How To Measure Communication Skills?

Communication skills enable people to interact with each other to send and receive information from one another. Therefore, everyone needs communication skills to gain accomplishments in their personal and professional life. 

Through communication, you can share your ideas, thoughts, and feelings with other people. But not all people are great at communication, especially in today’s world, where so many people are getting used to social distancing and virtual communication. 

But, this is a necessary skill in most job positions, and employees and managers both need to master this skill to run a successful company. Employees must have these skills, which have different forms such as Listening, observing, empathizing, speaking, writing, and reading.

The most important communication skills are speaking and listening; job candidates need to master these skills to come through the hiring process. Businesses, big or small, need employees with high-level of communication skills to assess and analyze information. 

These skills can improve employee engagement, increase productivity and decrease turnover rates. In addition, communication skills can create a positive work environment and reduce conflict rates. 

Employers must establish proper communication metrics and take steps to improve them. All employers need positive, honest, and confident employees because employees with these traits can change the company. 

During the hiring process, employers should assess the candidate‘s communication skills. This evaluation will show the overall performance level of job applicants in their future job roles. 

Employees with constructive communication skills can guide, support, and work with other team members to accomplish company goals. 

When employees are good at verbal communication, there is no need for many unnecessary tasks such as email communication, which can lead to misunderstandings, such as losing important data or wasting time on unimportant data. 

Different methods for measuring communication skills

As an employer, when you identify gaps such as a low engagement rate, lack of confidence, and insufficient collaboration between employees, the company needs to move in the correct direction.

As a result, clients aren’t happy, the turnover rate is increasing, and the productivity rate is a disaster, then it is time to pay attention to the company’s communication strategies.

But, the first step before improving your communication strategy is to measure it. You need to validate data with detailed information so you will be able to improve your communication strategy and make an influential decision. You need to understand what works for your business and what needs improvement. 

You can measure the company’s communication skills by using the below methods:

Review employees’ responses and feedback

You can take a survey from your employees to measure their communication skills. This method is the best choice as you can anonymously gather as many honest answers from your employees. The survey questions should be straightforward, brief, and targeted toward the problem. Take some time to prepare valuable survey questions that are clear and relevant. 

Use focus groups

Face-to-face interviews or focus groups are another excellent methods for measuring company communication skills. However, you need to take care of some challenges while considering a focus group, such as encouraging employees to participate, ensuring they will attend the meeting, and the need for a venue and catering so employees can gather. 

Monitor employee engagement

You can monitor some of the employees’ tasks to measure their communication level partially. For example, you can check how many emails or links employees will forward to their colleagues about company news or, on average, how often they post about this news on their social media. 

Discussion forums

You can establish employee forums and allow your team members to discuss different topics or issues at work with each other. By reading comments, you can gain valuable qualitative data about employees’ feelings, attitudes, and ideas and measure their communication skills based on the acquired data.

Analyze employee turnover rates

If employers can establish good communication with their employees, that company will have a more positive, confident, and faithful work environment. Moreover, employees will make better connections with each other, and this can lead to loyal employees. As a result, if you keep track of turnover rates, you can gain valuable insights into your company’s internal communication level.

Control groups

In this method, you can separate a group of employees in a distant location without communicating with them about a particular goal or objective. In the control group method, you can pre-test the communication skills of a specific group of employees. Then, you can evaluate their behavior and see the difference between their actions and the groups you have interacted with. 

Study performance using analytic tools

Companies use different methods of communication; for example, some organizations use email, and others use different communication apps like Slack. Whichever way they use it, it is necessary to measure the productivity of each of these methods.

Companies should evaluate which method works the best and optimize it based on the company’s needs and goals. For example, employers should analyze whether communication will be done best by applications or stick to old-school communication methods for higher engagement.

Why communication skills assessments are necessary for hiring

Experts design online communication assessment tests, and these platforms make online testing much easier and less complex. As a result, communication assessment tests have high accuracy, and employers can identify suitable candidates for the job position through these tests. 

These tests will help companies save time and effort in setting unnecessary and tiring face-to-face interviews and identify the ones with the right skills and qualifications. 

Below are reasons why recruiting teams should consider a communication assessment test in the hiring process. 

To hire better candidates

According to many studies, pre-employment assessment tests can evaluate candidates’ different skills and the most objective criteria for predicting job success next to face-to-face interviews. 

To evaluate more candidates in less time

When you assess candidates only by phone calls or interviews, you will miss different aspects of a candidate’s skill that you can also evaluate. In addition, communication assessment tests can help employers identify job applicants without spending time with them in person for a couple of hours. 

More productive hiring

Employees need to understand what has been forwarded to them through communication to do their job. When hiring managers use assessment platforms, the HR department can make informed decisions based on facts and not just a hunch for a candidate. 

