine, it is a clear sign that workplace communication is extraordinarily poor.
Now then, there are plenty of reasons that act as barriers in the path of strong communication. The first one is a rigid hierarchy and this is a major reason why employees have opaque walls among themselves. A strict leader, more like an autocrat, believes in one-way communication that channels from him/her to the employees. Consequently, employees do not get a single chance to share their feedback and hence such a leader will never be able to know what is bothering the employees.
Another reason is micro-management. In order to give excess information to the employees, leaders often end up doing micromanagement.
For example, a team has 8 members including the leader and the leader has trust issues with other team members. The leader always keeps on sending e-mails or messages to every teammate and follows up every now and then. He/she does the same thing even when employees are not at the office and are on their leaves. Such behavior irritates the employees and they eventually start avoiding the leader. This results in the formation of a wall between the leader and employees and the team overall, at the end of the day, hates being led by such a leader.
Some leaders feel that if employees are given more privileges they will take those benefits for granted and productivity will come to zero. This kind of mentality adversely affects the relationship between employees and the leader. Owing to the pandemic, we all have observed that everybody has managed to work quite efficiently by staying at home and research has shown that the level of productivity has increased to a great extent.
As soon as employees understand that leaders do not have trust in their team members, their zeal to work shatters. There are multiple authentic reasons because of which employee is facing a problem to reach the workplace. There might be a case of an accident, women suffer a lot during their menstruation days, some family emergency, and so on. Leaders must be able to weigh the intensity of the situation and take steps accordingly.
It is not always possible to become an empath but neglecting the needs of the employees is ultimately gross. Leaders can definitely ask for some documents or relevant things ensuring that an employee really needs a day off or a work-from-home facility, but totally ignoring a request is sheer unprofessionalism.
Hence, if such cases are happening in your organization, be ready to fight against a tornado that is supposed to lash out at your doorstep soon. These are indeed red flags and if there are too many, it's high time that you should start taking stern actions to avoid further risks.
Things slipping away from hand?
Take a deep breath and start thinking about how you can apply non-technical methods to enhance workplace communication skills. Verbal communication has to be in order but having messed-up management will let the growth curve slide down like anything. Before things start slipping away from hand, try certain informal and game-based activities to bring back communication skills in the workplace.
IT'S PARTY TIME:
Who does not love to be a part of a party! During the weekdays, all of a sudden do announce that an office is to be organized after the normal working schedule and assign members who shall be in the organizing team. Select people from teams where conflict is the major issue and there is a communication gap among themselves. Make sure, they step into this organizing procedure only once they have submitted their assigned tasks for the day.
Organizing a party will lead to a conflict for sure at the beginning but being the super leader you have to speak it, loud and bold, that a single distortion in the party planning won't result good. Set rewards for organizers which will motivate them to work together even if they have problems in reality. Once, they start understanding the values of each other, they will cope up with the basic differences among themselves.
Once they enter the part, give each one a tag irrespective of what their designations are in the organization. Label those tags and ask everyone to treat others as per the label reads. Let's say, employee A has a tag saying SELF-HELP, and employee B has the tag that reads ARROGANT. Everyone in the party should behave in a way like they are being tagged. Thus, the real arrogant or self-helpers will understand others' points of view and hence will start behaving in a more generic way.
CLOSE YOUR EYES AND LISTEN:
This super-active extra-curriculum is designed to increase listening skills, leadership skills, and self-organizing skills. The rule is simple yet required a lot of concentration from every member who is participating.
Ask your employees to sit in a circle facing away from each other and their eyes must be shut. You can use blindfolds to make sure that their eyes are totally shut and nothing is visible to them. Each one has to count from 1 to 10 or to make the game more complicated ask your employees to count from A to Z.
Suppose, employee A has said the letter A or number 1, in that round he cannot repeat that number or letter. Other members must be cautious enough to remember the letter or number that has already been spoken because they have to speak something different.
This technique plays an integral role in developing a sense of patience and people learn how to listen properly and calmly. Communication skills at the workplace depend a lot on listening skills, hence, every member should have the potential to listen effectively to what the other person is saying.
TRUTH AND DARE TO FIGURE OUT THE TRUTH:
Building trust in each other is an important weapon that one must have in order to grow more at a workplace. This game is perfect to check how much teammates or employees trust in each other.
Assemble 5-7 employees of a team and give blank cards to everyone. Ask them to write 3 facts about themselves where 2 should be true and the remaining one must be absolutely a fake one. Everyone must mention their names on each card before submitting. This training session will definitely help in improving communications among co-workers.
Once you receive all the cards, start reading out the facts being mentioned by employees. Once you finish off reading the card of a particular employee, ask others which one of the read facts was not true. Check how well employees know each other and even if they do not, after knowing facts they will start knowing each other in a better way.
There are plenty of ways that boost up effective communication at a workplace but we shall discuss those some other day. Professional train the trainer programs, prepare trainers in such a way so that they can tackle every odd in an organization arising due to lack of communication. This training program has been really effective and trainers have given their honest opinion on how this program has changed their lookout to take care of various organizational needs.
