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A Case Study of Workplace Communication
A Case Study of Workplace Communication
WORKPLACE
COMMUNICATION
Submitted by:
Bikash Sharma
in partial fulfilment of
Master's in Development Communication (MDC)
st
1 Semester, College of Journalism and Mass Communication
Table of Content
1
Background
One morning in November 2012, Gozazi Oil and Gas Company Limited, became
cold like a graveyard. At about 9:00am, some employees carrying placards with
different messages walked towards the main entrance. Some of the messages
read: ‘No to oppression’; ‘enough of low pay’; ‘say no to discrimination’.
Customers were denied access into the company premises. Meanwhile, a
meeting of top management was holding as this strike action was going on.
Various news media captured the event the following day. The purpose of this
essay is twofold. First, is to identify the factors that caused the communication
breakdown between management and labour union. In subsequent paragraphs,
this essay will analyse these factors using theories and models of
organisational communication. Second, to propose strategies to avert the
occurrence of issues of this nature in future. It will also focus on the ethical
communication issues involved, and finally proffer some solutions. Additionally,
psychological fields such as organisational communication audit, positive
psychology, and organisational decision-making process will be employed.
Other psychological fields that will also be referred to in this work will include
Adlerian Psychology (AP) and Appreciative Inquiry (AI).
Introduction
To start with, three facts finding communication audit techniques were
employed namely: Interpersonal interview, structured questionnaires and focus
group discussion. The finding revealed the following: First of all, these
categories of employees are the lowest cadres of workers in the oil and gas
industry. The highest academic qualification among them is Ordinary National
Diploma (OND). Secondly, their proficiency in the use of English is poor. As a
result, only a few have access to the company’s email and intranet service. For
this cadre of staff, the motive of management engagement sessions is to
inform and not for the purpose of deliberations. Though they ‘turn the valves’
that enables the flow of oil and gas, and convey the refined products to their
final destination, they are often marginalised. Third and lastly, the company
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hires some of the employees directly, while service contractors provide others.
Those directly hired by the company are managed by the company’s Human
Resources team, and are remunerated in accordance with the company’s
remuneration scheme. For those under service contracts, albeit the company
have a fair rate for remunerations that are paid by the service contractors,
other juicy bonuses and incentives enjoyed by direct hired workers are not
included.
Under the above circumstances, four implications are currently evident. The
first is legal, as many see the company’s position on remuneration being
against the 1951 law of Equal Remuneration Convention of the International
Labour Organisations (ILO, 1951). It is believed that the reason for
discriminations in the workplace is the flaw in the Nigerian constitutional labour
laws (Danesi, 2012; Aturu, 2010), and this strike action could be seen as
enlightening the public on workplace discriminatory remuneration and
condition of service. Consequently, there is a tendency that the company will
have litigations to settle if this case goes to court, and this could run into
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thousands of dollars from loss of working hours, delays in delivery fines, and
the cost of hiring new employees should many decide to resign. For instance,
workplace conflicts have been found to cost up to 50,000 Euros per company in
Germany (KPMG 2009, cited in Kals, Thiel, & Freund 2016), and as much as
27,000 Euros per company in Netherlands (Euwema et al., 2007, cited in Kals,
Thiel, & Freund 2016).
Again, there is a social implication from this agitation. Their roles put them on
the forefront of publicity, because they interact with the customers more often,
and the public can easily feel the impact of their agitations. A third implication
is on the economy; because of the possibility of a nationwide strike action
should the national body join the local union. This will no doubt lead to the
absence of fuel and gas for vehicles, generators, gas turbines and other
domestic use, and can ground the Nigerian economy for days. Finally, a fourth
implication is the negative impact on the company’s reputation. Since this
incident went public, it is already generating unfavourable press image for the
company.
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Communication Model (Jones & George, 2016). Though, it has a feedback loop,
this model is only visible within those who have access to email and telephone.
It has been argued that the linear and interactive models do not address
communication complexities in 21st century organisations (Miller, 2015).
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employees. Communication ethics ensures that messages create harmony and
relationships (mclean & Moman, 2012).
Thirdly, it is not ethical to withhold vital information (Kishore & Pius, 2015).
The hierarchical and complex nature of the company’s leadership structure
creates room for the possibility of withholding vital information, especially as it
relates to these categories of employees. Fourthly, communication ethics
advocates that communication should create a wellorganised value system
(mclean & Moman, 2012). From the foregoing discussion, discrimination cannot
be seen as an ethical value system. Fifth and lastly, information needed to be
accurate in order to convey the intended meaning of the message. Kishore and
Pius (2015, p. 11) posit that ‘truth’ is the end of communication. This cannot be
proven in the context under evaluation. Therefore, it seems appropriate for me
at this point to say that until management comes out with a communication
plan that is seen as inclusive, the belief will always be that the information
passed down by supervisors might not be authentic and true.
