Team Dynamics
Learn what open communication means from IO psychologists, why it's critical for building trust at work, and how to foster it through actionable strategies and tips.
Perhaps the best way to understand the importance of open communication is to imagine a workplace without it.
In this workplace, managers withhold important details. Executives implement major changes without explaining them or their implications. And employees are reprimanded for seeking clarification or offering feedback.
Sounds pretty awful, right?
Well, it gets worse.
Due to the lack of open communication, employees don’t volunteer ideas or point out flaws. They’re not sure what’s expected of them, and they’re definitely not engaged — which undermines productivity. Gallup found that in 2024, global employee engagement fell by 21%, costing the world economy $438 billion in lost productivity.
Open communication, a type of communication where individuals feel free to share thoughts and ideas without reprisal, helps improve employee engagement, morale, retention, and performance. And unlike external issues — competition, new tech, and economic uncertainty — influencing and improving your team’s communication is entirely within reach.
In this blog, we explore open communication in the workplace, why it’s essential for building trust and improving team dynamics, and how to foster open communication with eight proven tips and strategies.
What is Open Communication?
Open communication is a communication style and environment where individuals feel free to share thoughts, concerns, and ideas without fear of judgment or negative consequences. Open communication is critical to building and maintaining healthy team dynamics — those interpersonal factors that influence how effectively a group can work together toward a common goal — while a lack of open communication harms productivity, exacerbates small problems into big, hairy ones, and discourages innovation.
An Example of Closed Communication vs. Open Communication
Say you’re leading a brainstorming session for ways to optimize your team’s work streams. In a setting where your company has not been transparent about the potential impact of AI implementation — perhaps they haven’t addressed potential job cuts or if more work will be demanded of existing employees — team members might hesitate to offer suggestions for fear of jeopardizing their positions.
If, in this same setting, colleagues routinely mock each other’s comments or management dismisses thoughtful criticism or questions, workers are actively discouraged from speaking up, leading to a lack of innovative ideas, no alternative viewpoints, and high levels of employee disengagement and, inevitably, resignations.
In an environment of open and honest communication, however, session leaders in this example would be clear about the purpose of brainstorming for optimized workflows, including their plans and expectations around AI and concrete next steps for employees. They’d also actively encourage participation, ensuring that the meeting was a safe place for speaking up without fear of reprisal.
A non-confrontational give-and-take is a defining feature of open communication. The opposite, closed communication, consists of one person imparting information to others, with little if any opportunity for listeners to offer feedback or ask questions. This communication style stifles team collaboration and cooperation.
Why is Open Communication Important
Effective communication in the workplace is more important now than it was a decade ago. Some of that is due to the greater distribution of team members across locations. Roughly one in 10 workers in the U.S. work entirely remotely, according to BLS, and four in 10 roles now allow for some level of remote work.
Increasingly complex workflows and supply chains are another factor. As is the growing pressure to do more, faster, with less. Team-based work, cross-departmental projects, and agile methodologies are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Success hinges on clear, open communication.
Here are a few more ways open communication contributes to a productive, effective, and enjoyable workplace:
Building Trust
Organizations ask employees to trust them with their livelihoods. Without open-ended communication, establishing trust is difficult, if not impossible. This is especially true when companies refuse to acknowledge challenges or when actions undermine pleasantries or flimsy promises — a department laying off 20% of its staff while insisting business is good, for instance.
Giving employees reasons to trust you is more than just nice; it leads to positive business outcomes, and there’s a neurological reason for that.
A study from HBR found that when people trust someone, their brain releases beneficial hormones like oxytocin. At companies that have cultivated a high level of trust, employees reported 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, and 50% higher productivity than those at low-trust organizations, along with 13% fewer sick days and 40% less burnout. The same study trumpeted open communication as a cause, including keeping employees informed about company goals, strategies, and tactics, as critical to developing and maintaining trust.
Empowering Employees
Empowerment and investment lead to engagement, and an engaged workforce generates impressive business outcomes. According to Gallup, teams with the highest employee engagement are more 23% more profitable than those with the lowest engagement. They also benefit from 10% higher customer loyalty and 28% less theft.
The reason is simple: Employees who are empowered to make suggestions, ask questions, and submit ideas via open communication channels are much more invested in the success of an organization than those who are simply given instructions in a dismissive, closed-communication environment.
Encouraging Innovation
Beyond giving employees a voice in the organization’s trajectory, open communication in the workplace generates fresh ideas from a gamut of viewpoints. McKinsey found that organizations that listen to and act on feedback from frontline employees are 80% more likely to consistently improve operations than those that don’t.
Reducing Misalignment and Confusion
People communicate in all kinds of ways. They also receive and process information differently. Open communication accounts for this variance by encouraging team members to ask for clarification when necessary.
This communication style also advocates “closing the loop” by having employees reiterate their takeaways, ensuring a baseline of understanding across the team. Sharing the reasoning behind organizational actions and goals, a key element of open communication, is another way to prevent misalignment among team members. This is especially important among hybrid and remote teams, where a lack of in-person communication can lead to misinterpretations and false assumptions.
The Correlation Between Open Communication and Trust
Without open communication, employee-employer trust can’t exist. Of the employees who participated in PwC’s 2024 Trust Survey, 68% said they’d trust their employers more if their managers listened to their concerns and suggestions. Even more employees (83%) said that having their direct supervisor involve them in important decisions would lead to greater trust.
