Nonverbal communication at work is every cue colleagues read besides your words: facial expression, eye contact, posture, gestures, personal space and the voice's pitch, pace, pauses and volume. The skill has two halves: sending cues that match your message and reading other people's cues without guessing. The popular claim that 93% of communication is nonverbal is a myth; Mehrabian's figure applies only to judging feelings and attitudes.
What is nonverbal communication?
Nonverbal communication is the exchange of meaning through cues other than words, both sent and received. At work, the main channels are facial expression, eye contact, posture, gestures, personal space, touch, appearance, timing and the voice's paralinguistic layer: pitch, pace, pauses and volume.
The nine channels at work:
Facial expression. A frown while a colleague presents a plan.
Eye contact. Gaze toward the speaker, or toward a phone.
Posture. A body turned toward the table, or away from it.
Gestures. Hand movements that mark a list.
Personal space. The distance kept across a desk.
Touch. A handshake before a client meeting.
Appearance. Clothing matched to the setting.
Timing. Arrival time and the pause before an answer.
Paralanguage. The pitch, pace, pauses and volume of the voice.
Paralanguage is the set of voice features that carry meaning apart from the words.
Hall, Horgan and Murphy (2019, Annual Review of Psychology) describe nonverbal communication across the face, voice, body, touch and space, in two directions: sending cues (encoding) and perceiving them (decoding).
Nonverbal communication is one of the channels of professional communication, next to spoken words, writing and listening.
Why does nonverbal communication matter at work?
Nonverbal communication shapes how colleagues judge your competence and intent alongside your words. Evaluators, including professional recruiters, rated job candidates as more competent, thoughtful and hireable when they heard a pitch than when they read it. Adding video to audio did not change ratings.
Schroeder and Epley (2015, Psychological Science) ran that study, titled "The Sound of Intellect." The finding compares hearing a pitch with reading the same pitch. The study does not show that appearance is irrelevant. The study shows that speech conveys a thoughtful mind that text strips out.
The research base is thinner than the advice built on it. Bonaccio, O'Reilly, O'Sullivan and Chiocchio (2016, Journal of Management) reviewed nonverbal behavior in the workplace and described the research as "scattered." The same review says management research has "lagged behind" the popular press. That gap explains why so much body-language advice outruns its evidence, from percentages to power poses to crossed arms.
Nonverbal cues also tell listeners how to read the words themselves, especially words about feelings. That function is the real source of the most famous number in the field.
Is 93% of communication really nonverbal?
No. The 7-38-55 split comes from two 1967 lab studies in which listeners judged a speaker's feelings from single words, tone and photographs of faces. Albert Mehrabian himself says the equations do not apply unless someone is talking about feelings or attitudes.
The figure traces to two papers: Mehrabian and Wiener (1967), "Decoding of inconsistent communications," and Mehrabian and Ferris (1967), "Inference of attitudes from nonverbal communication in two channels." Wikipedia's entry on Albert Mehrabian describes the designs. Listeners heard single words carrying positive or negative feeling, said in clashing tones, then photographs of faces paired with taped tone. Both were lab studies with narrow designs, and the results were combined into a formula for one judgment: liking.
Mehrabian's own site, drawing on his 1981 book Silent Messages, states the formula as "Total Liking = 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking" and adds: "Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable."
David Lapakko's "Communication is 93% Nonverbal: An Urban Legend Proliferates" (2007) notes that the formula rests on two studies with "serious methodological limits," yet still appears in many textbooks.
The honest kernel is narrower. In Mehrabian's studies, when words and tone clashed about feelings, listeners relied more on the tone and the face. "Happy to help," said in a flat, clipped voice, reads as reluctance (sample wording). For instructions, numbers and decisions, the words carry the content.
What are examples of nonverbal communication at work?
Nonverbal communication at work shows up in small, repeated moments. A manager turns from the screen when a direct report starts talking. A presenter pauses before the key number. A colleague faces the client, not the laptop. Sighing, eye-rolling and phone-checking in meetings communicate too.
The situations below are samples, not client stories.
Cues that support the message:
One-to-one. Laptop closed, body turned toward the speaker. Reads as full attention.
Team meeting. A one-breath pause before a hard answer. Reads as thought, not evasion.
Client call. A steady pace while quoting a price. Reads as confidence in the number.
Presentation. Eyes up from the slide on the key point. Reads as ownership of the message.
Bad-news conversation. A lower, slower voice and no rushed smile. Reads as respect.
Cues that undercut the message:
A sigh before "Sure, I can take that." The sigh outweighs the yes.
A smile while delivering criticism. The smile blurs how serious the point is.
A rising, rushed voice when stating a deadline. The rush suggests the deadline is shaky.
A camera switched off during your own update. The blank tile hides your reaction.
