Types of Communication and the Barriers

1. Definition, Types of communication

Communication is known as a medium of communicating, is a simple act of transferring information from point A to point B. Although this definition can sound as simple as it is, but when it differentiate the different type of communication it become more complex.

1. Spoken, Verbal/ Non Verbal Communication

Communication can be known as spoken, and it is called as verbal communication, an effective verbal or spoken communication depends on the clarity of speech, the listening skill of the listener. Verbal communication can either be face to face, through radio and also television. On the other hand, non verbal communication would be depending on the body language of someone, the gestures when they’re talking. Interpersonal communication does not only contain of words but also movement of the speaker, non verbal communication are most likely to contain messages that are conveyed by the speaker. Non verbal communication can consist of face expression, the tone of speaking, and the body language displayed on the speaker while he/she is speaking. The non verbal communication gives a lot more of clues and information about someone compared to verbal communication.

2. Writing Skills

Writing skills is also another important part of communication; good writing skills can allow you to send your message to the audience through face to face or even through writing. Correct grammar, spelling and punctuation is crucial in writing skills, for example, when you’re writing a CV to apply for a job in a hotel, the better the writing skills the higher the chances you will get the job.

3. Visualizations

We could also communicate by visual graphs such as charts or graph, logos, and other form of visualisation figure. This is mainly used during a conference or a meeting to send information of the company or the data, for example the annual sales of the hotel or the marketing plan of the hotel.

4. Social Media

Social media is also a form of communication to interact, using the network and applications that are commonly used examples, emails, Whatsapp, Wechat, Facebook. We can easily interact with anyone at anytime. The network have created a zero distance for us, for example, having video conferencing meeting with the head quarters of the company that are in United Kingdom when the office is in Singapore. The network has been the greatest creation ever to break almost every communication barriers that we have.

2. Communication barriers

Communication between two individuals can be simple if there’s not much barriers between them, but there are huge differences between talking and communicating. When we communicate, we can successfully in getting the points that the other person is trying to say on the other hand, when we talk, we would just ignore the barriers that might hinder the ability to communicate between each other. There are seven different types of communication barriers to more effective communicating, this includes

1. Physical barriers
2. Emotional barriers
3. Cultural barriers
4. Genders barriers
5. Interpersonal barriers
6. Perceptual barriers
7. Language barriers

There are a few reason that might have been the main barriers among human communication, for example the main reason why we can easily encounter communication barriers is due to the language differences that we might speak, even if we could speak the same language, the differences of the accent might come unfamiliar to us and it might be quite hard to understand. On the other hand, another reason why communication will fail it may be lack of interest of the person which is talking or the listener might have distractions from the other people nearby or even the noises of the crowds. Another misjudgement of common error is that people tend to expect what they hear rather than what is actually being spoken and jumping straight into inaccurate conclusions.

1. Physical barriers

The environment has been one of the main reason that causes physical barriers among employees and employers, for example, if the environment in the hotel isn’t quiet, the speaker isn’t talking in a loud voice, the listener wouldn’t be able to hear what messages is being delivered. Distance also plays an important role. For example, if the organisation in the company is made to sit in different floors or departments in the hotel, they likely would have difficulties on communicating face to face and due to long term relying on technology such as phone calls and emails; it distances the relationship of the employees and employers.

2. Emotional barriers

In a workplace, facing staffs and bosses might be a stressful task. Maintaining a good relationship in the workplace is crucial. According to Bud Craig,(2008) the classical emotions such as anger and fear, will always leads an individual to fight or fail to cooperate, therefore this is why working in an environment that does not make us happy and make us felt mistreated will lead the employees to lost interest and brings out negative impact.

3. Cultural barriers

Working in the hotel, there might be employees of different group age; every different age group would have different ways and perception of working. The age group of people would always have conflicts of describing older workers as “out of touch’ and those who just went into the organisation would be criticised by the older workers as ‘slackers’ during work time and not constantly focussing on work. Another reason of cause of cultural barriers is that the staffs would always believe in status and resistance in any sort of work place, staffs who assumed themselves as seniority status may find it hard to adapt into environments where the job tittles might be de-emphasized.

4. Gender barriers

According to Heather R,(2005), being well aware of the following generalizations will always help the organisation to have more effectively in the work place, for examples, women staffs would likely talk about people, and on the other hand, male staffs like to talk about tangible things such as sports, food and drinks. Women staffs ask many questions to gain an understanding on an issue that they are not clear about while men staffs always gives information more than asking questions Women staffs focus on feelings and senses, while man staffs always focus on the facts and the logic of problems.