The good news is that the majority of executives (80%) placed a high degree of trust in their employees, and 86% believed their employees highly trusted them.
The not-so-good news? Just 67% of the surveyed employees highly trusted their employer. Which means there’s a lot of room for improvement — and a lot of opportunity to make trust and open communication a vital part of your company’s culture and employee experience.
The Benefits of Open Communication
Beyond empowering trust and improving productivity overall, the benefits of open and honest communication in the workplace include:
Enhanced Team Collaboration
Open communication reduces confusion about team members’ roles and responsibilities. It also discourages information hoarding and unhealthy competition. Promoting two-way conversations leads to continuous improvement and lets employees know just how important their contributions are to the organization’s overall success, which, in turn, encourages additional engagement, idea-sharing, and collaboration.
Higher Employee Engagement and Retention
Employees empowered by open communication are more likely to contribute ideas and respond to feedback. Overall, they’re way more engaged. And not only are engaged employees more productive, but they also have much higher retention rates. Issues related to engagement and culture were the top reasons talent left their jobs in 2024, according to Gallup.
Faster Problem Solving and Conflict Resolution
Open communication in the workplace promotes collaboration, so when a problem arises, more people will be willing and able to help solve it. Open communication also encompasses transparency, honesty, and clarity, which are key to healthy conflict resolution.
Strong Alignment with Goals and Values
The best way to get team members on board with an organization’s goals and values is to clearly and consistently communicate them while encouraging questions and feedback. Without effective two-way communication, it’s all too easy for employees to misunderstand priorities and misinterpret intent.
Improved Mental Wellbeing and Job Satisfaction
Uncertainty, mistrust, and fear contribute to increased stress and decreased job satisfaction. Their opposites — transparency, trust, and clarity, all hallmarks of open communication — help minimize stress and improve employee wellbeing and productivity. Scientific studies have corroborated this. One study found that even a minimal increase in more consistent, clear, bidirectional communication reduced employee stress by 9% and burnout by 19%!
8 Best Practices to Foster Open Communication and Build Trust
Open communication in the workplace rarely just happens without intentional effort. The steps to make it happen, however, are quite straightforward and often simply a matter of commitment, courtesy, and respect.
Here are eight ways to communicate more effectively and, subsequently, build that all-important sense of trust in your workplace.
1. Encourage Active Listening and Empathy
In open communication, receiving and reacting to input from others is just as important as imparting information.
Ways to communicate effectively and encourage open communication in the workplace include:
- Keeping multitasking to a minimum during meetings and brainstorming sessions.
- Discouraging interruptions but encouraging questions after a speaker has finished.
- Responding to comments calmly while acknowledging any emotions from others, from fear to anxiety to excitement.
- Perhaps most important, listening without bias or preconceived notions and reminding others to do the same.
2. Create Safe Spaces for Honest Feedback
Whether it’s a one-on-one meeting with a direct report or a company-wide town hall, ensure that employees can ask questions and offer feedback without being admonished, mocked, or threatened. Promoting this sort of psychological safety and setting the ground rules for guided, open communication should be a top priority for organizations as a whole and managers in particular.
3. Lead by Example
Neither open communication nor trust can be a one-way street. Share information willingly, encourage feedback, answer questions honestly, communicate regularly, and be candid with and accessible to team members. Only when they see you taking these actions will they reciprocate.
4. Hold Regular one-on-one and Team Meetings
Open communication in the workplace cannot occur if you’re not available to communicate. Regular team meetings promote collaboration and alignment among members. One-on-one meetings also allow for more personalized communication; both are essential to encouraging employee engagement.
5. Use Anonymous Surveys to Gather Honest Feedback
Regardless of how supportive and empathetic the work environment, some people will still hold back from openly sharing. Anonymous surveys accommodate those hesitant or reserved team members while still facilitating the feedback loops that are key to openness in communication.
6. Set and Share Clear Goals and Expectations
Employees should never have to guess what’s expected of them or their team. Establishing and sharing what each member is expected to achieve is a vital aspect of open communication and is critical to an organization's overall success.
7. Recognize and Reward Openness
One of the first steps toward establishing open communication is to thank employees for their feedback. Keep them apprised of any changes resulting from their comments. Give extra time off or a week of free lunches to team members whose suggestions have been implemented. In short, show them and their colleagues that you recognize and value their open communication.
8. Provide Training on Communication Skills
Few of us are born expert communicators and listeners. Training can give you those expert communication skills, however. Wonderlic’s guided Team Dynamics Workshops are interactive training sessions that go beyond high-level theories into tactical, actionable strategies for creating better, stronger team dynamics. Another training option is Wonderlic’s Foundations Certification, a two-day course that helps managers build trust with their teams by improving communication.
Next Steps to Improving Open Communication at Work
Open communication is the foundation of trust. And trust goes a long way toward engaging employees and generating higher morale, productivity, innovation, and collaboration.
Wonderlic Team Dynamics, a brand-new feature of Wonderlic’s employee development platform, Wonderlic Develop, can put your organization on the fast track to better communication and performance. By providing insight into the varied ways team members communicate, listen, and collaborate, it exposes the barriers to effective teamwork and, just as important, gives actionable strategies for how to overcome them. With this greater understanding of and appreciation for one another, teammates can communicate and collaborate much more effectively.
Don’t let a lack of open communication hold your team back. Contact us today to see how Wonderlic Team Dynamics can boost your employees’ performance.
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