Managing conflicts

Communication skill assessment tests will help employers to identify candidates who can manage or even decrease conflicts in the workplace. These conflicts are usually the consequence of miscommunications in the workplace. An accurate assessment can help companies to choose candidates who fit this description.

Improved workplace culture

Today, most workplaces involve an environment with different cultures and beliefs, and miscommunication happens more than you think between employees. When two colleagues have better communication with each other, there are fewer conflicts or misunderstandings between them. Communication skill tests help companies to have a healthier and more stable work environment. 

Reduce bias in hiring.

You might feel emphaty or judgmental toward a specific job candidate, which can affect how you understand their communication skills. Communication assessment tests will help you to avoid these biases and make fair decisions based on assessment results. 

Challenges in measuring communication skills

The hiring process can take lots of time and energy, which is why many recruitment teams perform the communication assessment step in a rush or even sometimes skip this part entirely. When the hiring team skips this step, they can’t make a good decision regarding choosing the right candidate. Still, even with following this step, there are some challenges that all hiring teams should pay attention to while measuring an applicant’s communication skills. 

Communication has multiple modes.

Communication is one of the most challenging skills that involve listening, speaking, writing, and emotional skills. For instance, if a candidate is charming, it doesn’t mean they are also good at listening. As a result, communication skill tests should be designed to assess different aspects of communication instead of just language proficiency.

Communication can’t be assessed during phone interviews. 

Through phone calls or even video calls, employers can gain hints about a candidate’s ideas, skills, and capabilities. But, most of the decisions that are based on human observations are filled with errors. Moreover, phone interviews take time and energy, especially if you have to interview many people. 

Communication might face biases.

In face-to-face interviews, hiring managers can recognize candidates’ emotional or behavioral performance, such as feeling passionate or bored. They can also analyze the way candidates are speaking or listening. But again, unconscious bias can always have a role in decision-making about a candidate. Therefore, a structured platform is always needed to evaluate candidates’ answers and identify a fit employee for the company. 

Communication is circumstantial

Communication is not a stand-alone context. It is always connected with a particular goal or condition. As a result, it is vital to evaluate communication skills in the context of an issue. For example: How to answer the phone call of an angry customer. 

Communication is mutual

Communication includes mutual interaction between individuals. As a result, if one person takes the communication assessment test, it should be designed to prove the person is capable of interacting with others.

Best communication assessment tools

Employers should rely on something other than their intellectual thinking to measure the communication skills of job applicants. Many communication assessment tools can provide authentic evaluations of a candidate. Due to the significance of communication skills and their effect on employee performance, employers should use standard communication skill assessment tools. Some of the best tools for assessing communication skills are as below:

WeTest

WeTest is a platform that provides automated communication assessment tests to help companies identify the best candidates that fit the job. In addition, hiring recruiters can customize different communication tests to evaluate the communication skills of a particular candidate. 

WeTest also assesses the candidates’ communication skills based on the scoring system and prepares a list of candidates with the highest communication skills. WeTest also provides a report regarding applicants’ strengths and weaknesses, which can help employers to make wise decisions.

iMocha

This platform is one of the best assessment tools for evaluating candidates’ communication skills. Employers can assess different communication skills in a candidate, such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills.in just one test with iMocha. 

TestGorilla

This platform provides a vast library of communication and language assessment tests. In addition, TestGorilla will help to hire managers to make their assessment tests, which can be only one or multiple tests included in one assessment. 

Harver

This platform enables employers to make an application portal for each candidate, organize assessment tests, and peer candidates with the proper job role. Harver communication skill tests include a spoken language test to assess candidates based on pronunciation, fluency, and word choice. 

TestCandidates

This pre-employment test tool can assess a job applicant’s communication skills during the hiring process. TestCandidates can evaluate candidates for their soft skills and use language communication skills to measure their overall skills. Applicants should answer some real work-scenario questions in the test. They have to choose the most suitable answer from different options. 

Criteria

This platform offers assessment options such as pre-employment tests, analytics, and video interviews. In addition, their test library involves different tests for assessing emotional intelligence, risk management, cognitive skills, and performance skills. For example, the Criteria CBST assessment is a communication skill test that evaluates an applicant’s verbal and math skills. 

Conclusion 

It is a fact that measuring a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses in communication skills can be challenging. But, when companies have access to key performance indicators and critical data through communication assessment results, they can make more informed decisions and keep the company on the correct path. 

This data will help companies keep track of team members’ performance and ensure they are close to achieving the company’s goals. As we emphasized, communication skills are the foundation of every company, and when it is measured correctly, they can boost employees’ engagement, productivity, and cooperation rate. 

As a result, the company can achieve a more positive and healthy work environment in that everyone is satisfied with their roles and positions.

With communication skills, employees can perform excellently by collaborating with their colleagues or superiors.

That is why every organization must identify communication issues, especially in the hiring process, to avoid future conflicts within the company. Employers should look for candidates with good communication skills and confidence in communicating.