The short answer is yes. But let’s not stop at the short answer. Let’s consider a few reasons why your organization needs communication training.

Communication Training Makes Sense

It is estimated that we spend 70-80 percent of our waking hours communicating. Yet we do not generally seek out training to be effective communicators. The training and education that we generally seek out most is training and education related to our professions. Unless we are complete workaholics, we are not actively working no our profession 70-80 percent of the time. Thank about that. It means that we are neglecting to train a skill that is very important to our lives: communication.

Most employers rate communication skills among the top skills they are looking for in new hires, as well as for those they look to promote to management positions. But again, very few people have any real education or training in communication skills. Communication seems to be the one skill that people believe they can “just wing it.” But can they?

Winging It

Since most people do not have any training in communication skills, they learn communication simply by watching and imitating others. This is how we initially learn to communicate as babies. It is a pattern of learning we continue as we grow and mature. But, what if we are imitating others with ineffective communication skills?

As young adults, we may choose a profession and begin learning skills that will help us succeed in that chosen field. But, we rarely seek to learn communication skills…skills that apply to just about every profession. Further, communication skills apply equally to our personal lives and our professional lives.

Statistics Tell All

Business Performance lists the following consequences of poor communication skills in business. Note how communication can help a company’s bottom line.

• Increased employee turnover: Companies that communicate most effectively tend to have lower turnover rates. They are over 50 percent more likely to report turnover levels below the industry average.
• Increased absenteeism: Absence rates tend to be below industry average in companies that have good communication practices.
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  Poor customer service: Research in real estate industry indicated that 40 percent of malpractice claims against real estate agents involve communication errors with the client.

• Ineffective change management: Another study showed that 30 percent of employees report their manager as effective at dealing openly with resistance to change. Seventy percent likely lack the skills to communicate change.
• Failed project delivery: In one survey, 28 percent cited poor communication as the primary cause of failure for IT projects.
• Greater incidence of injuries: One telling statistic from the healthcare industry is that communication failures represented primary cause of inadvertent patient harm in over 70 percent of cases.
• Higher litigation costs: Collaborative communication systems and processes can greatly reduce the costs associated with lawsuits; 50 to 80 percent according to one study.
• Lower shareholder return: Effective communication practices have been shown to result in 47 percent higher total returns to shareholders.

Invest in Communication

As noted above, most employers want to hire employees with good communication skills. Yet it has been estimated that only 2 percent of the population has had formal communication training. Therefore, finding such employees is difficult.

But there is an option to hiring employees with good communication skills. That option is creating employees with good communication skills. Provide communication skills training to your existing workforce. It is a cost effective option that can help your company avoid some of the consequences listed above.

Take a look at the JS2 services pages to see all of our Intelligent Communication training options. There are a wide range of courses designed to help facilitate well thought out communication.

Be swift to hear and slow to speak,

rjm