A phone in hand while a colleague presents. The scrolling signals that the talk does not matter.
A cue supports the message when the cue and the words point the same way.
How can you improve your nonverbal communication skills at work?
Improve nonverbal communication by auditing one recording, one channel at a time. Record a meeting or presentation. Rate face, eye contact, posture, gestures and voice separately. Choose one observable behavior, such as pausing before answers. Practice the behavior for two weeks, then re-record and compare.
The self-audit has six steps:
1. Record a real moment: a video call, a practice presentation or a recorded meeting. Get everyone's permission first.
2. Watch the recording twice. The first pass runs with the sound off, for face, eyes, posture and gestures. The second pass is audio-only, for pitch, pace, pauses and volume. Separating the channels shows which cue is doing the work, and the method mirrors how the 1967 studies isolated tone from face.
3. Rate each of the five channels on a 1–3 scale: 1 undercuts the message, 2 is neutral, 3 supports the message.
4. Write one observable target, worded so another person could count it. "Pause one full breath before answering a question" is a target. "Seem more confident" is not a target, because nobody can observe it.
5. Practice the one target in real meetings for two weeks. Change nothing else during that period.
6. Re-record a similar moment and compare the two sets of ratings. Then ask one trusted colleague a specific question: "Did my answers sound rushed this week?"
One target at a time keeps the change visible. Stacking five changes makes delivery stiff and hides which change worked. The two-week block is a practical suggestion, not a research figure.
For an outside read, Speak Like a Professional offers a written, timestamped review of your nonverbal cues from a recording of you speaking, including whether your body language matches your words.
The five channels do not carry equal weight at work, and the research behind each one is mixed. The next sections take each channel in turn.
How does your voice communicate without words?
The voice communicates without words through pitch, pace, pauses, volume and resonance. ASHA's scope of practice lists voice, resonance and paralinguistic communication among speech-language pathology areas. Kraus (2017) found people judged emotions more accurately from voice alone than from voice with video.
Across Kraus's five experiments, the voice-only advantage was significant in only some, so the finding argues for attention to the voice, not against video.
Four vocal practice ideas follow. These are coaching suggestions, not research findings:
Pace. Slow down on the sentence that carries the number.
Pauses. Pause before the key point, not only after it.
Pitch range. Read a paragraph aloud and lift the important words.
Volume. Hold the volume through the last word.
Pitch level carries a listener bias: in one lab study, men and women chose lower-pitched recorded voices as leaders (Klofstad, Anderson and Peters, 2012). The bias is not a rule that lower voices lead better; the guide on whether a high-pitched voice hurts credibility covers pitch level.
Listeners in a 2014 study rated young women's voices with vocal fry as less competent and less hireable (Anderson and colleagues, 2014); the guide to how listeners judge vocal fry explains that research.
Tone, such as warm, curt or condescending, is the overall impression these cues create together.
Does eye contact always help at work?
More eye contact is not always better at work. In one persuasion study, listeners who made more eye contact with a speaker changed their attitudes less. Eye-gaze discomfort rises with autistic traits. The coaching advice: look toward the face, with natural breaks.
Chen, Minson, Schöne and Heinrichs (2013, Psychological Science) titled the study "In the Eye of the Beholder: Eye Contact Increases Resistance to Persuasion." Listeners told to look at a speaker's eyes were persuaded less than listeners told to look at the speaker's mouth. The authors conclude: "Efforts at increasing eye contact may be counterproductive across a variety of persuasion contexts."
Landberg and colleagues (2026, Emotion) studied 187 adults. Eye-gaze discomfort rose with autistic traits and, separately, with alexithymia, a difficulty identifying and describing one's own emotions. The discomfort did not explain slower emotion recognition.
Four eye-contact habits (coaching advice, not study findings):
Look at the face region, not fixed on the eyes.
Use notes or slides as natural breaks in gaze.
Move your gaze across the room in group meetings.
Tell close colleagues your style when eye contact is hard for you. Telling colleagues is an option, never a duty.
Can you read a colleague's body language accurately?
Body language is a weak guide to lies and emotions. A review of 206 documents and 24,483 judges found people detect lies with 54% accuracy, close to chance. Facial movements vary across cultures, situations and individuals. Ask a question instead of decoding crossed arms.
Bond and DePaulo (2006) published that review as "Accuracy of Deception Judgments." Judges correctly classified 47% of lies and 61% of truths. Judges were also more accurate with audible lies than with visible ones, which matches the weight of the voice above.
Barrett, Adolphs, Marsella, Martinez and Pollak (2019, Psychological Science in the Public Interest) reviewed the research on facial expressions. Smiles and scowls track emotion only somewhat above chance. Facial movements vary "substantially across cultures, situations, and even across people within a single situation."
