By effectively communicating with colleagues, you can improve collaboration as well as your own work experience. It all starts with active listening.
Whether you’re an individual contributor or a manager, it’s important to communicate effectively in the workplace. Doing so can help you better collaborate with colleagues, making it easier to achieve your short- and long-term career goals and improving your overall work experience.
There are several ways to effectively communicate with co-workers. Before exploring them, it’s helpful to take a closer look at workplace communication itself.
Communication in the Workplace
Knowledge workers—those whose main capital is knowledge—spend 88% of their workweek communicating across multiple channels, according to a recent Grammarly state of business communication report developed in collaboration with The Harris Poll. The report, which surveyed about 1,000 knowledge workers, shared that communication channels included:
- Video, phone and in-person meetings (10 hours per week)
- Email (six hours per week)
- Text-based chats (four hours per week)
The report also looked at how communication affects employees. All knowledge workers surveyed shared that they experience miscommunication at least weekly. As a result, they had increased stress (51%), lowered productivity (41%), strained relationships (31%) and missed deadlines (26%).
On the other hand, workers shared that effective communication resulted in:
- Higher work satisfaction (58%)
- Improved relationships with colleagues (58%)
- Increased confidence (55%)
- Increased productivity (55%)
- Decreased stress (48%)
Other widely regarded benefits of effective communication are fostering collaboration with co-workers, promoting efficiency and encouraging innovation and problem-solving.
7 Tips for Effectively Communicating With Colleagues
To effectively communicate with your colleagues, promoting improved collaboration, try these seven tips.
1. Practice active listening
Pay full attention to co-workers when they’re talking. Resist the urge to interrupt them to share your thoughts or ask questions. When they finish speaking, paraphrase what they said to make sure you understand their point of view. You could also ask follow-up questions if you need more information.
2. Watch nonverbal cues
Notice your co-worker’s body language, facial expressions and gestures, as they can convey valuable information. For example, your colleague may say they’re fine with a suggestion you made, but if they’re frowning, rolling their eyes or crossing their arms, they’re probably not. Pay attention to your own body language as well.
3. Use clear, concise language
Communicate clearly and efficiently so you can ensure your colleague quickly understands what you’re conveying. This approach also shows you respect their time. Avoid jargon or ambiguous words and phrases that could lead to confusion or misunderstandings, and focus tightly on the topic you’re discussing.
4. Provide regular project updates
When working with colleagues on projects, update them on anything that could affect the team’s goals, deliverables or timelines. This will help everyone best address challenges or changes in direction that arise. It’s especially important to provide updates when you’re working on cross-functional projects.
5. Get clarification, if needed
If you’re confused about something you discussed with a colleague one-on-one or heard in a meeting, ask for more information to ensure you’re on the same page. This can help decrease the chance for errors or redoing tasks so that whatever you’re working on moves forward as smoothly as possible.
6. Use communication tools appropriately
Emails and instant messaging can be great for communicating with multiple colleagues at once. However, some conversations, such as those involving sensitive subjects, are best had in person. It’s also important to avoid hitting “reply all” on every email, as what you write might not apply to everyone. Your response may need to go to just one person on an email string.
7. Tread carefully in written communication
If a conversation over email or another text-based medium is getting tense, respond carefully. It can be easy to fire off a reply before thinking it through, and you might write something you’d never say in person. Take a few deep breaths or a break, if possible, before crafting and sending your reply.
If you can wait awhile before hitting send, that could help ensure you don’t share something you might regret later. If you can’t wait, ask a trusted colleague to review what you wrote, and get their advice on whether you need to revise—or skip sending—the message.
One Final Piece of Advice: Build Rapport
In addition to the seven tips above for effectively communicating with colleagues, here’s one more: Build rapport with them by showing interest in them as people, not just as co-workers. For example, ask what they did over the weekend or follow up on something they told you about previously, such as their recent birthday party or family vacation.
Building a personal connection with colleagues can improve how you communicate with and relate to them so you can best work together, helping to set you, your team and your company up for success.
Angela Gabriel is content manager, life sciences careers, at BioSpace. You can reach her at angela.gabriel@biospace.com and follow her on LinkedIn.
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