Communication in the Workplace

“Effective workplace communication is based on interpersonal, professional relationships that are developed through a keen awareness of courtesy, attentive listening, active participation and situation appropriate body language.”

 According to an article published by the Houston Chronicle, effective workplace communication depends on the qualities listed in the afore mentioned quotation. Courtesy, attentive listening, active participation and situation appropriate body language. These qualities are necessary to keep in the forefront of our minds as we look at workplace communication.

Tone and Formality are key tools in communication within the workplace. What is formality? This is a question that is explained through a bulleted list published on May 01, 2010 on the Scribd website. The list begins with a short paragraph explaining that, “Formality is the nature of relationship between people and one’s attitude to the conduct of things around him or her.” The bulleted list explaining the characteristics of formality continues as follows:

• Formality shows the level of seriousness in communication.
• It maintains the standard of respect in a communication.
• Formality helps determine the choice of vocabulary in a communication event.
• It helps to determine the way we use elements of communication (channel or way of exchange).
• It determines the expected way an individual is to conduct him or herself.
• Formality helps to maintain the order in a hierarchy.
• It helps us to plan well for events.
• It determines the nature of us to other people (one's character).
• The level of formality of an event sometimes determines one's dress code.

Over the past seven years, I have worked at three different jobs and the level of formality and style of communication in each of those jobs has varied. My first, and only, job in high school was at a small family-owned diner called The Country Café. The level of formality was very low-key. Most of the communication took place face-to-face during shifts. On occasion, communication would take place over the telephone, but most was in person and very informal.

My second job was a work study position on the Dakota State University campus. I spent a summer working for the Physical Plant doing lawn care. This job involved working with several levels of supervision. Communication in this job more formal than it had been at The Country Café; however, it still was not overly formal. The more formal communication at the Physical Plant such as scheduling, took place in the office. Most of the communication while doing lawn care involves on-the-job, in-person communication. Formality was thrown out the window and communication consisted of higher-ups using vocal communication to assign tasks.

The job title that I currently hold is Library Assistant at the Madison Public Library. While the communication style at the library is not what I would consider to be overly formal, it is the most formal of the three jobs I’ve had. Because we are a small-town organization, most of the communication between employees is in person. However, written and typed notes are also common occurrences.

The paper communication consists of everything from calendars and schedules, to task assignments and requests. On occasion, I have experienced workplace communication at the library through telephone calls, e-mails, and text messaging. But the most common forms of communication are through paper and vocal communication. Below are a few examples of paper communication that takes place at the library. For privacy purposes, all names have been blurred.

January 2015 Calendar

Desk Schedule

Notes from a staff meeting

Each of the three jobs that I’ve worked at during the last seven years, have all been located in the same small-town with a population of 6,500. I believe this has a significant impact on the communication formality and tone that takes place within businesses and organizations. From what knowledge I have gathered in my experiences, there are two determining factors that determine what level of formality is used within a workplace.

The first factor is the population of the town or city. I believe that the higher the population is, the higher the level of formality will be. In addition to that, the size of the business or organization will also play a large part in how formal the communication style will be. The larger the business is, the more likely it is that the communication styles will be more formal.

Sources:
What is Effective Workplace Communication?
What is Formality

Reading Response One

"The fact is that you can never tell who someone is or where their ancestors came from just by looking at them. Identity is complex.Its roots lie beneath the surface. It's a product of events that we don't know about ourselves."  Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

In our first reading of the semester Intercultural Communication Competence, we learn about different metaphors used to describe the mixing of different cultures. The begins with a focus on the United States and how cultures came together. A common metaphor used for this meshing of cultures is to call America the melting pot. The reading continues to explain that this metaphor sets up America to be like a giant container that withstands extreme heat and is able to "melt, mix and ultimately fuse together metals or other substances." The next page of this reading turns the table and explains the inaccuracy of the melting pot metaphor.

"Dynamic as the melting pot metaphor has been in the United States, it has never been an accurate description.The tendency for diverse cultures to melt together and assimilate their unique heritages into a single cultural entity has never really existed. Rather, the many cultural groups within the United States have continuously adapted to one another as they have accommodated and perhaps adopted some of the practices and preferences of other groups while maintaining their own unique and distinctive heritages."

This quote directly from the reading, explains how cultures, rather than mixing, adapt and sometimes adopt the practices of other groups. The reading then goes on to explain some other metaphors are perhaps better suited for the meshing of cultures in America. One of those metaphors is the tributaries metaphor.

This metaphor states that "America, according to this image, is like a huge cultural watershed, providing numerous paths in which the many tributary cultures can flow. The tributaries maintain their unique identities as they surge toward their common destination."


In our second reading Corporate Web Design, we look at how cultures mix on the web. One thing that was stated at the beginning of the reading was that English is currently the dominant language on the internet. While I had never thought otherwise, I learned that other languages are beginning to rise in dominance on the web. Among those languages German, Chinese, Japanese, and Slavic are on the rise.

This article states that "Culture can be defined as a shared set of values that influence societal perceptions, attitudes, preferences, and responses." We often can agree that this is true of groups of people as a whole; however, I believe this also clearly points out that, based on this statement, many different "cultural" groups can be found within a single culture.

Just looking at America, we could agree that for the most part, we are a single culture based on the common laws that we recognize. But if we look closer at the values that are specific to different groups of people, we see that a culture as a whole is also divided into different cultures.

The Corporate Web Design reading soon breaks into different terms that are related to culture and the web. One of those terms was 'power distance'. Power distance defined by the reading is "the extent to which less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. In large power distance cultures, there are strong dependency relationships between parents and children, bosses and subordinates, professors and students. In small power distance cultures, children are raised to be independent at a young age." 

While we might not use this term in our everyday language, most people could probably recognize this power structure in our lives. Most people have dealt closely with a societal power that so-to-speak "rules over us." It can be said of most individuals that during the first part of their lives, the role of child, subordinate, or student apply directly to their lives. While oftentimes the later part of an individual's life takes on the role of either parent, boss, or professor. Sometimes all three of those upper-level roles can apply to a single being.