Crossed arms tell you how a colleague is sitting, not what the colleague thinks. The practical move is to notice a change, then check the change out loud. Sample wording: "You went quiet when we reached the budget. What's your read?"
Do posture and power poses change how you come across?
Power poses do not change hormones or risk tolerance. A large 2015 replication found no effect of expansive poses on either measure. Cuddy and colleagues argue the effect that remains is felt power: expansive posture raises how powerful people report feeling.
Power posing is the claim that a brief expansive stance changes body chemistry and behavior (Carney, Cuddy and Yap, 2010). Ranehill and colleagues (2015) found "No Effect on Hormones and Risk Tolerance in a Large Sample of Men and Women." In 2016, Dana Carney, the original first author, posted a statement on her UC Berkeley faculty page saying she no longer believes power-pose effects are real. Cuddy, Schultz and Fosse (2018) argue the evidence supports effects on feelings. Amy Cuddy's 2012 TED talk shows 77.8 million plays on TED.com, and TED now notes the debate over robustness and reproducibility.
An expansive stance before a presentation can help you feel more confident. None of these studies shows the stance changing how others judge you.
Gestures support a point when the movement matches the words. Resting position and distracting habits are covered in the guide to what to do with your hands when speaking. The Delivery Workbook, a digital download, includes exercises to map your own body language so that gestures, posture and eye contact reinforce the message.
How do nonverbal cues change on video calls?
Video calls shrink nonverbal communication to a face, a voice and a small window, so face and voice carry more weight. Bailenson (2021) argued close-up gaze, constant self-view, effort to send and read cues, and reduced movement cause fatigue, a theory not yet directly tested.
Four on-camera habits put that weight to work:
Set the camera at eye level.
Look at the lens for a key point and at faces when listening. "Looking Directly Into The Webcam" is a Forbes Coaches Council tip, which makes it practitioner advice, not research.
Hide the self-view, one of Bailenson's suggested fixes.
Keep the camera on during your own updates where the team norm allows it. Some colleagues read a blank tile as disengagement.
Head-and-shoulders framing also limits what colleagues can fairly judge. One r/Scotland poster, after a complaint about "negative body language in a zoom meeting," wrote: "you can only see your head and shoulders how would I know." With the body out of frame, pace and pauses do more of the work.
How should you respond to vague feedback about your body language?
Turn vague body-language feedback into one observable behavior. Ask what the person saw, when it happened and what they expected instead. "Negative body language" becomes "camera off during updates" or "flat voice when agreeing." Behaviors are trainable; labels like rude or bored are not.
On r/Scotland, the top reply to the zoom complaint called the feedback "unactionable." On r/ADHD, a poster told of coming across as "rude or intimidating" wrote: "I'm always very professional and constructive in what I say." On r/managers, a poster was told to "be careful of how I project."
Three questions turn a label into a behavior:
- What did you see?
- When did it happen?
- What would you have expected instead?
Norms also differ. ASHA notes that eye contact, facial expressions and body language "are influenced by sociocultural and individual factors." One r/managers poster reported criticism of a "friendly tone" that male colleagues never received, a reported experience rather than a research finding. Autistic and non-autistic people also misread each other in both directions, which Damian Milton (2012) called the "double empathy problem." The goal is a shared vocabulary for behavior, not masking (hiding natural behavior to fit in).
Sydney Parriott, MA, CCC-SLP, MBA, is a licensed corporate speech-language pathologist. Voice and body language sit in Delivery, Pillar 5 of The Resonant Communication Method™. Sydney turns feedback like this into measurable targets in one-to-one coaching on body language and voice.
Nonverbal Communication at Work FAQs
Is nonverbal communication the same as body language?
No. Body language covers the face, eyes, posture and gestures. Nonverbal communication is wider: it also includes paralanguage (the pitch, pace, pauses and volume of the voice), personal space, touch, appearance and timing. At work, the voice is the nonverbal channel most advice skips.
Does "nonverbal" also describe people who don't speak?
Yes. "Nonverbal" also describes people with limited or no speech who communicate through augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), such as manual signs, speech-generating devices and communication apps. ASHA describes a central role for speech-language pathologists in AAC. This guide covers the workplace meaning: cues that accompany spoken words.
Do nonverbal cues differ across cultures?
Yes. Jack and colleagues (2012) found Western and East Asian participants hold different mental models of the six "basic" facial expressions of emotion. ASHA notes eye contact, facial expressions and body language are shaped by sociocultural and individual factors. Ask before assuming a cue means the same thing everywhere.
How should a manager give feedback on someone's nonverbal communication?
Privately, and with one specific behavior rather than a label. Describe the behavior and its effect, such as "Your camera was off during your own update, so the client couldn't read your reaction," then ask how the person sees it. A label like "attitude" names no behavior to change.
