Workplace Communication

What is communication? Let’s go back to basics.

 

What we mean by communication?

 

Communication is simply the act of creating, transferring views, ideas, facts, feelings from one person to another person or group of people. It’s a simple answer, but there’s a lot more to it.

 

A person may be highly qualified and / or skilled but if he does not possess good communications skills, all his / her abilities become irrelevant.

 

Importance of Communication :

 

Be it social life or in professional life, if you possess good communication skill you can win anything. Especially project we are into, if we are not 

1. The Basis of Co-ordination

2. Fluent Working

3. The Basis of Decision Making

4. Increases Managerial Efficiency

5. Increases Cooperation and Organizational Peace

6. Boosts Morale of the Employees

 

What is workplace Communication? 

 

Workplace communication defines the exchange of information between team members, between two teams, support vendor and customer in an organization. It can take many different forms.

 

There are three main types: 

 

Written communication

Verbal communication

Non-verbal communication

 

 

Some common ways of communicating in the workplace include:

 

Written communication: 

• Emails

 

You all know what an Email is. Email communication can be defined as the exchange of short informational messages between at least two people over a computer network through email web-based services like Outlook, Lotus Notes etc. However, there are some good number of points that one needs to understand on this Email.

 

Below are the things to be kept in mind when you write an email

 

1. Decide what type of an email you are going to write. Will it be casual email or formal email. In workplace we normally write formal email.

2. You need to choose a proper subject line. Its very important part of an email as appropriate subject will make audience to read the email without fail.

3. Use proper salutations. Many a times I have observed people make mistake by writing Dear Mr. Robert or Dear Mrs. Sreetha. Normally when you use Mr. or Mrs. you use their last name. Also care needs to be given if you are sure of martial status. Mistakes can happen when using Ms. Or Mrs.

4. Understand the difference between To and Cc fields. Many a times I saw you are addressing your email to a person, and you have inserted his or her name in CC. CC is just you want to keep them informed and no action is expected from them. But India way of writing email has picked up a trend if you need a faster response just add his or her boss name in cc you will get lightening response. Additionally, you need to be careful of multiple people in To field also gets you zero response to your email as people think its not their look out to respond to you, so keep very minimum  people in To field.

5. BCC field is also important to understand. Long form of BCC is blank carbon copy. This is used to hide the recipient name to the audience in To and CC field.

6. Always make sure you are adding an attachment which is permissible for your organization. If its too heavy then you can place the file in SharePoint and share the link

7. Always proof read your email before you hit send. Proof reading is making sure there are no spelling mistakes, formatting errors, cut paste problems of different font in same paragraph.

8. Always make use of tools supplied by email software to the fullest extent. Some of them are as below.

a. Spell check feature on outlook to correct the spellings in email

b. Recall the email sent by mistake. You can quickly take this action and change the incorrect thing and send again with correction. 

c. If you are sending the same email to many, then use the option Resend button

 

 

 

• Online messaging(Webex or MS Teams chat) 

• Social media posts

 

Verbal Communication:

• Telephone conversation 

• In-person meetings (Face to Face)

• Video conferencing ( Webex or MS Teams video calls) 

• Executive Addressing teams in All Hands meet or Townhall Meetings

 

All types of communication have their own purpose and all of them are importance. Verbal and written communication transmit knowledge, initiate requests, and get things done. Non-verbal communication, however, is equally important. Non-verbal communication and active listening supports workplace culture, enhances relationships, and boosts the effectiveness of employees and their entire teams. We’ve all had those conversations where the other person isn’t looking at you and doesn’t seem to be listening. Non-verbal communication is vital for ensuring people feel heard.

 

 

Why is effective communication so important?

 

As a manager, I should help and build teams who can communicate well within teams as well as within customer and/or incumbent vendor team. Building good communication skills has profound short- and long-term benefits for you and your team and your organization. An effective communicator is able to motivate their team to get the work done efficiently with better results and fewer misunderstandings. And who doesn’t want fewer misunderstandings isn’t it?

 

So, let's see how we can be effective in the above mentioned ways of communication. 

 

1. In Person Meetings

 

To make In person meetings effective one needs to set up Outlook meeting invite on the agreed date and time. Make sure you do the reservation of meeting rooms well in advance and isert the room details like room name or number Floor etc. in meeting invite. Also make sure the capacity of the room enough for all the invitees to sit. 

 

Set out clear cut agenda in the meeting invite and if needed please take the print out the agenda while going to the meeting room before the meeting. 

 

Special care needs to be given the reservation of room should be for some additional time as always face to face meetings get extended. So to avoid next meeting organizer have to be given the room on time

 

2. Video Conferencing

 

As usual you can set up the meeting invite with the url for video conference. 

 

If external stakeholders are participating then one needs to make sure you have wear as per the office dress code policy. 

 

Make sure you are using headsets and system settings are properly adjusted and included in the meeting invite clearly spelling out system requirements for video conference 

 

It's always advisable to start the video call 5 minute before the meeting starts. It will mitigate the risk of avoiding technical issues which usually crop up during video conference calls

 

Apart from the above preperations below are the points also to make the communication complete and meetings to be effective. 

 

Pronunciation:

 

Pronunciation is the way in which a word is uttered. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word in a specific dialect. 

 

When I was new in this account. There was a lady called Jan Long. One day Rohan our SMO chief invited me to a discussion with her on Job Monitoring along with Christine. It was my first interaction and never knew them earlier. I pronounced Jan as Yan as I thought she must be from Germany or around countries. Actually Jan is pronounced in UK as Jan(J for Jug). Yan is also correct if the person belong to Schengen countries. 

 

Learning and obeying all the rules of grammar will not automatically give excellence to your speech or pronunciation. Correct pronunciation requires the proper sounding of the letters and combination of letters in a word and the correct placing of the stress or accent in words of more than one syllable. While pronouncing properly we have to know that at times not all words are pronounced, some are silent so we have to omit their sounds to give proper value to letters that are sounded.

 

To be understood in any language, for that matter, pronunciation is important. Language becomes incomprehensible if the pronunciation of words is incorrect. False and wrong pronunciation can be a cause for laughter or embarrassment. For example, if snacks is pronounced as snakes; it sounds funny and dismissed as lack of knowledge but if English is pronounced as englees, ship as sip, school as escool and biscuit as biscoot; is unpardonable! There are many more examples of such mispronunciation. Someone could misunderstand the statement and a simple situation may blow dangerously out of proportion.

 

Phonetics

 

Below are The (International) Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, commonly known as the NATO phonetic alphabet  is the most widely used radiotelephone spelling alphabet. These will help you especially when you are on audio call and let's say you are dealing with different culture or different language speaking stakeholders

 

A - Alfa, B - Bravo, C - Charlie, D - Delta, E - Echo, F - Foxtrot, G - Golf, H. - Hotel, I - India, J - Juliett, K - Kilo, L - Lima, M - Mike, N - November, O - Oscar, P - Papa, Q - Quebec, R - Romeo, S - Sierra, T - Tango, I - Uniform, V - Victor, W - Whiskey, X - X-ray, Y - Yankee, Z - Zulu.

 

Hope above write up help you for your workplace Communication to interact with both internal and external team members.