How to Improve your Communication Skills at Work

Effective communication, including knowing how to manage your emotions at work, is essential in business. Whether you are in an office or a less formal environment, you likely need to communicate verbally and non-verbally with your co-workers, supervisors, and clients. Improve your communication skills at work to boost your professional image and get more positive attention.

Emotions at Work

Being able to manage or control your emotions at work is important. You want to appear a confident, capable person in your position. Do you laugh uncontrollably at a person, rather than with a person, or cry uncontrollably when your project is cancelled? These actions are not professional. If your workplace values professionalism, you have communicated that you are not only acting less than professional but that you also don’t handle pressure well.

When you manage your emotions at work effectively, you communicate an air of professionalism and competency. Then people who come across you at work are more likely to treat you respectfully. Managing emotions is a vital skill.

Conflict Management

Inappropriate communication can occur in the workplace between staff members and also with clients. Perhaps a coworker takes his stresses at home out on you within the office. Even when a coworker relationship is difficult, you still need to communicate with that person as you share a work-space.

Effective communication is important to resolving any conflict, whether you’re in the tech sector or elsewhere. Watch and listen objectively to what is happening and then develop an approach that works both in the specific situation (see next section) and for you personally. For example, you may prefer sending your honest words by email rather than have face-to-face contact with that co-worker. Simply ignoring the conflict does not help it but instead can divide co-workers and create tension at work.

Select the Most Effective Communication Method

Ways to communicate a message at work can be verbal, by email or other methods. Select the most appropriate method for the given situation that is most effective and efficient.

For example, if you have to communicate to your fifty employees that there is a meeting next Tuesday it is efficient to do so by email. The one message is sent to 50 people, rather than taking time to individually meet with or phone each employee to give the message. As well, the same email is sent to each person. The consistency of the message stops anyone from feeling like his or her one-on-one time with you was less important than another employee.

Observations

When you are new to a workplace, simply observing the verbal and non-verbal communication patterns of your co-workers is helpful to learning how to effectively communicate in that environment.

You may notice that the employees typically phone each other from their cubicles rather than walking to their desks and that they knock on the supervisor’s door before entering that office. You learn norms of the work environment and can adjust your own behaviors to fit these norms. The knock before entering the office is a way to communicate that you want to speak with the supervisor; another supervisor may request a phone call before admittance to the office. When you learn norms, you learn communication skills within that particular workplace.

To Improve Your Communication Skills

There are many tips for how to improve your communication skills at work. Conflict management is one of the most important communication skills to learn, as is learning to control your emotions at work. Learn appropriate ways to engage with other people in your particular workplace by observing interactions that occur around you daily. Effective interaction will help lead to positive recognition at work.