Having employees with strong communication skills is essential for professional success. Being able to communicate in a clear, confident way brings in more business, keeps clients happy, strengthens professional relationships, and keeps a company running smoothly and efficiently. Given all of this, it’s not surprising that poor communication skills can have a negative impact on a company’s bottom line. Recently the Independent Directors Council (IDC) commissioned a study to determine exactly how much miscommunication costs companies and the results are staggering!
In the IDC’s study, a series of telephone interviews were conducted with managers, HR and staff from 400 companies and found that companies with 100,000 employees were losing sixty-two MILLION dollars on average each year due to misunderstandings! At an average of $624 per employee, that type of loss can have a big impact even on smaller companies.
As shocking as that number sounds, its actually a conservative estimate of the cost of poor communication skills. In the IDC’s study, misunderstanding was defined very specifically as “actions taken by employees who have misunderstood or misinterpreted (…) company policies, business processes, job function or a combination of the three.” However poor communication skills can have an impact far beyond direct misunderstandings. A lack of clear professional communication negatively impacts a company’s ability to get new clients and keep current clients happy. It can also decrease general sales performance and efficiency within the company. That means the costs of miscommunication are likely even higher than the sixty-two million found by the study!
Even more surprising than the estimated cost of miscommunication is that only one third of the companies surveyed had taken any action to correct the issue! Don’t let your company be one of the thousands nationwide that are hemorrhaging money due to poor communication. If you think your employees, staff, and management could benefit from improved communication skills, contact a professional communication coach or corporate speech-language pathologist, and help your team make communication their most powerful professional tool.
Give us a call and see how Corporate Speech Solutions can improve your professional life! Call us at 212-308-7725 or send us an e-mail at jayne@corporatespeechsolutions.com to learn more. I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you might have!
If your communication skills are holding you back from professional success and you want to make your communication skills your most powerful professional tool, make sure to pick up a free copy of my e-book “Communicate with Clarity and Confidence!” by subscribing to our newsletter community on our website. In this free resource, I break down the myriad factors that contribute to confident communication and guide you through how to use each aspect to your advantage.
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