Methods of securing Effective Employee Communication

To make the communication effective, the receiver must receive the communication as it is desired. Effective communication is the backbone of good interpersonal relationship as well as organizational growth. Organizational communication should satisfy the needs of organization and its employees.

In order to achieve effective employee communication in organizations various OB academicians have offered various methods/guidelines. Among these two important methods are as follows;

  1. Fred Luthan’s View
  2. McShane and Glinow’s View

A.  Fred Luthan’s View

He has offered very comprehensive and appropriate ideas among others. He has divided methods into two parts;

1. Ways to improve downward communication:

  1. The use of management information system (MIS) helps to solve some of the information overload problem of the downward system.
  2. More attention must be given to the receiver and to use of multimedia techniques.
  3. Written communication should be drafted and circulated in such a way that they will understand it easily.

2. Ways to improve upward communication:

  1. The grievance procedure: It allows employees to make an appeal upward beyond their immediate superior.
  2. Open-door policy: It is continuous invitation for subordinates to come in and talk about anything that is troubling them.
  3. Counselling, attitude questionnaires, and exit interview: Much valuable information can be gained from these forms of communication.
  4. Participative techniques: Participative decision techniques can generate a great deal of communication.
  5. The ombudsperson: This technique is useful to enable management to obtain more subordinate-initiated communication is the use of an ombudsperson. This concept has been used for persons who have been treated unfairly or in a depersonalized manner by large, bureaucratic government. It may work where the open-door policy has failed.

B. McShane and Glinow’s View

They have offered methods to improve interpersonal communication in general. According to them effective interpersonal communication depends on the sender’s ability to get the message across and receiver’s performance as an active listener. There are two essential features of interpersonal communication. They are;

1. Getting your message across:

Effective communication occurs when the other person receives and understand the message. To accomplish the difficult task, the sender must learn to emphasize (consider other’s feelings) the receiver, repeat the message (as per requirement), choose an appropriate time (right message at the right time) for the conversation, and be descriptive rather than evaluative (focus on problem, not the person).

2. Active listening:

Active listening constantly cycle through sensing (sensing can be improve by postponing evaluation, avoiding interruptions, and maintaining interest), evaluating (emphasize with the speaker, and organize information received during the conversation), and responding (showing interest, and clarifying the message) during the conversation and engage in various activities to improve these processes.