Characteristics of Communication

Characteristics of Communication

Introduction

Communication is the art of interchanging thoughts, ideas and information by either speech or signs with another person; it can be informal or formal following a proper hierarchy to communicate is formal communication all the other conversations we have with friends and family is informal communication or easily approaching someone without having to seek permission first is informal communication.

In a workplace communication is usually formal and the hierarchy must be followed. People normally do not take communication as an important factor but within an organization communication is extremely crucial (Thayer, 2009)

Communication problems can make the work environment unproductive for everyone and not just the concerned person. The major reason why such an issue arises might be due to management styles, educational backgrounds, internal conflicts and cultural differences. Every workplace must absolutely have open and clear communication to ensure the environment is a productive one. Various situations have been seen in which a fight between employees can evolve into something bigger, especially when these conflicts are the reason behind many irrational decisions taken by higher level employees, complaints are not always dealt with in the best manner (Diamond, 2000).

The best way to avoid such situations is to ensure your communication is always clear and specific being open also helps in reducing distortion of messages. For this essay we will discuss the current communication characteristics that I have personally witness while working at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has the biggest chain of stores all around the United States, last summer I joined Wal-Mart as an associate my basic responsibilities included almost everything being a cashier, unloading new merchandize and customer service

Discussion

I was directly reporting to the assistant manager who was an extremely petulant man working under his careful eye was always an issue and even though Wal-Mart is a huge departmental store they follow a semi formal communication system departments interact most through calls, emails or personally. The management also follows the same methods for communicating with the employees. This method is not always effective since emails are misinterpreted.

The biggest communication element that I witnessed were the verbal ones passed down from the manager, the method was simple the manager passed his concerns down to the assistant manager who either collectively passed them down to the others. This method seems quite simple though the issues that arose from them were numerous. I've experienced many times that a message was not fully passed down or was distorted, creating issues for the person who misunderstood the actually purpose of the email. In department stores we often experience that one department is having issues with another one both complain but they rarely consider finding a solution if both these departments followed a proper inter departmental method of communicating this issue could be resolved instantly.

In the department store that I worked in many Spanish people were hired as aisle assistance, but communicating with them was a huge issue since they were slow to grasp what was expected from them, nobody ...