What can be done to eliminate different barriers to workplace communication?
- Prevent stereotyping
- Increase transparency
- Train people to become better listeners
Good communication between different departments and their members are one of the most vital parts of a successful company. First, people usually share important ideas through talking. Second, teams learn to work effectively together by getting to know each other. Third, managers and leaders inform their expectations to employees by communicating. Because of these reasons, it is no wonder corporate training in the Philippines discusses the ways people can communicate effectively with each other. Let’s take a look at approaches on how to improve workplace communication:
Prevent stereotyping
Stereotypes are an oversimplified image of one particular group of people. For example, we assume that all millennials undergoing customer service training in the Philippines are lazy and narcissistic, or that Muslims are all terrorists. Stereotyping behavior can lower employee morale because this usually results in a certain employer or manager treating someone of a certain background differently. Also, this different treatment tends to harm the victim in one way or another because it is usually discrimination. They usually cannot suggest or talk about their opinions in the office, out of fear of being mistreated.
A group that is commonly discriminated against is women in IT. For the longest time, science and technology were mostly associated with the men. It is only relatively recently that women have been pursuing positions at IT companies. Still, a lot of men are not comfortable with women and they make it very clear through discriminative behavior.
Women in these brands are frequently assumed to be less smart than their male coworkers. Because of these, male employees tend to talk over their opinions or not even allow them to offer suggestions in table room discussions. The females may just stop communicating at all to managers and their team member. These women will most likely feel like they are not good enough for this line of work and just quit. High employee turnover is costly to a company.
Companies can reduce stereotyping by implementing policies to discourage this behavior. Employees, for example, report the people who have mistreated them and these bullies can be given a punishment or be terminated from the office. Additionally, brands can ask for corporate training in the Philippines to give lessons on diversity. Diversity training usually involves discussing information about a certain religious group, a generation, or even the LGBTQ. It is one of the best ways of making discriminative people understand why a certain group is the way they are. When they understand, they will most likely stop excluding them as well.
Increase transparency
Dishonest employees are some of the worst people to work with. When they talk, they have a tendency to lie about their mistakes or exaggerate their accomplishments. They also tend to hide their illegal activities, such as stealing inventory at work, which can negatively affect the bottom line of a company.
Dishonest people overall, do not have a sense of self-accountability or self-responsibility. These people mostly care about themselves only and no team member would want to talk to them out of safety. Because of their passivity, their negative opinions never get started and leaders may continue to think that these people are actually good workers. Most importantly, they feel that expressing themselves in the workplace is bad.
To increase transparency, managers should be first to display transparent and honest behavior at all times. They should never sugarcoat important truths and need to learn how to say bad news in inoffensive ways. Second, the office should enforce self-responsibility.
If an employee wants to do something, they have to have facts to back their decisions. Additionally, employees who are caught being dishonest should be talked to for their reasons of doing what they did before being fired or punished. They cannot leave the office without realizing that their mistake is completely their fault.
Lastly, employees should be given a chance to voice their opinions with no judgment. Managers can let them share their complaints about the workplace and employees during quarterly evaluations. Leaders will know who are the people that have not been transparent and have been doing harmful actions behind their backs.
Train people to become better listeners
Usually, employees who are pushed to be good listeners are customer service representatives. An important part of their customer service training in the Philippines is to learn how the skill of listening effectively to customers, so they can offer the best solution possible.
Most people in the office tend to forget that this skill is super vital for workplace communication. Sometimes an employee has really good ideas to be said. Sometimes a team member just needs someone to hear about their job and personal struggles so they are motivated to work again. Workers who regularly listen to each other build a better rapport.
Managers can make their employees better listeners by regularly remarking on their skills. For example, they can tell a worker if he interrupted a teammate, or encourage quiet people to talk more and let the usually talkative ones listen.
Key Takeaway
Effective workplace communication is one of the marks of a successful company. Unfortunately, there a lot of barriers to it that occur because of certain behaviors of the employees. Some tend to discriminate based on stereotype or some are just found of straight up deceiving their teammates. Some also don’t listen to the opinions of others. When companies encourage them to reduce this behavior, their workplace communication tens to improve.