The Impact of Poor vs Effective Communication in The Workplace

Productivity 

How your business communicates directly impacts the productivity of your workforce: In a 2024 McKinsey & Company report, 43% of business leaders reported decreased productivity due to poor communication. It’s obvious that without clear instruction, work might be misprioritised, incomplete, or incorrect. A simple miscommunication that delays one part of your operations can then impede other parts of your business. 

Tone also comes into play. In the same report, 62% of knowledge workers (i.e “a person whose job involves handing or using information”) said communications with a positive tone created a faster response. Striking the right tone is essential for demonstrating respect towards your staff. Whereas the wrong tone can demotivate them. It’s not just what you say at work, but how you say it.

Employee Satisfaction and Wellbeing

How a business communicates also influences employee satisfaction and employee wellbeing. One report found 16% of frontline workers attributed feeling stressed to poor workplace communication. And on average 60% of frontline workers felt that work had negatively impacted their mental or physical health. Needless to say, emotional manipulation, anger and threats hinder your employees, and have no place in a professional environment. Employees need respect, courtesy and praise to perform at their best. Without these qualities, employers can expect high turnover rates of staff. While demand for deskless workers is high and recruitment has its challenges, this is something no business can afford. 

So from both a moral and business standpoint, employees need to minimise stress for their staff and ensure deskless roles are attractive. By prioritising communication that enables employee satisfaction and good wellbeing, companies can improve employee retention, reduce sick days and boost productivity. 

Business Costs 

Needless to say, both productivity and employee wellbeing will affect business costs. At a simple level, engaged, motivated and healthy employees perform better. 

The 2024 McKinsey & Company Report also showed 19% of managers reported a loss of business due to poor communication. In terms of figures, poor communication costs US businesses up to $1.2 trillion each year, or $12,506 on average per employee.

Lower productivity makes operational costs harder to accommodate and ultimately trims your bottom line. So, when considering this impact, positive communication shouldn't be seen just as a nice-to-have but rather a necessity. Without it, your business sustainability is at risk. 

How Company Radio Stations Improves Internal Communications

A dedicated company radio station transforms communications for deskless workers, bringing about tangible benefits. These include:

Avoiding "Cascading Communication"

Without access or uptake in traditional forms of internal communications, businesses can fall into using "cascading communication”. This is essentially when a company message is filtered down through the management hierarchy. Managers update their direct reports, and this repeats at each level. The problem with cascading communication is it’s vulnerable to the message content or tone being changed. Be that through the interpretation or the communication style of each manager. By virtue of having multiple links within the chain, miscommunication has happened. 

The problem is widespread, 100% of managers and knowledge workers surveyed reported experiencing miscommunication at least once a week. The result is employees receiving a different message to other employees. What one employee may receive positively, others may receive negatively. This in turn impacts your employees' relationship to the business.

A company radio station allows one person (be them manager, C-suite or frontline) to clearly communicate to all employees. With a company radio station, everyone receives the same message, reducing the chance of misinterpretation by employees. The chance of miscommunication is reduced, promoting a sense of fairness and respect amongst staff.

Diversifies Messages

As we’ve established, deskless workforces have limited access to email on shift. Yet even with access, different employees engage with different mediums over others. Having communications methods like email and intranet in place doesn’t guarantee a 100% uptake. 

That’s why NEXT, a clothing and lifestyle brand, partnered with Radio.co to reach their 10,000 deskless employees. The NEXT Communications and Engagement Manager, Catherine (Flo) McAleese explained: 

Not every type of communication is right for everybody. Some people like to read, some people like to listen so radio is just one of those tools.

Both personal preference and what their role allows are deciding factors. By including audio, you can diversify your communication methods and drive employee engagement. Audio circumvents the no-screen problem and delivers your company messages in a tone your employees appreciate. 

To maximise your audio communication’s impact, your company can bring together business updates, announcements, music and other forms of audio entertainment. A company radio station is the ideal tool for creating the perfect blend that’s right for your business.

By having a range of communication tools, companies can ensure a greater reception rate across the board. This ensures your communications are inclusive, and employees can get the information they need in the way they prefer.

Other Benefits a Company Radio Station Offers Deskless Workforces

Entertainment

According to IBIS World, in the UK there are close to 270,000 people employed within the Warehousing and Storage Sector. Jobs in this sector can be repetitive and shifts long. A company radio station offers an interactive source of entertainment tailored to your workforce.

Unlike commercial stations, a company radio station can honour much more of your employees' music requests. When your employees are actively listening for their requests, they have open ears to company messaging. This in itself is a useful tool for engaging your workforce while making their day more enjoyable.

Joey, the presenter of Radio NEXT told us that whereas commercial radio stations are played at employees, company radio stations are made for them:

We can make our company radio station specifically for our people. If you request a song it can be played instantaneously, if there’s news about the business you can hear it, whether that be overtime or what’s on for lunch at the canteen.

Community Feel

Having just one source of communal entertainment, like playing commercial radio, can create conflict between deskless employees. Undoubtedly with large cohorts of staff, personal tastes differ. Managing the politics of communal entertainment can become a job within itself. Factoring in the ability to cater to all employee’s requests and your own company radio station is a more diplomatic approach to including all staff.

How to Launch a Radio Station For Your Deskless Workforce

An online radio station is an effective digital tool for engaging your deskless staff, but if you’ve no broadcasting experience, it can be confusing knowing where to start. That’s where Radio.co can step in. Radio.co is an all-in-one solution that provides all the tools, software and support needed to create and manage your online radio station. For over 10 years, we’ve provided broadcasting solutions across sectors from logistics to travel to engage and inspire employees at all levels. 

We offer a completely managed plan, where we use your business goals to design to build your company radio station from scratch. We’ll create show structures, regularly update music and take care of all editing and scheduling. We’ll also produce fresh content that reflects your company and motivates your workforce, with little demands on your time. But if your staff want to be involved, we’ll provide the training needed so they find broadcasting not only easy, but impactful.

Here's our under-the-bonnet run down of what we offer:

• Dedicated private server and hosting
• Priority support from our Enterprise team.
• Password protected web feed for all staff to listen to.
• Private mobile apps for listening on the go using Single Sign On for staff-only access.
• Alexa skill if required.
• Private podcasting if required.
• 1 National station included, with the option to make local feeds for different branches.
• Fortnightly music updating
• Assistance with correct licensing.

How Your Deskless Workforce Can Listen To a Company Radio Station 

We know in our digital world, there’s no one-size-fits all operation for any business. And it’s the same for employees. To drive engagement, diversity in communications is the best method for a diverse workforce. That’s why our radio station solution has multiple ways to listen. These include: 

On-Person Listening
e.g. for your employees working on their own, listening to headphones, driving.

We’ll create your own dedicated radio station apps, packed with useful features as well as allowing users to listen on personal or company devices, iOS or Android.  If your employees want everything in one place, we can integrate your station into your company intranet.

Alternatively, users can listen via browser link or through an Alexa-enabled device if preferred. We even offer private podcasting, for your staff to listen on-demand to your company updates at a time that suits them best.

Communal Listening
e.g. for the warehouse floor, when on-shift with colleagues.

Our solution can be easily paired with your PA system. All that’s required is a speaker system paired with a device that can connect to the internet. But if you need help with this, we’ll be with you every step of the way getting set up.

Ready To Reach Your Deskless Workforce?

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