Clear and efficient communication helps companies build a fulfilling workplace culture for their employees. In this post, we’ll break down the connection between workplace culture and communication and how to make the most of that link in your work environment.
According to Gallup research, only 13% of employees strongly agree that their organization’s leadership communicates effectively.
Where does your organization stand? If you’re unsure of the answer, you could be missing out on an opportunity to build a more supportive and productive culture for your employees. We’ll share our top tips and a few internal email tools for strengthening workplace culture through communication. We’ll also show you how to track internal communications performance and make tangible improvements.
How Do Workplace Culture and Communication Affect Each Other?
Workplace culture and communication depend on one another. Effective communication practices lead to a more satisfying and efficient workplace. Not to mention, the effectiveness of communication across your teams shows the state of your workplace culture.
Looking at it another way, your communication style can provide unexpected insights about your workplace’s culture. In turn, the state of your work environment can impact how your teams communicate company culture themselves.
Communication impacting culture
According to a recent Slack survey, workplace collaboration made up a large part of company culture and effective communication played a large role. Slack’s insights can help explain the link between workplace culture and communication.
When the company asked knowledge workers across the world, “What makes for good team collaboration?” 13.9% of respondents considered easy communication with co-workers the top indicator.
Meanwhile, in the second-most popular answer, 13.7% of participants thought clear responsibilities, which come from clear communication, promote good collaboration.
These studies show that creating a culture of communication is vital.
When teams communicate, they can create goals and outcomes that more members agree on, promoting better teamwork. Listening to, and communicating with employees also helps you build policies that matter to them.
Culture impacting communication
Wondering how to communicate company culture?
A recent Harvard Business Review report, showed that communication can provide a clear window into a company’s culture. Researchers could measure an employee’s “cultural adaptability” by comparing their use of language to their colleagues’.
They also reviewed the language used in Glassdoor reviews. By evaluating the similarities and differences in the phrases workers used, the researchers could tell the consistency of their cultural approaches.
Complaints about communication could also point to broader cultural problems, according to another Harvard Business Review article.
Markman mentions a time where he worked with an organization that thought a lack of communication made its job descriptions unclear. It turned out that a lack of structure caused the confusion.
Workers point to communication by default when they have a problem that they can’t define. Even if communication isn’t always the problem in these situations, it’s often the first factor that workers look at when thinking about organizational issues. That means for employees, the tie between workplace culture and communication will always be strong.
It’s then on the leadership to figure out if the issue really comes from communication or has a different source.
What are Ways to Create Communication Culture in The Workplace?
If you have a remote team, asking for employee feedback and listening to staff insights are some of the best ways to create a communication culture in the workplace. You can easily accomplish this through email newsletter technology like ContactMonkey.
It’s simple. Ask your employees about their experience at work and determine what they need from you.
This was done by the RNAi therapeutics company Alnylam, who used ContactMonkey surveys to understand what resources employees needed during the COVID-19 pandemic. They asked their teams what they needed to get their jobs done and feel supported.
In turn, they were able to make informed decisions, support their staff during a challenging period, and strengthen workplace culture.
4 Ways to Create a Strong Workplace Culture Through Communication
Create a culture that better serves its employees by adapting your communication to your team and operations. When you keep in touch with your employees on their terms, you can identify and meet their needs more effectively.
Communicate on your employees’ terms
Stay in touch in ways that fit employees’ needs and habits. If some of your team members miss out on your messaging, look for channels that meet them where they are.
The eyeglasses company Warby Parker’s founder Dave Galboa recommends that organizational leaders get their team members the information they need in the way that works best for them.
By offering its weekly touchpoint in three different formats, Warby Parker ensures that employees get updates in ways they understand. In this way, workplace culture and communication become well aligned.
You can use ContactMonkey employee pulse surveys and analytics to present information in ways that match your team’s workflow and preferences.
Compare the performance of different newsletter formats to see what delivery method your employees prefer and what company newsletter ideas your employees enjoy. ContactMonkey surveys let you ask your team about their schedule and communication styles. That way, you can design information around their needs.
For more ideas, read our blog post on employee survey questions about company culture to ask in your next employee survey.
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Put communication first during major changes
Internal communication becomes an even more important part of when changing your company culture.
Successful companies across a variety of industries rely on effective communication to overcome times of change or crises and maintain a culture of trust:
- According to the digital adoption service Whatfix, clear, timely, and multi-channel communication will help you transition your team through a change in operations or policy.
- Productivity software company Trello stresses the importance of over-communication during a crisis—regular information provides stability in uncertain times.
- When switching to a remote work environment, practice clear communication during onboarding and ongoing learning, as discussed in this roundup by the learning experience platform Eduflow.
- In one of our own ContactMonkey blog posts, we point out the importance change management communication. In addition to giving your team information, you should listen to them. You can use change management pulse surveys to easily gather employee feedback using ContactMonkey’s employee pulse survey tool.
ContactMonkey makes it easy to provide frequent and consistent updates with intuitive newsletter creation and email scheduling.
If you need to communicate information to a particular group of employees, you can create a custom email list using ContactMonkey’s List Management feature without having to wait for IT approval. Target specific groups of employees to reduce the amount of irrelevant information your employees receive.
Get regular feedback from your team
When you give your employees the chance to offer feedback, you’ll get the insights you need to build the positive culture your employees want.
You can see this principle in action at the manufacturer Exemplis, where the employee engagement team uses ContactMonkey for internal team newsletters.
Exemplis gets the most value out of ContactMonkey through surveys and analytics. Its employees loved ContactMonkey’s survey and comment features because they could provide real-time feedback that made them feel heard. The Exemplis engagement team also received passive feedback from ContactMonkey in the form of analytics showing employee engagement with newsletters.
Let technology do most of the work
Struggling to find the time to communicate with employees? Tools for internal communication like ContactMonkey make it easier to stay in touch. Features like templates and analytics speed up the process while improving the connection between your workplace culture and communication quality.
Using ContactMonkey, the University of North Texas’ internal communications team optimized their email newsletters to tackle a full list of responsibilities with a lean team. Thanks to ContactMonkey’s user-friendly analytics dashboard and templates, they cut hours off creating and sending a newsletter.
The wet infrastructure specialist EPS Group met the challenge of communicating with more than 500 employees with ContactMonkey’s personalization features. ContactMonkey allowed them to personalize their branding, graphics, and subject lines at scale to engage all of their team members. ContactMonkey makes it easy to add visual elements and create responsive templates for faster customization.
Looking for quick email content generation? Using ContactMonkey’s OpenAI ChatGPT integration, you can enter a prompt and generate email text that you can customize for your audience. Use this to get new ideas for your internal communications and employee surveys.
Build a Strong Culture with Communication Through ContactMonkey
When your communication works in harmony with your employees and operations, you’re actively building a culture that serves team members’ needs. Make this communication a natural part of your day-to-day, and you’ll have a clear idea of what employees want from your organization.
Learn how to use an internal communications software to modify your internal messaging to fit your employees’ needs and get their feedback on your operations. Book a free demo to see ContactMonkey’s newsletter builder, survey creator, and analytics tool:
