Tips and strategies for improving communication within the lab environment

Clear instructions

When you are giving instructions to your assistant or reading instructions while in the lab, ensure that you’re are clear and concise. Long-winded instructions filled with jargon can be confusing, especially when dealing with someone less experienced. Using simple and concise instructions will help consistency and reliability in the lab.

Active listening

Pay attention to your supervisor or those around you in the lab while ensuring that you understand instructions and directions before responding. Avoiding misunderstanding and mistakes in your lab can foster impressive communication culture, improving your cohesiveness. 

Ask questions

Don’t be timid in asking questions. If you failed in understanding directions or concepts, asking for clarity can only improve understanding. Its better to seek clarity than make mistakes during experiments.

Use visual aids

Not everyone learns well through absorbing masses of written information. Incorporating visual aids such as diagrams, charts or videos will help convey complex information more effectively. This is highly useful when explain procedures or demonstrating techniques.

Keep records

Maintaining detailed records of experiments, including procedures, observations, and results, helps to ensure that information is accurately documented and can be easily referenced later. Digital storage is a reliable way to store lab records and is less time consuming than filing paper copies of information. Having everything stored correctly will allow for easy access when required.

Respect personal space and equipment

Personal space and laboratory equipment deserve equal respect. Breaching on someone’s personal space during experiments can distract them and even cause them to make mistakes. It’s important to respect your peers and their personal space, whilst ensuring to use laboratory tools correctly.

Emergency procedures

When in the labs, its imperative to be familiar with emergency procedures. Knowing where safety equipment such as fire extinguishers, eye wash stations, and emergency showers is essential.

Stay professional

Laboratory work isn’t a joke. Having a professional attitude, even when pressure and stress is high, can be the difference between a successful or unsuccessful experiment. Being professional allows you to communicate effectively as it helps you to remain calm and composed.

Feedback and collaboration

Providing constructive feedback to colleagues and being open to feedback yourself is crucial in maintaining a cohesive and unified lab, where communication is effective. The best feedback is the feedback we don’t want to hear. Working on mistakes helps improve skills, whilst collaboration is key to success as it involves working together to solve problems.

Implementing these simple steps can drastically improve communication in the lab, leading to safer and more productive experiments.