Employee communication is vital in the workplace. Everything falls apart and is less sufficient without it. One problem that is often overlooked is that the employees may not know how to communicate with each other effectively. The following are a few tips that should help employers coach their employees so that they improve their communication skills.

Give an Explanation

One step to take deals with transparency. Employees respond better when they see the reason behind the company's actions. Employers that know their employees need to improve their communications skills must talk about it and share their intentions concerning improving this skill.

Many aspects of communication have to be addressed, like spreading work-related ideas, identification of issues, resolving the tension between employees, and exploring solutions.

A company could have an array of workforce communication tools, such as the ones offered by Unified Communications, yet that won't matter much if the workforce can't take full advantage of these tools. Understanding the importance of communication will encourage employees to communicate more effectively.

Encouraging Ideas and Critiques

One way to promote healthy communication within the workforce is to encourage ideas and critiques. If this wasn't happening before, it might take some time for employees to work up the nerve, but with a little patience, they'll get there.

Employees could have all sorts of ideas that could improve productivity or address an issue that's making working for an employer unpleasant. There are things employers can do to get the workforce to say what they're thinking.

Employers can go the simple route and put out a suggestion box. Employers can spice things up by giving away awards or bonuses for good suggestions or critiques. Companies can offer bonuses or rewards monthly, but a policy like this one could even help shy employees get out of their shells a bit.

Practicing Confrontational Communication

It's of the utmost importance that employees practice confrontational communication. When folks work together, at some point, there's going to be some tension. Addressing this tension is vital and must be resolved for work to continue.

When thinking is allowed to fester, small misunderstandings can turn into fights, and that's the last thing any employer wants to deal with. The good thing is that employers can try to encourage better confrontational communication within their workforce. This has to be supervised at first, but try to help teach employees to use direct language.

Direct language doesn't mean blunt but is definitely to the point and clear. Employees must stay calm, and if emotions become too high, they need to take a break. The issue will still be there after the employees have calmed down a bit. It's vital that all issues are resolved, or employees will feel like the company doesn't have their best interest at heart.

Working on Tones Used

As important as language is, the tone also has to be addressed to improve communication between employees. If the tone used to talk to others is condescending or otherwise negative, the listener will shut down. They won't want to listen to what is being said.

Employees will ignore information and purposely do the opposite if the wrong tone is used. A monotone way of speaking isn't great even though sometimes it's often used by employees. This is a boring tone that tells employees the speaker isn't interested in the subject being discussed. That's not a good feeling.

A good speaking tone has to be relatively upbeat and should take a short beat before starting a new sentence. Trying to encourage this new tone could help employees feel a little more comfortable around each other. There are numerous training exercises online that could help teach employees about how to improve the tones they use to speak to each other in the workplace.

Hopefully, some of this information helps employers improve communication in the workplace. Yes, it might take a moment to train employees, but good communication can lead to not only better productivity but fewer errors, and it could even help reduce a high turnover rate.