Feedback in communication: 5 areas to become a better communicator

Effective communication is essential in the workplace. When you’re not communicating enough, employees are kept in the dark about things they need to change and improve. Likewise, if you fail to take note of the feedback involved in communicating a given message.

Without clear feedback in communication channels, employees may risk duplicating work, failing to meet deadlines or misaligning expectations. When different teams within the office don’t communicate with each other regularly, the company as a whole can suffer.

Let’s look at what exactly feedback in communication is and ways to incorporate the two.

What is meant by feedback in communication?

Feedback in communication is the response given by the individual receiving information. This can be verbal or nonverbal cues such as head nodding and body language. It can also be more forward, involving specific thoughts or pushback on what one party has said.

It is a key part of any healthy two-way conversation and building strong communication channels throughout a business and between team members.

The importance of feedback in communication

Today, learning how to communicate effectively in the workplace is more important than ever. Millennials want more feedback at work to meet their ambitious professional development goals.

A recent survey from PWC revealed that 41% would rather communicate electronically than face-to-face or over the phone, while another 78% said that access to the technology they like to use makes them more productive.

Ensuring both parties provide feedback in two-way communication helps to ensure the message is heard and interpreted accurately. Without this, both parties could think that they are aligned when they’re actually miscommunicating.

Effective feedback in communication helps with the following:

• Confirming the message is properly received
• Offers insight into both party’s views and ideas
• Leave space for upward and downward feedback, strengthening trustful relationships
• Building autonomy in the workplace
• Minimizing micromanagement
• Improving employee engagement

How offering feedback in communications impacts employee engagement

Feedback in conversation is both an indicator of and a contributing factor to employee engagement. 

Signals effective listening

Both positive and negative feedback are signals that all parties are actively listening and engaged in the conversation.

Establishes open communication

Employees in a work environment that encourages open communication and accepts employee feedback are more likely to feel heard. This strengthens employees’ sense of belonging, purpose, and engagement.

Encourages teamwork

Including feedback in the process of communication helps build stronger relationships between team members. When the response of a receiver confirms that they heard the sender’s message accurately, individuals can work more effectively together. They can also trust that their collaborators are on the same page.

5 areas to incorporate feedback in communication

Although technology can make our lives easier, psychologists have pointed out the limits of non-verbal communication. Body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice are also extremely important for effective communication as they offer more clues into the thoughts and intentions of the speaker.

Creating more open channels of communication is a simple fix that can help you avoid these common pitfalls and encourage inter-generational knowledge sharing.

Here are five ideas to help your company communicate effectively:

1. Google Docs & brainstorming sessions

Google Docs can be a great tool to help you collaborate with multiple co-workers on a project, allowing you to directly read and edit each other’s work. However, nothing beats a good brainstorming session. The beauty of brainstorming is that it allows employees to bounce ideas off each other.

Being able to see an issue from multiple perspectives allows you to come up with a creative solution to a problem. Including everyone in the conceptual process fosters a stronger sense of ownership amongst everyone in the group.

After the meeting, a shared Google sheet can help everyone keep on track with the action plan, but also allows for flexibility, enabling members of the team to make changes that appear directly on everyone’s sheet.

2. Messaging tools

Millennials have grown up sending short messages and pieces of information by text, Facebook, and Twitter. Slack (or other messaging tools) is a great tool for sending fast messages to individuals or groups of colleagues without disturbing others in the office.

This is especially useful in open-concept offices. It can also help you boost team spirit by updating everyone on achievements within your team. However, it’s imperative that you don’t let technology completely replace office-wide meetings.

Though Slack can be great to get things done amongst a small group of people, there is also not a lot of transparency. Even if each team is on track to accomplish their own goals, with closed communication channels disconnects can grow amongst different groups within the company.

3. All-hands meetings

All-Hands is a popular solution for business communications. Every company that uses this tactic has its own version. Whether someone speaks for one minute or ten, the benefits are greater than you might expect.

All-Hands promote greater transparency amongst your different teams. Even if your marketing and development teams don’t work together on many projects, both must be informed of each other’s progress and new projects being implemented.

You’ll find that this can lead to more cross-team input and spontaneous collaboration. It also provides a forum for team and employee recognition.

Even if not everyone can attend these meetings, technology provides an alternative solution. Skype, Zoom, and Google Hangouts are useful tools to enable the members of your team who are traveling or working remotely to attend meetings virtually. 

4. One-on-one meetings

The best managers follow up with their employees after a 360-degree review or a performance review of any kind. This is especially important when an employee has received constructive feedback. Meeting one-on-one allows you to discuss the results, hear their reactions, and develop a plan to integrate this information into their development plan.

5. Strong manager-employee relationships

Giving fast and continuous feedback puts the professional development of your employees and managers into high gear. However, to gain the full benefits of continuous feedback it’s essential to build trust.

Building trust requires you to simultaneously create a relationship in which you, your managers, and employees are comfortable giving feedback to each other in person through one-on-ones.

Include feedback in your communications today

Lauren Kelley, Head of Learning and Development, Google, shares why it's critical to build mental fitness to effectively give feedback around communication. Her work focuses on developing product managers — and why personal and professional development hinges on the ability to communicate well across teams and individuals.

Now that you know the impact of feedback in communication, you can start fostering it across your organization.