Listening in the workplace

While researching for my presentation next week, I came across an interesting article about listening and how it can impact the workplace. If anyone is interested in reading the article the link can be found here: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/listening-can-improve-workplace-performance-13262.html. The first important quality of listening in the workplace is that misunderstandings are reduced, resulting in improvement of overall quality of care. Misunderstandings can potentially impact the workplace significantly depending on the topic that wasn't understood correctly. Also, if employees don't feel like their being heard than it can lead to a decreased sense of worth, builds resentment, and can potentially lead them to seek other job opportunities.  Listening is a basic quality that allows people to know that you are truly grasping the information that is being presented. As a manager, listening is essential to communicating effectively with employees. Employees might have concerns, ideas, or problems that they want to discuss with their managers, which shows how important effective listening truly is. An effective way to improve listening skills is brining an employee in a quiet room in order to reduce the amount of distractions that could potentially impact the conversation. Another important quality of listening is showing an overall caring attitude toward other employees. As mentioned before, listening shows that a manager truly cares about what their employees have to day. Employees will respond better to the manager if this person is showing a caring attitude toward them. This could lead to overall trust between managers and employees to increase and improve quality as well. Listening to other employees when discussing how to accomplish a task can increase the rare at which it is completed. Doing this allows clarity and focus to be maintained while completing the task. The last important quality of listening is that there are less "do overs" or retakes. If an employee was barely listening when giving instructions on how to complete a task, than there is a strong chance there are going to be mistakes, leading to a do over of the task. Fixing mistakes can cost money and take time which can negatively impact the organization financially as well as the overall quality. I thought this article was a good starting point on researching for my next presentation because it shows four broad categories on how listening can positively impact the workplace. Also I think this relates to our class well because most of us want to be future managers and listening is an important aspect of that position.