Top 10 Business communication trends that are impacting the workplace

The communication industry has undergone a huge transformation in the last decade. The channels of communication that we have today are a lot more advanced than what we had 10 years ago. No wonder these changes have affected business communication. For organizations that want to evolve and stay competitive must embrace these changes. Keeping up with the latest communication trends and technological advancements will make organizations future-ready. Let’s look at the latest business communication trends that are shaping up today’s modern workplaces.  

The social intranet provides a comfortable and convenient way to communicate, contribute and share ideas while feeling like part of a community. Social intranet software offers virtual chat rooms or channels that can be organized by topic, private groups, and direct messaging. Within these channels, functions such as videoconferencing, file storage, and app integration are offered. But social intranet software has its limitations in terms of collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and security limitations and it has failed to create large-scale impact.   

Newer business communication platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams have competed for the same slot and taken some shine off social intranets. Though there are many robust communication tools available in the market, it is highly unlikely that a single tool will satisfy all the communication needs of the organization. Social intranet software will continue to be used in parallel with other tools and platforms to push communication to the various channels in use by your company. With this trend, social intranet software will continue to rise and it has many features that will help organizations build effective internal communication.  

What started as a trend in the physical workspace has now been replicated in the digital space. Collaborative shared workspaces originally saw huge growth in places like New York to save on the high cost of office space. Today collaborative digital workspaces have been gaining popularity due to their integrated technology framework that brings all work resources in one place, allowing employees to stay connected even while working remotely.   This trend accelerated during the pandemic when most employees had to work remotely. Many cloud-based apps that can be accessed from anywhere in the world with an internet connection have facilitated this trend. 

Unified communication software is a SaaS-based platform that integrates diverse communication tools like emails, chats, social feeds, events, calendars, meetings, cloud storage, and file viewers in one place. Since these applications are hosted in the cloud, they are accessible to all team members who have an internet connection. By bringing together voice and data, a unified communication system eliminates the possibility of missing information that can all-too-easily occur when you’re checking email, group messages, voicemails, and more from separate platforms or apps.  

Driving productivity with the right business communication tools requires technology that’s flexible, mobile, and unified. These factors have driven the rapid growth of unified communication tools or hosted cloud communications tools for businesses. By bringing all of your multimedia communications tools into a single platform, companies can achieve new efficiency and transparency in all their business communication.   

While video conferencing has existed for a long time in office boardrooms, post-pandemic, video conferencing has taken a new avatar in the form of video-enabled phones and tablets that allow employees to call from anywhere irrespective of the geographic location. Some web-based video conferencing tools have made it possible for teams to meet in virtual rooms, giving a major boost for virtual team collaboration efforts. Today, most video conferencing solutions are bundled with group chat, document sharing, screen sharing etc. The value of the global video conferencing market reached $7.87 billion in 2020 from $3.85 billion in 2019. Video conferencing improves productivity by over 50% and they are very useful to collaborate on projects and interact with teams.  

Traditional forms of business communication, like bulletin boards and snail mail, are finally becoming a thing of the past and smartphones are changing the way we communicate. In the US over 81% of the population owns a smartphone. Companies should acknowledge this fact and embrace mobile communication and harness its benefits. They are more powerful than computers as employees need not stay glued to their desks anymore. 80% of the world’s workforce is mobile and they don’t require a desk, computer, or email. Mobile communication has the capability to include every employee for a more robust communication system. Mobile solutions can improve business communication and increase operational efficiency by cutting down the need for face-to-face meetings which are often unproductive. Smartphones enable real-time messaging and faster decision-making.   

Cloud-based mobile and desktop apps are an affordable alternative for businesses that cannot afford a fully-integrated system for running day-to-day activities. There are apps available for instant messaging, email-style message threads, and even sending out notifications via SMS text message or phone call. Most of these apps can be accessed from mobile, laptop or desktop, making it highly convenient for remote teams to collaborate on the same projects in real-time. Many organizations are finding it extremely easy to own and use these cloud-based apps due to their low cost and high flexibility. By making use of these apps, businesses can streamline and enhance their internal communications and improve their productivity.  

Since most of the workplace is now becoming hybrid, it is quite natural that many of us will be using multiple devices to collaborate with the same team and project. It is expected that all the devices should have the same conversations and data to reduce friction and enhance business communication. Most of the communication tools these days have in-built device synchronization that is made possible due to cloud technology.  

Though group chats are not new, they are now clubbed with other services like audio/ video calling, and screen sharing to make them richer. These innovations have helped team members to bring each other to speed, when necessary, much faster. Given that e-mails, texts, phone calls, and face-to-face conversations exist, the big question is: Do we need yet another way for employees to communicate and collaborate? The answer seems to be ‘Yes’. In the past few years, group chat platforms such as Slack and HipChat have grown exponentially. Their increasing popularity has prompted major tech players, including Microsoft and Facebook, to introduce their own group chat platforms.  

Video calling has witnessed a meteoric rise in 2021 taking the world by storm. In the post-pandemic world, video calls have become an essential business tool rather than optional as many statistics reveal. Since video is more engaging, it is more effective as an internal communication tool. Post pandemic, 89% of people said video calls helped them feel connected with their colleagues and the company. Meeting statistics reveal that up to 94% of businesses said video calls increased their productivity.