Workplace communication

To understand workplace communication issues, you need to imagine you’re walking through a busy airport while blindfolded and you're relying on a guide who only speaks to you every ten minutes. You’d feel anxious, disconnected, and desperate to get out of the situation. For a third of UK workers, this is what their daily work life feels like - fumbling around with no clear direction. 

How do we know this? Research commissioned by Herkess Marketing among 2,000 full and part-time workers in the UK on the subject of workplace communication found startling results that should be a wake-up call for business leaders. Over a third of staff believe they would be significantly happier in their job if communication in their workplace was better. 

Nearly half (40%) of the workforce rate their company’s communication as mediocre or worse (5 out 10 or less) which is a real threat to staff retention and business growth.

When people feel "out of the loop," they stop caring about the business they work for and want to leave to get better job satisfaction. 

Here are some of the top ten most common workplace communication issues and advice on how to fix them. 

Information sharing 

In many organizations, information is hoarded. Whilst there’s always going to be some commercial sensitivities that you want to protect, this shouldn’t result in silence that creates a culture of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. Employees aren’t stupid and will appreciate that they can’t always get the full picture all of the time, but having no information at all creates trust issues, especially when they’re the last to find out something that’s relevant to their job role. 

Shift toward a culture of workplace communication transparency where information is shared by default and only kept secret when necessary. This will help employees have a better understanding of the organisation they work for and what their department and individual priorities should be. It removes the bottlenecks created by "gatekeepers" and fosters a culture of shared ownership. 

Furthermore, empowering employees by giving them access to information allows them to develop their own understanding of the business which helps them ‘think outside the box’ and work more autonomously in ways that are more likely to benefit the company. 

Establish a predictable information pulse

Anxiety and gossip thrives in the absence of information. If the only time your team hears from your business’s leadership team is during a restructure or a market shift, they’ll learn to associate company communication with bad news and stress. 

Develop a consistent "pulse" for your messaging. Whether it’s a two-minute Monday morning video or a monthly digest, a regular update provides workers with a sense of security that they have a good sense of what’s going on within the organisation they work for. It also provides some comfort that there are unlikely to be any ‘nasty surprises’. 

These workplace communication updates should be a blend of financial and operational updates, best practice reminders and small wins.  Aim to make them neither too long nor too short. They should offer a good overview and be easy to consume within 5 minutes. This will make them more likely to be read, understood, and valued. Even during quiet times, the act of ‘checking-in’ maintains the connection that you will have created with staff and will avoid them feeling ‘in the dark’. 

Communicate the context

Managers often hand out tasks giving any context for them. Without the "why," work can feel like a pointless chore that’s taking time away from more important duties. This lack of context is a key reason why employees feel a disconnect between their daily effort and the company’s success.

For every major directive, make sure that team leaders at each level explain the strategic reason for the task, the process that’ll be used, and the payoff for the individual.This will ensure that there is a consistent, strong message across the organisation and it’ll also encourage staff to care about progress. 

Don't just announce a new software rollout; explain that the current system is causing errors and the new tool will eventually save every team member hours of admin each week. When people understand how their specific contribution fits into the larger puzzle, they'll understand they aren't just 'working', they're actually solving problems.

Set communication rules

You’ve probably had the experience of needing to refer back to some information but struggling to find it. Was it sent via email, Teams, a project management tool, social media, was it an article on the intranet? The larger an organisation is, the more workplace communication channels it probably has. Employees tend to find themselves bombarded with information at all hours of the day, and it can be overwhelming to try and manage them all.  

Information overload often stems from ‘digital franticness’. When every channel is used for everything, and an important message could come at any time, your team can spend more time triaging notifications than on doing high-value work. 

Move away from ‘any time and any channel’ approach to communication. Create a simple internal guide that designates specific channels for different types of information. For example, specify that instant messaging (Slack/Teams) is for time-sensitive syncs only, project management tools are only for task progress updates and email is the way to send updates from the leadership team. 

Set time limits on when messages should be sent. This not only removes an unspoken pressure for staff to respond immediately and feel like they’re ‘always on’, it also respects the boundaries that prevent staff burnout while keeping the information flow organized and intentional - it also helps to position you an ‘employer of choice’ because your time outside of work is being protected. To make this stick, leadership teams must lead by example and model, monitor, and police the behavior. 

Two-way information flow 

Workplace communication that drives success is a conversation, not a lecture. If leadership teams treat internal updates like a megaphone, they miss out on the "ground-floor" insights of the people actually doing the work. This "broadcast-only" mentality leaves staff feeling like passive observers rather than a valued contributors.

