Post-Covid Communication and workplace Innovation

The entire workplace since March 2020 is being shaped by the COVID pandemic. Companies are adapting their operations to this new era. Work processes are digitalized, interpersonal communication between colleagues and supervisors takes place virtually. New customer needs are emerging and existing ones are subject to new parameters and need to be adapted. It is a time of great change. At first, it seemed that many of these changes were temporary. It was assumed that the pandemic would pass after just a few months. However, it is now July 2021, Europe is on its way to a renewed increase in infection numbers despite an advanced vaccination campaign, and life without the COVID pandemic is still unthinkable. Behavioral changes that were initially designed to be temporary are increasingly becoming the norm for many employees. Many employees would like to continue working at home, numerous meetings will remain virtual and, in the best case, it will only take a long time to revive social contacts that have fallen asleep. In the worst case, they never will again. Many people have hardly met new people in person in recent months, whether professionally or privately, and may not do so to the usual extent in the near future.

As a result, an important form of communication has changed and no longer takes place as and as often as many people were used to. Nonverbal communication.

«You cannot not communicate» – Paul Watzlawick.

Nonverbal communication often takes place subconsciously. Experts cite up to 65% nonverbal communication in a conversation. This includes behaviors such as facial expressions and gestures, gaze behavior, posture, tactility, habitus, and interpersonal space. Much of this is omitted in Zoom meetings or is much less pronounced and perceptible. At the same time, content and language, the two other essential components of communication, are becoming increasingly dominant.

But how does all this affect the adaptation of new and innovative ideas?

The Diffusion of Innovation theory by Everett Rogers states that in a system, innovation is communicated through the process of diffusion. An emerged innovation is carried into a social system through communication channels. This social system can be e.g. a company, a department or also a team.

Now, innovations are not always the same as new products or major process changes. Innovations in the work behavior of individuals are also important. It is often the small changes, learning from colleagues and informal exchanges that have an innovative effect. Prior to March 2020, this often took place on the basis of personal communication. The brief exchange with a colleague and you knew how to solve a problem or conduct a sales call more successfully. These small workplace innovations are not developed in meetings, they are developed interpersonally and nonverbal communication is critical to building relationships and bonds that allow these innovations to happen and to communicate them.

Now, for many employees, there have certainly been many more video calls than before. But others work alone in your home office for days in a row. For both groups, therefore, nonverbal communication is likely to have decreased overall, the communication channels have changed, and many small innovations are not flowing through the communication channels as they used to.

Only an intensive discussion about this together with the employees can provide information about these developments. Managers can sit down with their employees and have them describe the changes, because there are important questions to be answered:

1) What communication has been lost in recent months?

2) What communication has been added in recent months?

3) How do they assess the lost or newly gained communication?

4) What is the impact in terms of innovation in the workplace?

And what conclusions do managers draw for the innovation mindset in the team after COVID?