Communication

for
Work Purposes
 Lesson 3: Flow of
Intraorganizational
communication in
the workplace
 "You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your
ideas won't get you anywhere."
- Lea Iacocca
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Longest (2000) explain that communication in the workplace can flow
upwardly, downwardly, horizontally, and diagonally.

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 1. Upward Communication - provides feedback on how well the

What is Effective
organization is functioning. Subordunates can use upward
communication to convey thier problems and performances to their
Communication in ‘-
superiors. It can also be used by employees to share their views
the
and ideas Workplace?
and participate in the decision-making process.

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Upward communication can lead to a more commited and loyal
workforce in an organization because the employees are given a
chance to raise and speak dissatisfaction issues to the higher levels.
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The managers on the other hand can get to know about the
employees feelings towards their jobs, peers, supervisor and
organization in general.

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The effectiveness of upward communication according to Luthans
(1984) can be increased using the following;
a. Grievance procedure
- Employees can make an appeal upward beyond their immediate
supervisor.
‘-
This protects the individual from arbitary action by their direct
supervisor.
This encourages communication about complaints.

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b. Open door policy
- this an invitation for subordinates to come in and talk to their
superior about things that trouble them.
c. Counselling, questionnaires, and exit interview
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- The Human Resource Department can facilitate confidential

counselling, administer attitude questionnaires, and exit interviews.
Information obtained from these forms of communication can be used
to make improvements. 7
d. Participate decision-making technique
- This technique uses informal involvement of subordinates,
quality improvement teamms, and union management commttees.
Employees can make valuable contributions to the organization as
‘-
they participate in the decision-making process.

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e. Ombudsperson
- The use of an ombudsperson provides an outlet for person who
feel they have been treated unfairly.

‘-

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2. Downward Communication - starts from a higher level in an
organization to a lower level. This communication flow is used by
managers to transmit work-related information to the employees
‘-
at lower levels. Employees require this information for
peroforming their jobs and for meeting the expectations for their
managers.

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Downward communication is used by the managers for the following
purposes: providing feedback on employees performances; giving job
instructions; providing complete understanding of the employee job as
‘-
well as to communicate them; how their job is related to the other jobs
in the organization; communicating the organization's mission and
vission to the employees; and highlighting areas of attention.

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3. Horizontal Communication - happens among employees of equal
rank like committees, task forces, and cross-functional project teams.
It is also called lateral communication as it takes place at same
levelsof hierarchy in an organization. ‘-

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The advantages of horizontal communication are as follows:

• time-saving
• facilitates coordination of the task;
• facilitates cooperation among team members;
• provides emotional and social assistances‘- to the organizational
members;
• helps in solving various organizational problems;
• a means of information sharing; and
• can also be used for resolving conflicts of a department with other
department or conflicts within a department.
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4. Diagonal Communication - crosses work areas and organization
level. Under this communication, any employee can communicateto
other employees without considering the hierarchy or level of
employees. This communication crosses the formal network chain of
command. Diagonal communication is especially used by expert
groups to communicate expert ideas to the‘-different levels of
employees.

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Conflict in the Work Environment
The word " conflict" produces a sense of anxiety for many
people, but it is part of the human experience. Just because conflict
is universal does not mean that we cannot improve how we handle
‘-
disagreements, misunderstandings, and struggles to understand or
make ourselevs understood. Joyce Hocker and William Wilmot offer
us several principles on conflict that have bern adapted here for our
discussion:
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 Conflict in the Work Environment

Conflict is universal
Conflict is associated with incompatible goals
Conflict us associated with scarce resources‘-
Conflict is associated with interference
Conflict is not a sign of a poor relationship.
Conflict cannot be avoided
Conflict cannot always be resolved.
Conflict is not always bad.
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 Conflict
Management
Strategies
Conflict Management Strategies
As professional communicators, we can acknowledge and
anticipate that conflict will be present in every context or
‘-
environment where communication occurs Joseph De Vito (2003)
offers us several conflict management strategies that we have
adapted and expanded for our use.

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1. Avoidance. You may choose to change the subject, leave the room, or
not even enter the room in the first place, but the conflict will remain
and resurface when you least expect it.
2. Defensiveness versus Supportiveness. Defensive communication
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characterized by control evaluation, and judgments, while supportive
communication focuses on the points and not personalities

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3. Face-Detracting and Face-Saving-Face-detracting strategies.
They involve messages or statements that take away from the respect,
integrity or credibility of a person. Face-saving strategies protect
credibility and separate message from messenger.
4. Empathy-Empathetic listening. It involves listening to both the
literal and implied meanings within a message.
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5. Gunnysacking George Bach and Peter Wyden discuss
gunnysacking (or backpacking) as the imaginary bag we all carry
into which we place unresolved conflicts or grievances over time.
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Holding onto the way thing used to be can be like a stone in your
gunnysack, and influence how you interpret your current context.

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6. Managing Your Emotions -Your awareness of your emotion can
help youclear your mind and choose to wait until the moment has
passed to tackle the challenge.

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 Grapevine
Communication
Grapevine Communication
Grapevine is an informal channel of business communication. It is
called so because it stretches throughout the organization in all
directions irrespective of the authority levels. Men as we know is a
social animal. Despite existence of formal channels in an
organization, the informal channels tend ‘-to develop when
He interacts with other people in organization. It exist more at
lower levels of organization.

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Advantages of Grapevine Communication
1.Grapevine channels carry information rapidly. As soon as an
employee gets to know some confidential information, he becomes
inquisitive and passes the details then to his
‘- closest friend who in turn

passes it to other. Thus, it spreads hastily.

2. The managers get to know the actions of their subordinates on their
policies. Thus, the feedback obtained is quick compared to formal
channel of communication.
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3. The grapevine creates a sense of unity among the employees who
share and discuss their views with each other. Thus, grapevine helps
in developing group cohesiveness.
4. The grapevine serves as an emotional supportive value.
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5.The grapevine is a suppliment in those cases where formal

communication does not work.

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Disadvantages of Grapevine Communication
1. The grapevine carries partial information at times as it is more
based on rumours. Thus, it does not clearly depicts the complete
state of affairs,
2. The grapevine is not trustworthy always as it does not follows
official path of communication and is spread
‘-
more by gossips and unconfirmed report.

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3. The productivity of employees may be hampered as they spend more
time talking rather than working.
4. The grapevine leads to making hostility against the executives.
5. The grapevine may hamper the goodwill of the organization as it may
carry false negative information about the high
‘- level people of the
organization.

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