In addition to sending out a regular staff update, there should be regular opportunities for staff to communicate with the leadership team. 

This could be through department head updates regularly asking for feedback on a specific topic, however it relies on department heads having a good relationship with their team.

 Alternatively, hold structured  'open forum' or 'town hall' sessions. This should be held on a regular but not frequent basis, for example quarterly and combined with a business update. The aim of the session is to have some time (approx 30 mins) reserved for unscripted questions and to produce feedback/suggestions from staff. 

Depending on the number of people in the session, you may want to use anonymous submission tools to ensure everyone, regardless of their seniority or personality type, feels safe raising the tough questions that actually matter to the workforce.

Don’t forget to record the key points from the session so that they can be disseminated to employees who weren’t at the meeting. 

Acknowledge feedback  

Collecting feedback from staff  is only half the battle, the real value lies in the follow-up. When suggestions vanish into a 'black hole', it discourages staff from any future participation and breeds cynicism. It signals that their opinion was merely a tick-box exercise, and that the company isn’t interested in their suggestions. 

After any survey or brainstorming session, share a summary of what was heard and what the next steps are. Be honest about what you can change immediately, what you are investigating for the future, and what you cannot do. Even if you have to say no to a suggestion, explaining the reason why will build significantly more trust than ignoring the request completely. This process signals to staff that the leadership is listening to them and values their contributions. 

Communicate for clarity

How a leadership team communicates between its members is not necessarily how it should communicate with staff across the board. 

Jargon, ‘corporate speak’, and accounting terms can act as a barrier to understanding. It can feel cold, guarded, and insincere and drive a wedge between leaders and employees, rather than encouraging engagement. If a new starter on their first day is unlikely to understand the core message of your email, the communication has failed.

Adopt more human-centric language. Write your internal memos as if you were explaining the concept to a friend over coffee. Strip away the buzzwords and speak directly about what is happening and why it should matter to the person reading it.

Focus on stating the what, why, when, who and how, as simply as possible and you’re more likely to connect with staff. Clarity is a form of kindness, it ensures everyone is moving in the same direction and reduces the risk of misinterpreted instructions that lead to costly mistakes.

For every long email or report, provide a three-point summary at the very top. This helps people who struggle with long-form text to grasp the core message immediately. Use bold headers and clear icons to make the most important information scannable.

Bring people with you, not trailing behind

Boardroom goals like "12% growth" can feel abstract to an employee focused on their daily workload. If the company’s goals feel distant from an employees’ day-to-day role, they’re more likely to lose motivation because they can see a clear link between the two.

Explicitly connect each department’s outputs and performance to the company’s overarching short and long-term goals and communicate it to the relevant staff. Regularly discussing this connection in department team meetings will reiterate the value in their work. It will also ensure that every person can clearly see how their daily tasks and personal performance link to the company’s overall success. 

Break down silos 

Our research found that one in five workers feel that they never know what other teams are working on and it impacts their work. Often, they feel siloed and unable to see how their department interacts with the rest of the business. When teams operate in a bubble, work is often duplicated or not delivered properly. 

Visibility breeds empathy. Encourage departments to share high-level wins or short department updates in a public, shared space once a month or on a dedicated channel. When the sales team understands the constraints of the customer service team, friction decreases. Breaking down these silos creates a cohesive one-team culture where everyone understands how the different parts of the business move together toward the same goal.

Bridge the desktop divide

In many businesses, there is a massive gap between the office-based staff and the non-desk workforce. If you have non-desk-based staff, be careful that your communication strategy doesn’t solely rely on long emails or intranet logins or you’ll effectively be ignoring these people. When employees feel like they’re the last to know, it quickly leads to a 'them vs. us' culture and a disengagement with company goals.

Meet these employees where they actually are. Stop relying on company email addresses that are rarely checked and look for different solutions. Digital signage, QR codes on posters in breakrooms, a dedicated employee app, or a simple, secure mobile messaging group for urgent updates can all be used to ensure that all staff get the information they need. 

Furthermore, ensure that information is 'bite-sized'. A worker on a warehouse floor or a retail unit doesn't have 20 minutes to read a memo, but they do have 60 seconds to watch a video on digital signage or a mobile phone. By making your updates mobile-friendly and visually driven, you ensure that all your staff are just as informed and valued as the people in the boardroom.

The bottom line

When employees feel informed, included, and heard, they aren't just happier, they're more motivated, loyal, and effective. Better communication isn't a just a 'nice-to-have'; it is the engine of business success and should be valued and treated as such. 

Get in touch with Herkess Marketing if you're interested in improving your workplace communication.