Different Types of Workplace Communication (and When to Use Them)
By Terri Martin
Clients often come to us asking for help with “communication” when they mean something like storytelling, presenting, pitching or customer service skills. These aren’t interchangeable skills, even though they may overlap. Each one serves a different purpose and shows up in different moments at work.
Here’s a guide to help you identify and understand the different communication skills within the workplace.
Communication
Communication is the foundation. It’s how you listen, think and respond. It’s how you interact and engage in dialogue with someone else. It’s your ability to express ideas clearly, read a room, listen to their response and adapt in real time – all while being considerate of what is being said and who is saying it. Communication is in every meeting, every conversation, and every email. When communication is weak, everything else falls over.
Presenting
Presenting is different from general communication in that it’s a one-way flow of information. A presentation is a structured form of communication that is often more formal and requires greater presence and structure from the speaker. Presentations are typically addressed to a group or a larger audience. Where and how you present is beside the point, but you’re generally the centre of attention for a time.
Storytelling
Storytelling is about meaning. It’s how you take information and turn it into something people can understand, remember, and connect with. Storytelling is what you use when you want to explain change, bring data to life or help people see the “why”, not just the “what”. Storytelling can be used in a presentation or within a conversation, and aims to engage and connect with the listener. As a lot of decisions (even business ones) are based on human emotions, storytelling is a fantastic way to tap into that.
Pitching
Pitching is presenting with high stakes. It’s when you are asking for something such as approval, funding, buy-in or action. Pitching requires you to take the audience on a journey of why your ask is necessary and, more importantly, what is being asked of them. Pitches tend to have a specific structure such as those you might have seen on ‘Shark Tank’ or ‘Dragon’s Den’. Your ask needs to answer questions such as:
- What’s the problem we’re solving?
- What’s occurring in the market?
- Why is this solution the best?
- Why you need to invest or buy- in or approve it?
Importantly, pitches have a clear call to action. They often need to be short and sweet, so clarity, persuasion and emotional intelligence are necessary.
Customer Service
Customer service is communication under pressure (while representing a brand), particularly in a frontline, client-facing context. It’s how you show empathy, manage emotion and build trust when something matters to the person in front of you. It’s less about scripts and more about human connection and staying agile while problem solving in real time.
Different contexts demand different skills. A leader explaining strategy needs storytelling and presence. A sales team needs pitching and persuasion. A frontline team needs emotional intelligence and adaptability in effective customer service.
While all of them are grounded in communication, it’s important to understand the nuance needed to succeed in specific contexts. Understanding these differences is key to identifying your own – or your team’s – skills gaps, and how to address them.
At NIDA Corporate Training, we train all these communication skills because great performance at work doesn’t come from just one, it comes from knowing which skill to use, when and how.
