| Workplace Communication |
| The Importance of Management and Employees Understanding Each Other By Bruce Fairclough |
The Importance of good WorkPlace Communication
It is an accepted truth that good workplace communication is of
increasing importance in today's world.
Workplace communication between management and
employees, between individual employees, and even within the
management team can easily come under strain through a lack
of good communication skills.
The Need for Management and Employees to Communicate
(continued below ...)
It is an accepted truth that good workplace communication is of
increasing importance in today's world.
Workplace communication between management and
employees, between individual employees, and even within the
management team can easily come under strain through a lack
of good communication skills.
The Need for Management and Employees to Communicate
(continued below ...)
This article will concentrate on highlighting the need of proper workplace employees,
although the same basic principles could easily be extended to most other areas of
communication.
It is of critical importance that managers employ good workplace communication
when dealing with all company employees of whatever level. Distrust of managers is
very often the result of an employees unwarranted suspicion of a managers actions.
Rumours concerning dismissals, redundancies, wage freezes, and similar
occurrences are never very far below the surface in any workplace, and it can only
take one incident for the entire company to erupt.
A Practical Example
To take a real life example of how these things can so easily occur.
I know of one company that was having cash flow problems due to difficult trading
conditions. It was decided that it was not going to be possible to give the employees
a pay rise that year. It was only a few weeks later that one of the company directors
arrived for work in a brand new Jaguar motor car purchased for him by the company.
The resulting antagonism, and in some cases outright hostility displayed towards
that manager are easy to imagine.
The manager attempted to use all of his skills to explain the situation. He attempted
to play it down and mentioned that the car had been arranged for him long before,
when the trading conditions were much better for the company. He then went on to
explain that although the car was an expensive Jaguar car, it was really only a Ford
Mondeo with a fancy name.
These explanations of his were not able to satisfy any of his employees, and that
situation is still remembered today, several years later.
Your Response?
Now I want you to think about that situation. I am not going to attempt to provide all
the answers in this article. I want to encourage you to think about your workplace
communication skills, and decide how you would have handled that situation, would
you have used a different explanation?
The answer you decide on will depend both on your own personality, and on the
employees that you have to work with.
I hope that by encouraging you to focus on your workplace communication skills for a
few minutes, this article may help you to become a better manager, and one who
communicates better with your company employees.
Bruce Fairclough http://www.watchandclock.co.uk/
although the same basic principles could easily be extended to most other areas of
communication.
It is of critical importance that managers employ good workplace communication
when dealing with all company employees of whatever level. Distrust of managers is
very often the result of an employees unwarranted suspicion of a managers actions.
Rumours concerning dismissals, redundancies, wage freezes, and similar
occurrences are never very far below the surface in any workplace, and it can only
take one incident for the entire company to erupt.
A Practical Example
To take a real life example of how these things can so easily occur.
I know of one company that was having cash flow problems due to difficult trading
conditions. It was decided that it was not going to be possible to give the employees
a pay rise that year. It was only a few weeks later that one of the company directors
arrived for work in a brand new Jaguar motor car purchased for him by the company.
The resulting antagonism, and in some cases outright hostility displayed towards
that manager are easy to imagine.
The manager attempted to use all of his skills to explain the situation. He attempted
to play it down and mentioned that the car had been arranged for him long before,
when the trading conditions were much better for the company. He then went on to
explain that although the car was an expensive Jaguar car, it was really only a Ford
Mondeo with a fancy name.
These explanations of his were not able to satisfy any of his employees, and that
situation is still remembered today, several years later.
Your Response?
Now I want you to think about that situation. I am not going to attempt to provide all
the answers in this article. I want to encourage you to think about your workplace
communication skills, and decide how you would have handled that situation, would
you have used a different explanation?
The answer you decide on will depend both on your own personality, and on the
employees that you have to work with.
I hope that by encouraging you to focus on your workplace communication skills for a
few minutes, this article may help you to become a better manager, and one who
communicates better with your company employees.
Bruce Fairclough http://www.watchandclock.co.uk/
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