Can nonverbal communication skills be learned?
Yes. Researchers measure how accurately people send and read cues (Hall, Horgan and Murphy, 2019), and ASHA lists business communication and professional voice use as elective speech-language pathology services. Practice one behavior at a time, with recordings as the measure of change.
Sources
Mehrabian and Wiener (1967). Decoding of inconsistent communications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6(1), 109–114. doi.org/10.1037/h0024532
Mehrabian and Ferris (1967). Inference of attitudes from nonverbal communication in two channels. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 31(3), 248–252. doi.org/10.1037/h0024648
Mehrabian, A. "Silent Messages" -- Description and Ordering Information. kaaj.com/psych/smorder.html
Lapakko, D. (2007). Communication is 93% Nonverbal: An Urban Legend Proliferates. Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal, 34, 7–19. cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/ctamj/vol34/iss1/2
Albert Mehrabian. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Mehrabian
Hall, Horgan and Murphy (2019). Nonverbal Communication. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 271–294. doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-103145
Bonaccio, O'Reilly, O'Sullivan and Chiocchio (2016). Nonverbal Behavior and Communication in the Workplace: A Review and an Agenda for Research. Journal of Management, 42(5), 1044–1074. doi.org/10.1177/0149206315621146
Schroeder and Epley (2015). The Sound of Intellect: Speech Reveals a Thoughtful Mind, Increasing a Job Candidate's Appeal. Psychological Science, 26(6), 877–891. doi.org/10.1177/0956797615572906
Kraus, M. W. (2017). Voice-only communication enhances empathic accuracy. American Psychologist, 72(7), 644–654. doi.org/10.1037/amp0000147
Klofstad, Anderson and Peters (2012). Sounds like a winner: voice pitch influences perception of leadership capacity in both men and women. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 279(1738), 2698–2704. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.0311
Anderson, Klofstad, Mayew and Venkatachalam (2014). Vocal Fry May Undermine the Success of Young Women in the Labor Market. PLoS ONE, 9(5), e97506. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0097506
Chen, Minson, Schöne and Heinrichs (2013). In the Eye of the Beholder: Eye Contact Increases Resistance to Persuasion. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2254–2261. doi.org/10.1177/0956797613491968
Landberg, Åsberg Johnels, Galazka and Hadjikhani (2026). Eye gaze discomfort: Associations with autistic traits, alexithymia, face recognition, and emotion recognition. Emotion, 26(4), 926–936. doi.org/10.1037/emo0001625
Bond and DePaulo (2006). Accuracy of Deception Judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(3), 214–234. doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_2
Barrett, Adolphs, Marsella, Martinez and Pollak (2019). Emotional Expressions Reconsidered: Challenges to Inferring Emotion From Human Facial Movements. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 20(1), 1–68. doi.org/10.1177/1529100619832930
Jack, Garrod, Yu, Caldara and Schyns (2012). Facial expressions of emotion are not culturally universal. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(19), 7241–7244. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1200155109
Carney, Cuddy and Yap (2010). Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance. Psychological Science, 21(10), 1363–1368. doi.org/10.1177/0956797610383437
Ranehill, Dreber, Johannesson, Leiberg, Sul and Weber (2015). Assessing the Robustness of Power Posing: No Effect on Hormones and Risk Tolerance in a Large Sample of Men and Women. Psychological Science, 26(5), 653–656. doi.org/10.1177/0956797614553946
Carney, D. (2016). My position on "power poses." UC Berkeley faculty page. faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/dana_carney/pdf_My%20position%20on%20power%20poses.pdf
Cuddy, Schultz and Fosse (2018). P-Curving a More Comprehensive Body of Research on Postural Feedback Reveals Clear Evidential Value for Power-Posing Effects: Reply to Simmons and Simonsohn (2017). Psychological Science, 29(4), 656–666. doi.org/10.1177/0956797617746749
Cuddy, A. (2012). Your body language may shape who you are. TED. ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_are
Bailenson, J. N. (2021). Nonverbal overload: A theoretical argument for the causes of Zoom fatigue. Technology, Mind, and Behavior, 2(1). doi.org/10.1037/tmb0000030
Forbes Coaches Council (2023). 19 Important Nonverbal Communications Skills For Every Professional To Master. Forbes. forbes.com/councils/forbescoachescouncil/2023/04/26/19-important-nonverbal-communications-skills-for-every-professional-to-master/
Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the 'double empathy problem'. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.710008
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2016). Scope of Practice in Speech-Language Pathology. asha.org/policy/sp2016-00343/
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Social Communication Disorder (Practice Portal). asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/social-communication-disorder/
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) (Practice Portal). asha.org/practice-portal/professional-issues/augmentative-and-alternative-communication/