5. Interpersonal barriers

The lack of desire on participating organisation events might be another reason of interpersonal barriers, Some staffs of the older age would be more frustrated on work and do not really like to socialise among the community in the company. Some other staffs who might be an introvert might also have unwillingness to explore, giving out new ideas during staffs meetings, or even speaking out the own views of the organisation, in the long run, this may lead to more unwillingness on working and even extremely frustrating among themselves.

6. Perceptual barriers

As human, we always have our own preferences, self values, different attitudes and we see it as a own kind of “flitters” in making decisions and perception of thinking. Thinking in our own “filters” and ignoring other’s opinion may lend to all sort of assumptions and misunderstanding.

7. Language barriers

Working in the front office in the hotel industry, one must be fluent in different types of languages, while people in Malaysia can usually speak more than 3 different languages and dialects, the dialectal differences will make communicating with different individuals harder. Language disabilities are the physical impediments to languages, we could not talk person which have dysphonia or how have hearing loss. According to the Rwanda Development Board, (2008) indicates that around 85,730 of the staffs in the hospitality sector are not fluent in foreign languages and therefore have less efficacy on customer service. It is also identified that language deficiency is the major problem of the hindering growth in the hospitality industry.

I went to a hotel nearby my house to interview the front desk manager about the barriers that might occur working in the hotel line.

3. Questionnaire and Answers

1. How long have you been working in this profession?

According to Ms.Cheng, (2015) she have been working in the hotel industry for more than 20 years.

2. How did you first get into this profession?

According to Ms. Cheng, (2015) she stated that her mother used to be a hotelier for her whole life, her mother inspired her to become a person like her mom, being a hotelier that cares for the people, a dedicated staff and one who try her best to serve and satisfy the need of the people who lives in the hotel.

3. Do you like your job?

Ms Cheng is a really responsible worker and she never shown up late before for the past years of working.

4. What is the toughest problem that you have encountered so far?

Stated by Ms. Cheng, (2015), working to serve the community isn’t an easy job, people all throughout the world have different cultures and beliefs, but the hardest problem to cope with is the attitude of rude or bad mannered guests.

5. What kind of communication barrier that will affect the job working in the front line of the hotel industry?

Ms Cheng stated that the language barriers is the main problem to communicate among guests, because when we do not understand the language that is being spoke, we can’t communicate and this will lead the guest to lose their temper leaving a bad impression to the company.

6. When problems occurred, what does the organisation do to help solve the problems?

The company would do their best to settle the situation of satisfaction or misunderstanding between the guest and the staffs. (Cheng, Interview)

7. What are the ways to avoid having these circumstances working in the hotel line?

When interviewed on 4^th May 2015, Ms Cheng confirmed that hiring only experienced staffs with higher education level is as important as hiring staffs that have good ethics, personality, and the company should be really serious on picking people to join the company and even conduct an evaluating between the people that are in-charged in the organisation before hiring new staffs to the company.

8. What is the main reason that communication breakdown often happens in working front line?

Cheng (2015) made the claim those companies not only in the hotel industry nowadays often hires foreigner workers that are from Bangladesh, Nepal to work, and as for foreigners they do not speak our national language well or even any other language such as Chinese, English and the main reason why organisation still hire them is because the wages that is needed to hire a foreigner worker is lower than hiring the people from our own country, it helps to cut down the cost and budgets for the company and hence leads to more and more barriers to be faced during working period.

4. Conclusion and Recommendations

In this task, I have learnt that how a company communicates among the employee and how an organization work together. Besides, I learned that communication barriers come in different ways such as language carriers, cultural barriers, and emotional barriers and so on. Throughout the questionnaire and listening upon the interviewer’s answers based on the questions I have asked, I realised that effective communication is the key of managing a good company to success because a company that is poor in communication will always lead to ultimately misunderstandings. According to Forbes, (2009) problem solving is the greatest enabler for growth and opportunity. This is why they say failure serves as the greatest lesson in business and in life. In my own opinion, realising the problem is the first step to success, knowing the problems of the company, analyzing why problems occur and performing appropriate action to fix the problem as soon as possible. In my own opinion, realising the problem is the first step to success, knowing the problems of the company, analyzing why problems occur and performing appropriate action to fix the problem as soon as possible.