Strategies for Employee Communication

 

Communication happens in every company everyday and it’s a necessary and important method to operate a company. Communication is a mutual exchange of ideas, opinions and information, which is using spoken or written words, symbols or specific actions (Business communication and its types, 2009). The Good communication in a company could make this company work well and improve the performance of employees and promote the commercial benefits (Lorette). Also some principles and context of communication will be used to discuss the case study. In the case study, Steve Yatman works on the foster care team with the Department of Community Services and they met some problems and use some methods to deal with it. Following that, some recommendations are listed in the last and these recommendation helps Yatman to deal with their communication problems effectively and efficiently. As the result of that, the readers will understand the meaning of communication and the methods that are introduced may provide specific approaches for them. At last, in the conclusion part, all the situation and theories will be sum up clearly.

In the process of communication, there are seven elements can impact the results of communication (Chand): Sender; Message; Receiver; Feedback; Channel; Context; Interface.

• Sender: the person who intend to pass information or ideas to others. In the case study, Yatman’s organization’s customers are senders in the process of communication because they send their information to the staff of foster care team. However, the staffs in organization are also the sender in the internal environment of organization because they need to communicate with their work peers or supervisor.
• Message: the information, ideas, views or feelings delivered from senders to receivers.
• Receivers: the persons who receive message and understanding the information. In the case, staff and their work peers received information.
• Feedback: it is the important part for an effective communication.
• Channel: the methods or technique to send message. In the case, the best way to communicate is face-to-face communication and it could decrease the daily stress for staffs and support them through the difficult times.
• Context: the location and the situation where the communication happens. It can influent the result of communication.
• Interface: There are some elements may deliver negative effects on communication. In Yatman’s organization, if work peers or supervisors are lack of courtesy or do not have enough attention, the communication will not work well.

There are 7 principles of communication are mentioned in several business books or thesis, and they are known as 7Cs of business communication (Coach, 2015):

• Principle of Courtesy: In other words, communication needs friendliness. That plays an essential role in the work of foster care teams because they must deal with other families’ issues kindly and if they are treated friendly from their colleague, they can do their job better.
• Principle of Completeness: The senders must know their topic and describe a round picture for receiver.
• Principle of Conciseness: Communicate effectively, not too long or too short.
• Principle of Clarity: Make sure the receivers understand your words or stories clearly. If the staffs could make their colleague and supervisors understand their stories or feelings, they may get more support form them and then deal with the tough job well.
• Principle of Concreteness: Using specific words or methods to make receivers understand your message easily. It is also the important quality of a social worker because they may meet different people or dealing with different problems.
• Principle of Correctness: Do not enable receivers misinterpret your message.
• Principle of Consideration: Such as using several methods or communication skills to keep receivers in mind. Social workers in Yatman’s organization should use this principle positively because it can deliver more good results in their jobs and the emotion of themselves. If they can emotionally detached from the negative emotion , they will complete their jobs better and be good at their career.

Furthermore, there are several methods can be used to make communicate effectively in business. Also these methods are good for Yatmas’ team if they can follow the suggestions below.

• Create a good communication climate: In Community Service, they can build up openness and honesty atmosphere for employees to communicate and it decrease the daily stress for them. Although Yatman said the department has quite a strong philosophy of supervision to make sure people are supported, they still need to make sure the atmosphere is really openness and employees want to communicate with supervision team.
• Empathy: In the case, the department has philosophy of supervision to support people. The people who work in the supervision team should have the sense of empathy because this quality has pivotal role in support staffs. Also, if the staffs who has empathy during helping families to deal with problems, they can have better communication to customers.
• Create a win-win approach for both communicators. In the case, Yatman must build up a win-win approach between customers and staffs in foster care teams. First of all, they should interview some persons who can feel satisfactory out of challenge in their jobs, as they have done. Then, they should understand their customers who are helped to make them comfortable in the process of communication. After the win-win approach is built, the communication will more smoothly.
• Self-disclosure: Sometimes, showing up the true feeling of oneself is the best way to communicate. The staffs in foster care team should show up their real feeling to work peer and supervisors, so they can figure out staffs’ emotional problems and support them effectively and efficiently.

Although the organization has focused on supporting their staffs, but there are still some methods can be used to manage this organization well.

First of all, the foster care team should interview the specific employees who love this kind of job and could convert negative emotion into positive emotion. The reason is that, this kind of persons can control their emotion well and is not easy to feel down and then depression.

Secondly, they should arrange holistic training, including the introduction of their responsibilities, the methods to emotionally absorb the complex things and emotions from their jobs. If they understand their jobs and responsibilities in advance, they can do it well.

