Companies with a large number of employees, complex business modules, and complex hierarchy struggle with managing business communication. Smooth and effective communication between employees, management, and clients is essential for any business.
In 2020, communication has played a great role in keeping businesses alive, and, hence, hiring and training employees to improve communication is important.
What is Effective Business Communication?
According to LinkedIn, communication skills are the most in-demand soft skill for employers.
Communication between employees and management is considered to be effective when they collaborate to achieve the goals of the organization, and their work is aligned with the company’s values. That means business communication is always goal-oriented.
For an organization to work smoothly, the core values need to be communicated properly among the employees. Yet, according to Smarp, 60% of professionals do not measure or focus on internal communications. This is more prominent in software companies as they focus more on external communication and client management.
Why Employers are Focusing on Business Communication Proficiency?
Effective communication has many objectives. The first and main one being: work has to get done.There are, however, other objectives of effective communication as well:
- Exchange information: It helps employees to effectively exchange information with clients and stakeholders.
- Planning and execution: Communication helps employees in developing plans and executing them effectively by giving the right orders.
- Directing subordinates: Every project requires teamwork. Therefore, proper communication with subordinates is required to get the work done.
- Increase efficiency: Timely exchange of information and coordination increases the efficiency of the work.
- Cooperation and persuasion: Various groups and departments need cooperation to align their work and achieve a common goal.
- Create consciousness and awareness: Business communicators need to effectively communicate within and outside the organization to create awareness and consciousness about business-related matters.
- Training and development: Training and education help employees upskill, and employers can develop experts within the organization.
- Labor management: Communication with contractual labor or third-party workers who are not part of your company is necessary so that they understand your company’s goals and values, and work accordingly.
- Solve the problem: The main function of an employee is to cater information to remove disputes between two parties.
- Monitoring activities: Continuous communication is required to keep a track of activities done by employees. Employees need to communicate continuously, especially if they are working remotely to avoid errors and match the expectations of their employers.
- Building image: Business succeeds when you communicate to build a brand image among customers. Advertisements, social media, etc. are great ways to reach out to a larger audience and enhance your customer base with effective communication.
- Decision making: In a meeting, exchanging ideas and opinions correctly helps managers make better decisions.
- Awareness about future changes: A great brand image gives your company a competitive advantage in the market. To build the brand image, it is important that you make potential customers about future changes in your product or brand so that they look forward to it.
Therefore, while hiring, employers need to focus more on the business communication proficiency of candidates.
How to Assess Business Communication Proficiency?
There are four communication skills that are assessed while hiring employees or before introducing any training program for improving communication practices among the current workforce.
- Listening skills: Most common observation among candidates is that they don’t listen, they only hear things. This has a lot to do with concentration levels of the candidate as well; but during an interview, candidates only listen to formulate an answer and give a reply. What employers need are candidates who listen to understand the said things and give actionable outputs.
- Reading ability: Reading accuracy is important for each and every employee to avoid mistakes in documentations. Proofreading correctly before you submit any proposal or present a document will help build your professional image. When a candidate can read and understand quickly, the work process becomes clearer for everyone and a successful response is ensured.
- Writing skills: Most of the freshers lack basic email writing skills and, therefore, damage the internal communication within the team and organization. Writing skills are also important when making some convincing and compelling corporate materials.
- Speaking skills: It is an important skill an employee must have if they need to speak directly with the clients in a concise manner. It helps build rapport with the customers and influence seniors.
How imocha Can Help?
imocha’s AI EnglishPro is an effective way of assessing the communication skills of candidates. The AI EnglishPro test has four sections to assess: reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. The test was designed in reference to CEFR, Common European Framework of References for Languages. Moreover, the reports generated via AI EnglishPro are AI-powered and offer actionable insights about each candidate.
