Importance of Effective Workplace Communication – Statistics for 2022

With the entire world coming under the grip of Covid-19 pandemic, year 2020 changed the workplace climate completely. With so many people working from home, we’ve seen living rooms turn into office cubicles, and bedrooms used as board rooms. This has greatly affected the way we communicate.

From 2020 onward, online screen-to-screen communication – a paradigm shift from the age-old golden face-to-face communication, has become a ‘new normal’.

This shift came quite seamlessly to the few future-ready organizations that were well on their way to embracing online communication for their day-to-day operations much before the pandemic broke out in the beginning of 2020, while others were forced to do so out of necessity.

With businesses moving from WFOs (Work from a brick-and-mortar offices) to WFHs (work-from-home) scenarios and academic institutions shifting from the four-walled classrooms to online classes, the concept of online communication got democratized bridging the digital divide between the haves and have-nots.

As per the 125 CEOs and decision makers, who were polled in May 2022, the WFH (working from home) trend isn’t likely to end soon. This will bring about new opportunities for businesses, but also some challenges. Here are the key findings from May 2022 study of 125 CEOs & decision makers.

• Slack is the most popular platform for workplace communication – used by 52% of respondents. This is followed by Zoom (47%), and Google Hangouts/Meet (26%). 
• 92% saw positive benefits of flexible working options.
• 16% stated that there were negative impacts.
• 94% stated that they will continue working in a remote/hybrid way.

When compared with a similar study done in May 2020 of 100 CEOs & decision makers:

With the sudden move from office-based collaboration to remote collaboration, some businesses have struggled to maintain best practice in terms of communication. Below are some stats that highlight how communication can benefit your business.

Increases Productivity

• According to McKinsey, organizations with connected employees show productivity increases of 20-25%.
• 64% of businesses list communicating their ‘strategy, values, and purpose’ to employees as a key priority.
• 97% of workers believe that communication impacts tasks every day.
• When employees are offered better communication technology and skills, productivity can increase by up to 30%

Increases Team Building and Trust

• 86% of corporate executives, educators, and employees cite ineffective communication and poor collaboration as reasons for failures in the workplace.
• Employees who feel their voice is heard in the workplace are almost five times more likely (4.6x) to feel empowered to deliver their best work.
• 39% of employees around the world feel that people don’t collaborate enough within their organization, yet 75% of employers rate collaboration and teamwork as ‘very important’.

The Cost of Poor Communication in the Workplace

• 28% of employees cite poor communication as the reason for not being able to deliver work on time.
• Miscommunication costs companies with 100 employees an average of ₹1,597,550.08 ($420,000) per year.
• Communications barriers could be costing businesses around ₹2,951,717,513,000.00 ($37 billion) a year

Whether it’s through synchronous Zoom calls, Google Meet, Microsoft meets or WhatsApp Video call, virtual event experiences, or asynchronous video messaging—the use of online communication has exploded since 2020. Indeed, an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of humankind!