Then, the comfortable atmosphere of communication plays a pivotal role in a company or organization. As they can get support from work peers and supervisors to manage the negative emotion well.

Lastly, the supervision team is necessary to help the staffs who already have emotion problems, the earlier to help them, the better support will deliver to them.

Communication has fundamental effect on the operation of a business entity. Therefore, different stakeholders should follow the principles of communication and using communication skills to get a better result of communication. In the case study, good personalities and support from organization are both important. Better communication leads to a better organization.

This report is aim at analyzing the case study and pointing out the importance of communication in an organization. For the community service team, communication is necessary because they have to deal with the daily stress in their jobs, also they should get support their work peers and supervisors in organization. In order to achieve that, they hire persons who have specific personalities to do this job and training them carefully. Also the supervisor team in organization is also make contribution in supporting staffs.

Communication and engagement in an organization play important role in building organization’s culture and make the teamwork more effective. In modern organizations, people are always asked to complete their work as a team. Obviously, the effective and healthy communication can lead to a better teamwork, for example eliminate daily stress for employees, complete project efficiently and make more profit for company (Gluck). In addition, the employee engagement makes contribute on promoting a positive workplace culture and if employees are involved in making important decision, building customer relationship or innovate products, their emotion will be different. Most managers said that engagement is important to enhance employees’ enthusiasm and outcomes and also impact on the overall success of a business (Bakker A. B., 2008). Especially in modern organizations, employees should feel that they are energetic and dedicated to help organization to get competitive advantage (Bakker A. B., 2010). In the case study, the poor communication and low level engagement of employees among three companies led to the oil-rig explosion in April 20, 2011. This report will analyze their problems and suggest what they should do in advance to avoid this kind of tragedy.

Communication in business is the two-way process of mutual understanding by verbal and non-verbal language, in which not only exchange the information, ideas and feelings, but also the meaning (Miller, 2014). And there are some methods can be introduced during communicating in teams to make the team more effective (Management Study Guide):

• Leaders of team should make team members understand their duties and responsibilities and do not confuse any employee. In the case study, the worker who worked on the drilling rig are ordered to “set a final cement plug at 8,000 feet below the rig” and “displace the mud before the final plugging operation had begun”. These two actions are different from their usual process and confuse them to do their job. As the result of that, the two leaders in Halliberton and BP companies should take responsibility for this.
• Written communication should be used in both small and complex projects to make communication clarity and transparency. After the explosion happens, three companies began to blame each other. BP is the owner of well and it blamed the failure of a big set of valves and Transocean Ltd’s blowout preventer. Halliburton, a contractor in the drilling, blame Transocean’s failure to place a cement plug within the well. Transocean, the owner of rig, said it is BP to make decision on how to proceed and they just follow BP’s behest. All of them cannot provide the process of how they communicate and it is the key reason to these complaints.
• The issues should be communicated and discussed on an open forum and the participants should speak freely. The related companies in the explosion had poor communication and they just follow the process and behests from BP PLC. The discussion is not sufficiently during the process and the workers on the drilling rig had no chance to speak out their opinion.

In conclusion, the teams in this project had no effective teamwork and they had no good communication. The bad communication is the important reason to lead to the explosion.

Furthermore, the engagement in the project is another weakness and it had negative impacts on the results. It describes a workplace approach, which is designed to ensure employees are committed to company’s value and success. Also it could influent employees’ behaviors and level of efforts in work (Business Dictionary). Basically, the level of engagement for a employee depends on the organizational culture and the strong and positive organizational culture could motive employees invest more energy and time on their work.

In the case study, the problems of employee engagement can be found easily. The workers on drilling rig did not understand company’s order, which is the engineer wanted to flood the well with seawater before setting the final plug. Although this behest was different from the usual work process, the workers did not declare their doubt and just follow company’s order. Furthermore, the poor communication between these three companies is also a sign of poor engagement because they did not discuss the process and the stage of project. As the result of that, a oil rig explosion happened without a good communication and employee engagement to establish a positive organizational culture.

First of all, all main participants of this project should hold a meeting and discuss the whole plan of project before starting it. The atmosphere of meeting should be relaxed and employees could speak out their opinion. After confirm the final plan of project, they should follow the plan strictly and do not change it easily.

Secondly, the leaders should ensure employees understand their job and responsibilities, especially the workers on the drilling rig. Therefore, they could understand what they should do and the purpose.

In addition, the written communication is necessary and it is also the evidence if something goes wrong.

Communication and employee engagement are the important part in building up the organizational culture and make the teamwork effectively. The oil rig is the good example for poor communication and engagement for employees. In the project, the leaders should make a positive organizational culture to encourage communication and involve employees into the project to motive them.

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