How The New-Age Workforce Is Shaking Up Workplace Communication

How does your team communicate on a daily basis? Does your team use chat service, or schedule regular face-to-face meetings to get work done? If your team is working out of different offices, do you set up conferences or calls or video conferencing?

It may look like a matter of preference, but the channels you utilize matter.

How is today's workforce communicating?

In our latest research with Compt, we surveyed over 800 working professionals in the United States to get a better view of the state of workplace communication. And the responses may surprise you.

Not only are employees feeling overloaded by the number of communication tools they use and the messages they receive, but they also have their own preferences of what forms of communication work best for them.

What are the most frequently used tools in the workplace?

In the realm of communication, while 51% of our respondents frequently use video calls at work, and only 38% use instant messaging. With the number of remote teams worldwide increasing at a fast pace, these asynchronous communication tools will continue to be on the rise as regular necessities in the workplace.

The most surprising stat we learned about communication methods is when respondents were asked, “How do you prefer to communicate at work?” 62% of respondents responded that they were most comfortable with face-to-face, 37% preferred instant messaging tools while only 12% chose video conferencing.

Collaborate better with your team

How do you negotiate communication methods when a sizable segment of the workforce prefers communicating in immeasurably different ways? Fortunately, there are tools that combine both face-to-face and text-based methods of communication. And your team can use those tools to choose what works best for them.

Communication tools for varied styles

Coming face-to-face with the tools your team needs can be problematic, to say the least. When half of your team is in Boston and the other half is in Mumbai, it’s important to find a way to communicate with everyone.

Here’s your toolkit for differing communication styles:

Face-to-face meetings

62% of workers surveyed prefer face-to-face communication in the workplace. This means your 1:1s, team meetings, and staff-wide meetings should be physical whenever possible. It’s vital to come up with a system for these meetings that keeps them short, effective, and enjoyable. Prioritize face-to-face meetings and let your team tell you when they prefer an alternate format.

Video conferencing

While workers may not prefer video conferencing over physical meetings, it’s the best replacement for face-to-face meetings for a virtual or scattered team. So how can you make video conferences convenient for everyone? The first step is proper video chat etiquette. Knowing the dos and don’ts for video conferencing makes it less grueling and encourages your team to use your video tools more often. Building a team-wide charter for proper video communication can solve your team’s concern with video communication, and gives you a chance to streamline your video meetings.

Video conferencing is not only best for remote teams, but can also be convenient for client meetings, 1:1s, and webinars. Regulating your virtual meetings will make them effective, which can lead to your team enjoying them more.

Instant messaging

Instant messaging is best for quick communication that requires a brief response or a quick discussion, like a company memo or a short question. While these can be done over email, that’s not really an instantaneous form of communication, and emails are more easily overlooked. Additionally, a lot of instant messaging or chat tools come with the capacity to integrate with the tools you’re already using—this streamlines your workflow and makes it simpler to both communicate and collaborate in one place.

Discovering your team’s style of communication

The best way to understand how your team best communicates is…to ask! In providing different formats for meetings and communication, you provide the opportunity for your team to collaborate better—isn’t that what communication is all about?