10 Common Signs of Poor Communication in the Workplace

Poor communication in the workplace is the quickest way to see a good company falter. It costs the company thousands of dollars and creates workplace conflict and stressful work environments which cause good people to leave.

All too often, the telltale signs are ignored and opportunities to nip bad behavior are lost.

Communications is the superpower of every effective leader. It is also why Leaders need to invest in themselves and their team to hone these skills.

Essential communication skills are such a hot topic that we are seeing business articles in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Indeed and also in areas like Simply Psychology and PsychCentral.

The Costs of Poor Communication In The Workplace

While every business is a bit different, these are common in all businesses.

Costs of Miscommunication

Every day our teams are struggling with insufficient communication and it shows up in searching for lost files, having a lack of data and information, inability to do their job and so much more.

Let’s just say 30 min a day happens to be a miscommunication. Let’s run the numbers:
X 5 days = 2.5 hrs per person 
X 4 weeks = 10 hrs a month!!

In my law firm days, here is a look at what this would cost the firm for those 10 hours a month.
X $15/hr  Assistant = 150 a month = $1800 a year 
X $25/hr  Paralegal = 250 a month = $3000 a year 
X $50/hr  Associate = 500 a month = $6000 a year 

But the issue doesn’t just stop with one miscommunication, unclear communication happens all over the business and it adds up.

Look at the numbers if there are MULTIPLE ISSUES A DAY!
$1800 +$3000 = $4,800 a month
$3000 + $6000 = $9,000 a month
$6000 + $6000 = $12,000 a month
= $31,800/ yr

Goodness gracious! The costs are real and they can really add up greatly over the course of a year.

Bottom line, the more you can focus on effective communication skills and empowering your team to engage with one another on a productive level, the more you are going to start saving.

Costs of Lost Opportunity

Imagine what you could do with that 10 hours a month. How about you start WOWing some of your clients. Give them that extra attention and ensure excellence on every product that goes out the door and those clients will become raving fans and refer you back more clients.

Let’s do the math:

10 hrs a month of WOWing Clients!
= 1 Referral a month
X 12 months = 12 Clients. 
= Average Value: $2500 X 12 
= $30,000/ yr

That is some serious cash!

Costs of Churn

Poor communication in the workplace practices cause good team members to get frustrated and quit. Now you have to replace them.
Employee turnover is a huge an expense to the business.

Here is a breakdown of all the work that goes into handling that.

Creating and Placing the ad: 4 hours
Triaging Applicants & Interviews: 12 hours
Checking References & Creating Offer: 6 hours
Onboarding & Training by You & Your Team: 20 hours
Termination: 15 hours
Fixing the Mistakes: 10 hours

TOTAL: 67 hours x $50 = $3,350
X 4 times a year = $13,400 

If we take all three, that equates to over $75,000 a year of lost profit. That could be a tremendous help to a business or a business owner.

So how can you identify these issues early on and redirect the poor communication in the workplace.

10 Warning Signs Of Poor Communication In The Workplace

Here is a list of 10 common signs there is a problem.

#1: Frequent Misunderstandings

A misunderstanding here and there is fine. But if you start having communication breakdowns on a daily basis that is an indicator of a communication challenge. Dig in and ask questions. What are the sources of the misunderstandings. Is it a lack of communication? Is it a problem of ambiguous language? Is it a lack of knowledge sharing? When you start hearing these misunderstandings, the key to this is to start investigating.

#2: Increased Confusion

This is one where body language can give you some serious intel. If you are seeing looks of confusion and employee feedback tells you there is a lot of confusion among the team, it’s time to ask more questions.

If the team member is confused, why didn’t they ask their team mates for help or support? Perhaps it is because of communication styles or perhaps as seen with some of your remote employees they don’t know when is the right time to ask questions, but what it tells us is that that human doesn’t feel safe enough to ask for help.

This may be an indicator that you need to work on creating a more inclusive environment or sometimes it is just raising awareness to the person that it is okay to ask questions.

So when you start witnessing increased confusion amongst your team, that is a warning sign you may need to engage in some team training.

#3: Decline in Productivity

A decline in productivity can be due to a number of things but most often it is due to a lack of communication.  When people are unsure how to do a task or lack all of the relevant information say slow down their speed of completion and that directly impacts their productivity. 

Business success can be greatly hampered and it is imperative to immediately address productivity when your data shows there is a decrease in output.  The Team Leaders should immediately investigate to ensure a level of understanding by each team member so they know what they are supposed to do and can do so with mastery.

#4: Poor Meeting Outcomes

Another indicator is when the team engages in multiple meetings but results don’t ensue. Often you have knowledge silos who lead the meeting and give a lot of information but fail to add clarity and clear directives at the completion of the meeting. We love to see each meeting end with who shall do what by when as we delegate various tasks with deadlines. If we are not seeing good results from meetings we should review whether there is active team collaboration and measurable goals. Meeting elements such as these create a positive work environment which drives results. 

