One of the biggest problems in the workforce today is the lack of communication within a company. This is one of the biggest morale killers employees face. But why does lack of communication have such a negative effect on employee morale?
Let's answer this question by giving some hypothetical examples of poor or non-existent communication. Feel free to adjust these examples to fit your work situation.
Hypothetical Example # 1:
Your boss assigns you an important project. Your job is to make sure that project is done on time and accurately. The goal of the project is to organize all of your team's files into different categories, and then to rank those categories from highest priority to lowest priority based on which ones are in need of immediate action. You spend days, if not weeks, working on this project. You get input from all members of your team to try to assess which ones should be considered high priority. After many hours of hard work, you get an email from your boss asking for a progress report. After filling him in on what you're doing, your boss tells you that the project has changed and you were supposed to arrange these files based on their net value, not whether or not they need immediate action. You wasted days worth of work on a project that was doomed from the start. To top it off, your boss says he sent you an email detailing the change - you check your email and there never was a note sent to you.
Hypothetical Example # 2:
Most days, dress attire is "business casual." However, today you're walking around the office and you see one guy wearing a Red Sox hat and someone else sporting a New York Giants football jersey. You ask them why they're wearing these things, and they tell you that today was designated as a "dress down" day. The only problem - your manager never told you about this, so you're the only one in the office wearing a button-up shirt and Dockers on an 80 degree day. Then you notice that your boss is wearing a Yankees hat, which makes sense because he is an idiot and it doesn't surprise you that he would root for a team that is evil.
Hypothetical Example # 3:
It's after lunch and there's a blizzard blowing through, making driving very difficult and ensuring that you have a good three feet of snow to shovel out of your driveway when you get home. Slowly, word starts to spread into your department that other departments are being released early. You have friends in these other departments, so you send a quick email to see if it's true. You find out that not only is it true, they got an email from their manager releasing them at 2 pm. You look up at the clock and it reads 1:45 pm and you've heard absolutely nothing from any manager in your department. You sit at your desk, hating both your manager for holding your fate in limbo and your friends for knowing that they're minutes away from heading home.
In all three of these hypothetical examples, you can see why the employee would be pissed that they're not in the loop. The employee either is finding out important things from other co-workers or not finding out at all. How would you feel if this happened to you? Has this happened to you? I don't know about you, but when I feel like management doesn't care about me (and by not communicating effectively, that's the signal that's sent), I wonder why I should care about doing anything to help management. It has to be a two-way street, and it's no fun driving down a one-way road in the wrong direction.
There are many other examples out there, but I don't want to steal all the thunder. Let's hear your examples of poor communication at the workplace. Share your stories with us by posting a comment.
5 comments:
Where I work, I am the "go-between" from upper management to the part-timers. This leads to problems since I have somehow ended up with THREE "duty-boxes" in my office (one for full-time, one for part-time, and my mailbox). they're in three different places, and I never know where added work gets put. I've missed extra production work as a result in the past. What makes it doubly great is the fact I never know when people are on vacation, and their work gets added to mine for a week. That's a hell of a way to run a company, eh?
I've been thinking about how to respond to this one. This is one of my pet peeves. Communication is one of the most important things in our lives.
When you really break this down think of it first on a personal level. You're in ,a relationship and something your partner does or says really irritates you but you don't communicate it to this person. After awhile, your feelings continue to fester until the next time your partner upsets you you throw this in their face & they haven't got a clue what hit them. Now you have a huge issue to deal with.
On the work front, you go to work and you're doing your job as you always do; suddenly you're told that the process has changed and everything you just did needs to be done over. Didn't you get the memo?
Here's what happened to me recently:
I went on a "business trip" and was told by a superior that since the first day was a Sunday and the fourth day was all travel time that I should have the next day off. Of course, since there were flight delays and such, I went ahead & took the day off. A few days later I was told by my immediate supervisor that I needed to take that day as PTO as this is what was communicated to her.
Hmmm, guess the "superiors" don't even communicate well.
How can we be expected to communicate with our upper management when they can't even communicate with each other??
Hmmm, sounds like a couple of weak communicators you know of or work for at your company. It is obvious that you have a desire to quit your current job as you really dislike it and/or the company. This blog seems more like a roundabout way to get the company to find out about your displeasure and 1. try to retain you (doubtful) or 2. fire you really fast (likely). You should try to get a new job now while you currently have one. Maybe something that taps into this creativity you have, your writing skills, or maybe your humor? You have the power to do it. It just takes that first step. Maybe you could post on why you aren't looking for a new job and are just stagnating in your current job complaining through the internet. Oh darn, comment moderation is on, at least you have to read this.
Dear anonymous,
Thank you for taking time out of your day to not only read my column but to post a comment about it as well. Enjoy the blog, and thanks for reading!
Your hypothetical example #1 has described my current boss so exactly, I wonder if we work in the same office.
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