I also believe that the spread of rumour is one form of communication that
affected this organisation because of its ease of transmission, especially among
a workforce that perceives being discriminated against. In agreement with this,
Widhiastuti (2012) reports in a study conducted that rumour, which was
referred to in the study as ‘grapevine communication,’ is easily transmitted and
faster than other forms of communication. Also, Kreitner and Kinicki (2001,
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cited in Widhiastut, 2012) report that most employees rely on rumours to
gather most of their information on the decisions of the organisation.
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Comparatively, while positive psychology can enhance the trust between
management and employees as their relationship develops (Sperry, 2007), an
ethical decision making process is practically an offshoot of an already existing
cordial relationship. It is important to also take learning from Adlerian
Psychology – a field of psychology which have argued that humans have five
main tasks in life: love, occupation, society, self-development, and spiritual
development (Sharf, 2012). How positive psychology and ethical
decisionmaking enables employees to fulfil these tasks is important. According
to Adlerian’s assumptions, motivation is achieved as employees strive for
recognition and significance within the organisation (Green, 2012). I am of the
opinion that this seems to be the arguments of several motivational theories.
For instance, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theorised that humans fulfils each of
the five needs he identified in a successive order as follows – Physiological,
Safety, Love, Self-Esteem, and Self-actualization (Spector, 2012). Though this
have been argued against with the reason that humans do not actually fulfil
these needs in the above successive order (Wahba & Bridwell 1976, cited in
King-Hill, 2015), Maslow indeed showed that humans thrive in relationships to
fulfil certain needs in life. Also, the ‘Hawthorne Studies’ in the US (1924-1932)
has shown that apart from remuneration, workplace motivation is also
dependent on employees’ attitudes towards their job (Lindner 1998, cited in
Kuranchie-Mensah & Amponsah-Tawiah 2015). The above propositions will be
useful in how the company establishes its communication plans going forward.
Taking the above into perspective, Positive Psychology can be useful to this
organization in the following ways. Firstly, the workplace should encourage the
creation of positive emotions by making all employees feel important.
Fredrickson (2001) identified the following ten positive emotions: love, joy,
gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration and awe. One
way this can be achieved is by harmonising staff ID cards. Secondly, I am of the
opinion that building and maintaining strong labour relations is dependent on
the feeling in people that they are seen as important. Study evidence by
Huettermann, Doering, and Boerner (2017) support that individuals are either
active, reactive or withdraw from the ‘team identification’ process depending
on how accepted they feel. Thirdly, since positive emotions grow through
cultivation (Seligman, 2004), I propose that career growth should be mapped
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out for these employees so that they would own their own developments with a
display of optimism towards life. This is in agreement with Seligman (2004)
position that optimism towards life is a core strength that individuals must
develop to achieve a state of wellbeing. In my view, management must see
the process of communicating decisions as win-win. According to Nelson-
Zlukpo (2014), the goals of communication include: to be heard, to be in
control, to win or convince others, to build rapport, and to solve a problem. In
the case at hand, the goals of whatever decision that is communicated should
be the last two namely: to build rapport, and problem solving. However, in
most organisations the aim of communication is on the first three goals: either
to be heard or vent management dissatisfaction; to inform the workforce why
management is right and in control; or to win employees so they could identify
with management steer (Nelson-Zlukpo, 2014). It is also my belief that
management that toe the first three goals of communication above would be
adamant to employee concerns. Zentall and Crowley (2013) posits that
decisions should foresee the implications on the positive emotions of workers in
the long run. I completely agree with their position. This is because positive
emotions are not static, but are cultivated over time (Fredrickson, 2001).
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communication is not in agreement with the facial expression, the receiver
tends to believe the message is inconsistent and double binding.
10
Figure 1: Media Classification (Robert & Dennis, 2005)
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their emotional bond to the organisation and its goals’ (Kruse, 2012). It is my
candid opinion that communication sets the pace for active engagement in
organisations. In corroborating this position, Taylor (2006, as cited in Keyton
2011) said: “the modern organisation is a universe of endless talk, occurring
both simultaneously and successively.” Employees’ active engagement
includes mapping out a hybrid communication and ethical decision-making
framework based on the proposed solutions in this write-up. In conclusion, this
essay has identified the reasons behind the past impasse between workers and
the management of Gozazi. Using psychological theories and models, likely
communication barriers were identified, and solutions proffered. The way
forward depends on how positive psychology, and ethical decision-making
process and communication can help improve the bond of workplace relations
between management and staff. Owning to the influence of global advances in
communication technology and social networking platforms, organisations
must strive to continually bridge cross-cultural, cross-political, and cross-
professional boundaries to remain in business in this 21st century and beyond.
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