Communication in the Workplace

Communication is important because it is about how information is sent and received within an organisation. The way information is communicated is often governed by how organisations are structured.

Equally, management styles have a profound effect on the way in which you work and the opportunities afforded to you.

Management Styles:

Democratic / Laissez Faire

• Individuals and teams are given responsibility to make decisions.
• Manager requires regular feedback on results
• S/He must trust implicitly the judgement of employees
• Found in Flat organisations and indicates high level of democracy

Autocratic Management

• Culture is determined by hierarchical status and the ‘role’ an individual occupies
• Tall organisations often suffer from a power culture where the heads of the hierarchy dictate to those lower down the rankings
• Authoritarian with limited flexibility

Business Structures

Entrepreneurial

• Decisions made centrally
• Lack of traditional hierarchy
• Flat
• Democratic

Pyramid

• Staff have a role
• Some shared decision making
• Specialisation and Progression is possible
• Hierarchical
• Tall
• Autocratic

In a pyramid environmemt, Management make the decisions and pass these down through middle management to the teams at the bottom.

Channels of Communication

• Communication in organisations follows paths or channels
• Communication between managers and workers is known as vertical communication
• This is because the information flows up or down the hierarchy

In the light of this very brief summary of how businesses are structured, consider the environment you work in. What sort of structure does your company have and how is it managed? How is information communicated to you? How do you feedback to management?

Create an organisation chart showing the structure and use arrows to indicate how communication occurs. I'll provide an example for you based on the structure here. It's too big to post on here though - sorry.

Thanks

Kerry