Why the Way We Communicate is Now More Important than Ever

Communicating — speaking, writing, listening, reading, connecting — is something we all do every day. Sharing with others a mix of information and emotions in every interaction is what makes us uniquely human. And communication, this finding shared understanding with others, is something that increasingly we all struggle with, despite having more communications tools at our fingertips than ever before, and despite using them in more casual ways than we’ve ever done before.

Communicating effectively — whether to a team, to our partner or online — is something most of us want to get better at — and can. And we need to.

Recent studies show us that employers increasingly rate “soft skills” like communications as a key competency they look for in hiring, with 77 percent in one study saying they were as important as hard skills.* Employers in the work­place increasingly cite communications and transparency as among the most important attributes in a company in employee engagement surveys. Salesforce reports that com­panies that communicate effectively are 50 percent more likely to have low employee turnover rates.** Companies and nonprofit organizations alike are increasingly investing in communications platforms and skills trainings for their teams because they realize how critical it is for retaining em­ployees and…