Why are listening skills important to employees?

The skill of communication has two bases – the ability to speak and the ability to listen. If there are no particular questions about the importance of speaking and conveying your thoughts correctly, many have plenty of them with the task of listening and hearing. This skill is essential for management, because. the effectiveness of the team, individual employees, and job candidates will directly depend on it. Why this happens, we will consider in the article.

What are listening skills?

At its core, listening is the ability to correctly pass the information that the interlocutor expresses through oneself and then adequately respond to it. In the work of a manager or HR, it can be divided into three components:

1. Listening is the process of correctly understanding the needs of employees/candidates for a vacancy, their requirements, and their wishes, with further fixing this information on paper or in your head.
2. Reaction – first of all, it should be based on the ability to provide the interlocutor with the opportunity to completely complete his thought. It is also important to support the employee’s monologue with appropriate facial expressions, gestures, nods, proper posture, and other aspects related to body language. That is, if the interlocutor is upset, you should not constantly keep a smile on your face or show indifference.
3. Answer – if you are communicating with a person for the first time, for example, at an interview, it is better to reflect on his story through paraphrasing or repetition. This will show that you were interested in your conversation all the time.       

Importantly, you should never fold your arms over your chest during a conversation, get personal or try to joke inappropriately, regardless of whether you know a person for 5 minutes or have been colleagues for 5 years. Only if your working relationship is at a sufficiently trusting level, you can try to move to a more informal level of communication.

Why are listening skills important for employees?

According to studies, about 41% of employees quit their jobs just because they were sure that they were not being heard. Yes, this is a huge number. For this reason alone, you can start listening to your employees, but there are still a lot of them:

1. Understanding. An employee who is heard feels understood.
2. Confidence. The lack of listening skills is regarded as selfishness and disinterest. And its presence is a direct path to building trusting relationships.
3. Motivation. When an employee feels his importance, because you heard and listened to his opinion as a leader, this motivates him. He begins to fulfill his duties with greater dedication, which favorably affects his productivity and job satisfaction
4. Healthy corporate relationships. Team building is a great opportunity to set the right course for the entire team, demonstrate the importance of each employee, and put everyone in a ring of motivation. One of its foundations is just the ability to listen and hear. Also, better team collaboration can normalize the style of working, thereby creating a more efficient workplace.
5. New ideas. Demonstrating listening skills on the part of management is the key to employee motivation to provide new ideas in business development. Perhaps there are people on your team who work out of place and are great innovators who can help take your business to the next level. Imagine that your company has an invoice generator website, and you can brainstorm with all the employees on how to improve the software’s performance. The process will help in finding both new ideas and product faults. 
6. Correct decisions. The more information you have about the work of your employees, the vision of the company’s work, and other parameters, the more objectively you can look at all these aspects.
7. Working strategies. The better you understand your subordinates, the easier it will be to create effective business strategies to qualify leads more efficiently by applying electronic signature service. How will you understand them and help them reach their professional goals if you don’t listen?

Almost the same thing happens not only within a well-coordinated team but also when looking for a new employee. Imagine that you are not HR, but HR who gets a job and interviews you. Which format did you like best, where you are interrupted every word, show disinterest, disrespect your experience and knowledge, and do not pay attention to your thoughts and ideas about the company? Or would you get a job at an enterprise where all the interviews would take place on the terms “exactly the opposite”? We think the choice is clear.

How should managers listen to employees?

First of all, managers need to learn to understand their employees. If this is not possible due to the ambiguity of the opponent’s statement, you should ask him again to understand for sure whether you interpreted his words correctly. This will also show your interest. A few more tips:

• ask questions just to continue the thread of the conversation and show curiosity;
• answer only after the interlocutor finishes his thought;
• answer only to the point;
• develop the skill of active listening;
• simulate various situations and train;
• focus your attention not on listening with subtext – to answer, but with a desire to understand;
• try to look the interlocutor in the eye, most often this increases the level of trust, but if you feel that you are embarrassing the interlocutor, you should refuse eye contact;
• ask detailed questions that the interlocutor can answer in detail, and not “yes” or “no”, this will also help show your interest in the thoughts and opinions of the opponent;
• never show your bias toward an employee or job candidate, everyone has their approach to life and their experience is not always worse than yours;
• regulate your ability to express emotions, and learn to rejoice or empathize when necessary. 

And finally, try to study the issue according to the rules of communication with subordinates.

Conclusion

Today, employees and job candidates need to listen more than ever. Even if this is only manifested by management in work processes, this is a great way to increase the efficiency and productivity of specialists, and hence the profit of the company. We’ve covered the many reasons why listening skills are important for employees, as well as some tips on how to apply them. Use them in your life to eliminate serious consequences and the risk of dismissal of subordinates, as well as learn how to attract qualified specialists.