Saturday, April 26, 2014

Important Aspects Of Effective Workplace Communication Training

By Agnes Dickson


In many ways, the level of communication in an organization portrays its culture to the public and so affects popularity of its brand. Therefore, it would be unfortunate for a company to utterly neglect workplace communication training for its staff. On the same breadth, a firm should have clear policies on communicating critical issues and should limit access to information on a need-to-know basis.

The key is to make sure information lands to the right professional. One of the basic points about communication in the workplace is email etiquette. Many organizations create work email addresses for their employees to allow smooth flow of information that affects their daily duties. Unfortunately, not all companies train their employees on the right ways to use such a communication tool. As a result, many end up misusing their work email accounts and can risk credibility as well as information security of their organization. This makes it necessary for any organization to train their staff on the right ways to use such a tool.

For instance, there is need to keep professional every form of message send via emails. This involves the subject and language too. At the same time, the content should be directed to the right person who can handle such information depending on their rank. Others, any emails with unclear information or send to unintended people will only serve as distraction and hindrance to work productivity.

It is also polite for employees to include full official contact details and company logo in their signature. This enables to recipient contact the sender easily in case clarification is required. It also gives the company an opportunity to reinforce its brand especially where sending emails to external parties is involved.

For companies that issue press statements or any other form of external messages, there should be a specific person doing it. Companies could come up with a corporate affairs department to take care of such tasks. This helps in maintaining the company image. It is not appropriate to have just anyone speaking on behalf of the company. This actually could create confusion and there may end up with misguiding information even among staff members.

Another important tool in the office is the telephone. This could also be misused if employees are not trained properly. Some do not practise telephone etiquette, while others leave their unattended to. This is wrong. With the current growth in technology, one can always set their work telephones to leave appropriate instructions for those calling when the recipient is not near the phone. Such will also record details of callers and the owner can call back for follow-up. This is better than acting like you just ignored the call.

This kind of attitude is irresponsible and not befitting modern time professionalism. It is important for every company to create a responsive culture at the workplace. Telephones should be attended to after the second ring. With advancement in digital technology, it is possible to track missed calls on a telephone handset. This way, staff members can return missed calls and assist the callers appropriately. If a call is misdirected, it is also polite to transfer it to the right person first time. This helps resolve queries with minimum handshakes as possible.

Employees ought to keep face to face talks at professional level. They should practise courtesy and proper use of language at work. Many businesses have comprehensive code of conduct each employee is given to read and commit when beginning their work.




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