#5: Deadlines Are Not Being Met

Now, as the legal malpractice attorney, I can tell you this can get dangerous very fast.

Deadlines are set for a reason and we must hold people accountable to those deadlines. Poor leadership ensues when we allows those missed deadlines to just be ignored.

As with many of these warning signs however, proper communication may not be the only issue. For instance, there may be other impeding deadlines that took priority. Or, there may have been a change in a project.

Unfortunately, all too often the “missed deadline” was due to a communication gap.

#6: Increased Conflict

If you start seeing increased conflict between your team whether in the form of arguing and bickering or a complete halt in all communication these are warning signs you have a serious problem afoot.  

As with all of these it is vital to ask questions and get to the heart of the problem so you can take steps to resolve the issue appropriately. Sometimes these issues result from poor communication in the workplace skills, and we need to train the team to provide constructive feedback and engage in honest communication without taking it personally. Other times it can stem from an entire misunderstanding.

One thing to consider in this element is that you do want a healthy level of conflict in team meetings in order to flesh out the best way to proceed or consider alternative ideas. So it is another a complete lack of conflict that is your aim, but instead to have a level of respectful communications.

Bottom line, investigate! 

#7: Overpromising

Another warning sign of poor team communication is over promising. This often comes up when a person does not know the information and makes promises that they do not know can be kept and create strife with the team. Other times, a team member who is behind will overpromise to complete tasks because they are embarrassed to admit how behind they are.  tasks and over promises. This illustrates that the lines of communication are in poor health in your business and can ultimately damage your workplace culture. 

#8: Gossip and Rumors

If gossip and rumors plague your team that is a sure sign you have poor communication in the workplace issues. Poor leaders will avoid addressing this toxic behavior but it damages company culture faster than anything.

Senior management should give opportunities for employees to share their perspectives but ultimately strong leaders should set expectations that behavior such as this is not acceptable.   

#9: Feedback Avoidance

In a busy business time for giving feedback often falls down the priority list. However if you share with specific team members that you would like to have a meeting to engage in a feedback session and they routinely avoid scheduling or showing up for such a meeting you likely have a problem on your hands. Feedback is a vital element to strong communication among team members so they can learn from mistakes and create systems to ensure those mistakes are not replicated.  

Feedback should happen more than just an annual performance reviews so team members can improve and have greater chances for advancement opportunities. If a team member is engaging in feedback avoidance this is a chance to help them see the benefits and how this will improve their life.

#10: Low Engagement/Quiet Quitting

Over the last several years quite quitting has become more prevalent in the workplace. Weather it is due to a bad leader, Poor employee communications or a change in that person’s personal life, employee turnover is expensive and every effort should be made to address this warning sign early on.

How to fix Poor Communication In The Workplace:

First, Start With You.

Understanding yourself and your verbal and nonverbal communications are key to learning to communicate better. In an article on PsychCentral, How a Lack of Clear Communication Can Affect Your Life, and Ways to Improve It, they discuss body language being “a vital aspect of communication that can display your emotions and the subtext of your words without having to say it all out loud.” 

Business owners often wear their emotions on their sleeve and the team learns from that behavior that it is acceptable to react in sometimes less than ideal ways.

Effective communication starts at the top.

Second, Focus on Communication Technique Training.

Delegation is the handing off of tasks, which in the business world happens thousands of times a day between the various team members. Project management is also a vital part of every department of every business as every matter is in a sense just a small or large project we are trying to accomplish.

The problem is that most team members have never been given communication training on how to delegate or manage a project appropriately. This is why I love our Delegation and Project Management Workshop as it allows the whole team to learn the correct framework and the proper communication elements to ensure results.

Good leaders invest in their teams with in-person and virtual events to supercharge their team communications.

Third, Map Clear Workflows with Deadlines!

Workflows give everyone on your team a framework to know how things are supposed to work. It is why we have so many raving fans of our Workflows and Workloads Boot Camp.  

Improve workplace communication by having clear workflows in place for every department in your business. (Yes, that means Marketing Workflows, sales Workflows, Intake Workflows, Onboarding Workflows, Admin Workflows, Financial Workflows and much much more!) 

This takes work but it increases productivity, profitability and team happiness. That is what I call a WIN-WIN-WIN!

Finally, Clear Systems = WHO Shall Do WHAT by WHEN!

Systems are the granular component that will allow your team to do a great job every time! The key is to have your team help build them so they appeal to all different learning styles by having written policies and procedures but also videos, diagrams, workflows, examples, templates, and checklists. (If you are ready to build out your systems in each department you can purchase our manuals here or email me to work with one of our coaches and get them for free!)

Building Systems should already be one of the company goals for business success, but it has the added effect of reducing possibilities for misunderstand and empowering your team to thrive!