FastTrain

“You bang on a lot about communications don’t you”, someone said to me recently. Yes, it’s true I do, but that is because communications happens all of the time. It is how we get things done – or not as the case may be.

Some research done in the 1990s showed that if an organisation had a healthy internal communications package then it:

• Improved productivity
• Reduced absenteeism
• Increased innovation
• Reduced costs
• Produced better quality services/products

I would add:

• Reduces turnover of staff
• Builds trust
• Improves cooperation

Actually there is a lot of research out there that points to the benefit of good communications whether they are internal or external. Internal communications when developed to allow employees to have their say allow people to talk about their needs, it helps them to get information and they get a chance to influence decision making.

It has also shown that lots of face to face communications between managers and their teams leads to improved motivation and morale. It means that people are understood and small adjustments can be made in between the annual appraisals.

So yes I do bang on a lot about communication because you can really see the organisations that are not communicating with their people and the ones that do – the latter are the ones still in business!