Work Place Communication

Work Place Communication

Communication is a necessary tool that facilitates individuals’ interaction with their environments. These environments can include family environment, social gathering environments, and workplace environments, among other environments. While communicating with the individuals within these environments, it is essential to consider several factors such as hierarchy, diversity in culture exhibited by the individuals in these environments as well as individuals’ personalities. Failure to recognize these factors can easily result in miscommunication, which has dire consequences on individuals.

Communication must be properly enhanced in a workplace to promote effectiveness and timeliness in the activities involved in the production and service delivery. Any form of miss-communication within an organization can result in time-wasting, bad attitude among subordinates staff, and missing the projected production target (Thomson et al. 2015). All these impacts the quality of production within an organization, which can consequently result in a reduction in revenue, thereby reducing an organization’s profitability. There are various levels of communication within an organization; these include communication between senior organization management and junior level management, communication between junior management and subordinate staff, and communication among subordinate staff themselves. Some barriers can present themselves and may hinder effective communication within the organization. It is essential to consider the possible barriers to communication that may exist within the organizations. These barriers may include cultural diversity, organization culture, and individual personality, among others.

Barriers To Effective Communication In The Work Place

However much a workplace is organized; there will still be potential threats to effective communication within the organization. These threats may present themselves in the form of organizational culture, cultural diversity, and individual personality (Thomson et al. 2015).

Organizational culture

Organizational culture can become a barrier that hinders effective communication within the organization. Specifically, an organizational culture that embraces bureaucracy and strict adherence to order hierarchy becomes a barrier that hinders communication between subordinate staff members and senior management.Considering that these subordinate staff members may be having an essential observation that can be crucial in achieving an organization’s excellence within its industry (Hall, 2016).

Cultural diversity

In a workplace, there exist different cultures presented by race, ethnicity, and religious differences. These may come with a language barrier that may be addressed by adopting a common language that accommodates all.  However, different cultures apply different interpretations to different gestures. This may result in an incorrect interpretation of a well-meant gesture among individuals within the workplace, thereby resulting in a miss communication.

Individual personality

It is quite natural when different individuals within an organization exhibit different personality traits embedded within their characters. Some individuals may be highly temperamental and easily provoked by the simplest things. Understanding such individuals is crucial in ensuring information flow within the organization is not affected by different personalities that exist in the organization.

Guidelines For Communication Between Senior Level Management And The Junior Level Management

Senior-level management is the topmost level managers who are in charge of formulating long term policies and the direction through which the organization is to follow in terms of strategy. On the other hand, lower-level management are managers who interact with the subordinate staff on a regular basis and are in charge of communicating the long term organizational policies to the subordinate and formulating the short term objectives that can help in realizing the long term objectives.

Clarity and precision are essential in information flow between these two levels of management.  Senior managers must embrace their responsibility of providing the direction the organization is to follow and so they must formulate clear and precise organizational mission and vision statements to guide the junior level managers in formulating their short term strategies and objectives. The junior-level managers must also embrace their role of linking the subordinate staff to senior-level management. For this reason, they are required to facilitate effective information from the subordinate staff to the senior level managers and from senior-level managers to subordinate staff (Murray, 2018).

Guidelines For Communication Between Junior Level Managers And Subordinate Staff

Subordinate staff within an organization is the lowest in rank in most organizations. They are in charge of the daily operations within the organizations. In most cases, the subordinate interacts with the customers. For this reason, they may have crucial information that can help the company in achieving a competitive edge or reduce production costs. They are expected to communicate whatever issues they may be having to the junior level managers. In doing so, they must maintain respect at all times and demonstrate some level of understanding if their wishes are turned down.

Junior level managers always interact with the subordinate staff almost daily. These junior level managers must understand the different mum effects that exist in a workplace such as tyrannical mum effect, moral mum effect, and hierarchical mum effect (Beakley, 2016). Different factors and situations can trigger these mum effects. The junior-level managers must comprehend and master each situation to ensure they arrest any of these mum effects before they become hinder communication within the organization

Guidelines For Communication Among Subordinate

The subordinates significantly interact among themselves in most cases as they are uncharged of ensuring the objectives and daily targets. They must demonstrate a greater understanding of the cultural diversities that exist within the organization and appreciate the different cultures that their fellow subordinate staff members reveal (Lloyd, 218). It is equally important for these individual subordinate staff members to demonstrate their understanding of diversity in terms of personality. Among them, there are always different personality traits that are revealed with different characters.

Enhancing Ethical Communication In The Workplace

Ethics in communication is essential, and every member involved within an organization’s communication channel should ensure they observe the required ethical standards in communication. Ethical communication is majorly concerned with the moral behind any form of human communication. In enhancing ethical communication, an organization should foster credibility in all information that flows within the organization through authenticity (DeVito, 2019). It should also ensure respect for intellectual property as well as encouraging the culture of common good and justice within the organization.

Conclusion

Barriers to communication, such as cultural diversity and diverse individual personalities, can hinder effective information flow within an organization, which can cause a reduction in an organization’s revenues. There are different levels of communication within an organization, and each level has a distinct duty but depends on other levels to effectively execute these duties. Communication is the tool that links these levels, and it is crucial for everyone involved at whatever level to ensure ethical communication in order to achieve organizational goals. Communication is key within an organization and cannot be assumed at whatever level it is involved