Introduction
Effective communication is a significant gratuity for any company to obtain excellence in its performance and management. Both formal and informal forms of communication should be properly utilized to achieve excellent management. Informal communication, which is related to interpersonal/horizontal communication, is mainly perceived as a probable hindrance to successful organizational performance (Redding, 1985, p. 17). Currently, informal communication has been of great significance in making sure that work within the modern organization is well conducted. On the other hand, downward communication or top-down communication is mostly utilized by the people at the top management level to communicate to the personnel at the lower levels. It is used to employ instructions, policies, principles, and rules among others. There is a great tendency of information distortion occurring in downward communication. This however could be rectified or made more efficient through feedbacks. Communication plays an important part in the ethical character of employees, including managers and other senior employees. On the contrary, poor communication could arise between the top-level management and the employees, especially where the management uses harsh words that displease the employees. Poor communication results in poor productivity within an organization. This paper will examine communication within an organization as well as ethical considerations.
Ethical issues
Ethical issues regarding communication in an organization evolve when an action or decision can affect an individual. Thus, when people are making decisions concerning communication, the type of information to be communicated, when and how and to whom to communicate, they are certainly making ethical choices. Selections that are associated with communication have significant ethical effects on different individuals. The type of communication examined in this paper relates to operational or implementation issues which flow at the implementation level among the CEOS, HODS, section heads, and employees. Its goal is to implement the procedures and policies, set targets within an organization, offer clarifications, assign job responsibilities, monitor and evaluate the progress of a project and allocate the available materials. In addition, communication within operational issues includes; daily administrative issues, contracts in management, routine financial issues, and customer/client-related issues among others. For the relevant information to reach the relevant individuals or employees, different forms of communication can be utilized by organizations. These forms of communication include; short messages, minute sheets, emails, letters, inter-office memos, circulars, and minutes of meetings.
Case study
Several problems can be encountered as a result of poor communication within any company. Projects or businesses can either succeed or fail depending on the effectiveness of communication within the organization. Poor communication can fail the projects. The majority of people are tempted to think that they are perfect in their communication but respond in ineffective ways which are not efficient in running an organization or a business. Poor communication within an organization is characterized by a general conviction that everyone should accept and supports what the management suggests, does, and feel. Second is the inability for one to influence other individuals to agree to his or her ideas or alter their behaviors or perspective regarding a certain concept. In addition, there is a lack of feedback to emails, documents, or any other kind of presentations made by the communicator. For instance, in the organization where I work, the administrator is responsible for communicating information to all employees. She uses accusatory and attacking tones within emails and voice mail messages in situations she deems as a crisis. In addition, she highlights some words within the emails with red color to express how serious a condition is. Moreover, she only utilizes emails and voice mail messages to communicate, but most employees prefer other forms of communication such as circulars or inter-office memos. The administrator also keeps on sending constant reminders to her employees to meet deadlines.
Analysis of the case
The administrator creates ethical issues for her employees. This is because, by using accusatory and attacking tones in her emails while communicating. After reading the message, I am inclined to think that she does not consider the employees’ feelings. In addition, highlighting some words in red is unethical especially if she is communicating. This is because, one might think that the administrator is annoyed, and may even get tensed and anxious while working, and thus affecting productivity negatively. By using emails and voice mail messages to communicate to all employees while the majority of employees prefer other forms of communication, she is not considerate of the employees’ feelings. Similarly, when an employee receives an assignment, he or she knows what to do and when to submit the work depending on the instructions provided. Therefore, the administration appears to be unethical when she keeps on sending constant reminders as it shows that she does not trust her employees fully.
Recommendations
From the above case study, four recommendations can be drawn:
- First, the administrator should analyze all the employees and get to understand which form of communication they generally prefer. This would help all the employees to access the relevant information at the right time (Sanow, n.d, p.2).
- Secondly, employees should be in a position to ask the administrator questions regarding any emails in case they do not understand what is needed in the assignment. This can be done by sending back an email to her or through a face to face communication (Sanow, n.d, p. 2).
- Thirdly, employees should request the administrator to stop highlighting messages in red color as it can be intimidating.
- As employees, we should come together and write a letter to the administrator listing down what we feel should be improved concerning the communication within the organization. For instance, we can request her to avoid using accusatory and attacking tones in emails.
Conclusion
In conclusion, communication is vital in the development and productivity of any organization. In addition, when people make decisions concerning communication, the type of information to be communicated, when and how and to whom to communicate it, they are certainly making an ethical selection. Therefore, building constructive relations, promoting emotional integrity, and developing interpersonal skills through appropriate communication will improve the productivity of an organization. Through appropriate communication, an organization will retain workers, get things done properly, enhance managers and leadership successfully, improve client services, increase job satisfaction and improve employees’ morale. On the contrary, poor communication does not build up teamwork but rather it kills an organization by lowering the productivity of the employees.
Reference
Redding, W. (1985). Stumbling Toward Identity: The Emergence of Organizational Communication as a Field of Study in McPhee and Tompkins. Organizational Communication: Traditional Themes and New Directions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Sanow, A. (n.d). Warning: Poor Communication and People Skills are Hazardous to Your Bottom Line. 2010. Web.