CHAPTER 12: HUMAN COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE (ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION)

1. Organizations

- Organization is an organized group of people who work together to achieve compatible goals.

- Importance of Organizational Communication

    Organizational communication helps to create:

          ü  Jobs/employment

          ü  Adapting to a converging world

          ü  Influence/power of majority.

 - Characteristics

         v  Rules and Regulations

         v  Division of Labor

         v  Systems of Rewards and Consequences

         v  Organizational Culture

2. Organizational Messages

Organizational messages are divided into 2 categories, which is formal communication and informal communication.

©      Formal Communication: Messages that are sanctioned by the organization itself and are organizationally focused.

- Upward Communication

·                       sent from lower level employees to higher level employees.

·                       (From workers to managers)

- Downward Communication

·                       sent from higher level employees to lower level employees.

·                      (From managers to workers)

- Lateral Communication: messages between equal level employees.

·                        (manager-to-manager, worker-to-worker)

©      Informal Communication

- Grapevine messages don’t follow any hierarchical lines of communication (gossips).

- Dealing with inevitable office grapevine

o   Understand grapevine purposes

o   Treat grapevine information as tentative

o   Repeat with discretion

o   Tap into the grapevine

o   Assume your messages will be repeated

Communication networks:

Information Overload: The excessive amount of information that workers have to deal with, the lack of clarity in many messages, and the increasing complexity of messages.

Information Isolation: The situation in which certain workers receive little or no information or when some people are excluded from the informal gossip and grapevine messages.

3. Organizational Relationships

- Sexual harassment refers to the sending of unwanted sexual messages.

   - Quid pro quo harassment

   - Hostile environment harassment

- Bullying: gossiping, verbal insults, excessive blaming

- Workplace romances

   - positive side: The work environment seems a perfect place to meet a potential partner

   - negative side: It may not necessarily be good for other workers or the organization as a

                             whole.

- Mentoring: An experienced employee helps to train a less-experiences person.

- Networking: Broad process of enlisting the aid of other people to help you solve a problem or offer                        insights that bear on your problem.