For many employees, poor communication can be the source of huge anxiety and stress. A joint poll of SMEs by YouGov and Microsoft found that 34% of employees in small to medium sized businesses cited poor communications as their top cause of workplace stress. Additionally, 29% listed poor organisation-wide communications as theirs. We think we can safely say that anyone who has ever worked has probably encountered a colleague or employer who communicated poorly. Whether it was the way they spoke to members of the public and other staff members or just that they used far too much indecipherable jargon, failing to recognise how we communicate with each other can have a negative impact on any working environment. 

Improving communications across an organisation can have a number of significantly positive impacts. For starters, having a management team who can clearly and effectively communicate with their staff leads to less wasted time and improved productivity. If you consider how many times you’ve scratched your head and Googled after reading an email, and then multiply it by staff members, that’s probably a massive amount of time saved. The knock-on effect is that team members gain more faith in their leaders, thereby improving the work environment. Understanding different communication styles can also lead to fewer HR issues ranging from people feeling left out and unconsidered to increased absence due to unhappiness related to their job role. 

This is where using a tool like DiSC Profiles can really help. DiSC Profiles is a world-class behavioural management tool that creates a non-judgemental overview of the way a person takes in information, problem solves and influences others and the environment around them. Working on four preferences; dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness, a simple questionnaire then produces an in-depth report about personality and behaviour. Gaining an understanding of how people across the business communicate effectively provides a starting point for building a companywide common language. 

DiSC also gives an insight into what makes people tick, allowing employers to acknowledge difference within their teams. This improved understanding of how different personalities communicate with each other ultimately helps businesses to build better teams, for example acknowledging that reserved people may not be happy in customer facing roles can lead to improved personnel distribution. From a training perspective, having this knowledge can improve staff development and training, pinpointing where particular skills need to be improved. 

Dakota Blue offer DiSC Profiles as a part of our individual and team coaching as we believe that improving communication and understanding relationships is key to improving leadership and management skills. Don’t just listen to us though, have a look at what our clients have said.   

If you’re interested in finding out what makes you tick or are a manager looking to improve communications across your team, now is the time to get in touch.