Thanks to technology, communication strategies and techniques have become more efficient over the years. However, organizations are still experiencing significant setbacks when it comes to effecting seamless coordination among employees, leaders, and the entire organization as far as communication is concerned.
Recognizing the most common business communication challenges is a prerequisite to developing an organized and coordinated communication strategy. With communication being central to the success of an organization, businesses cannot afford to ignore it. Here we look at the common challenges of business communication.
Disagreement between organizational strategy and communication
When there is no coordination in the organization's communication strategies, achieving effective communication becomes a problem. Businesses face challenges here due to lack of a comprehensive plan on how to effect communication; for instance, they fail to involve all departments, which leads to some employees missing out on the memo.
Although communicating assertively can prove difficult, organizations can achieve it through strategic planning. For example, they can use multiple channels to put out information and do a follow up to make sure employees receive it. For guaranteed success, leadership should be responsible for developing a plan, goals, and measurement tools.
Communicating with leadership
Communicating through the hierarchies can pose significant challenges, often due to a lack of a streamlined way of reaching out to the higher levels of the hierarchy. Furthermore, individuals at the top leadership rise through the ranks from different departments of the organization. As such, most of them are not well-informed on some key aspects of the business, say marketing.
As the people responsible for final decisions, leaders may make conclusions that do not reflect the views of the rest of the workforce. This disharmony, which, unfortunately, is so common, can lead to communication problems along the way.
Outdated technologies
Surveys have repeatedly exposed the fact that many organizations are too slow to adopt up-to-date technological equipment to facilitate communication. This poses numerous challenges in enabling employee engagement, which can affect how information is disseminated. As the world embraces a remote working environment, having modern equipment to facilitate communication cannot be overstated. As long as companies are using outdated technology, the subject of communication challenges will continue to dominate.
Communication with the team
Unfortunately, many organizations employ a bureaucratic leadership style where rules are given without any form of engagement. This denies employees a chance to air their views and concerns, subjecting them to rules that mostly do not relate to them. The lack of establishing a platform where every individual can contribute in their own way is the root of dissatisfaction and lower productivity. Businesses ought to understand that the modern workforce thrives on collaboration and unity as opposed to authority.
Deskless employee base
Communication with frontline workers can be a bit problematic due to the difficulty in coordinating people in different geographical locations. Adopting a unified communication solution can offer support as you work on communicating with your mobile workforce. For example, integrating mobile features can allow employees to chat and engage colleagues when necessary.
As one of the most critical aspects of a business, bypassing the common business communication challenges requires organizational leaders and management to work together to develop effective communication strategies. Certainly, a lack thereof could negatively impact the productivity and success of a business.
