Workplace Communication Challenges

2. Workplace Communication Challenges • Employers clearly want employees who communicate well: • 40 million people in the U.S. alone have limited literacy skills, including some college graduates. • States spend more than $220 million annually on remedial writing programs for employees. • Corporations may spend $3.1 billion annually to fix problems from writing deficiencies. • The cost is $22.13 per page for a typical letter.

3. Workplace Communication Challenges continued • Work requires communication • People communicate to plan products and services; hire, train, and motivate workers; coordinate manufacturing and delivery; persuade customers to buy; and bill them for the sale. • For many business, nonprofit, community, and government organizations, the "product" is information or a service rather than something tangible. • Information and services are created and delivered by communication.

4. Verbal and Nonverbal Communication • Communication takes many forms: • Verbal Communication that uses words, includes • Face-to-Face/Phone Conversations/Meetings • Text/E-mail/Voice-Mail Messages • Letters, Memos, and Reports • Nonverbal Communication that does not use words, includes • Pictures/Company Logos • Gestures/Body Language

5. Workplace Communication • Even in your first job, you'll communicate. • You'll read information; • you'll listen to instructions; • you'll ask questions; • you may solve problems with other workers in teams. • In a manufacturing company, hourly workers travel to a potential customer to make oral sales presentations. • Communication affects all level of work

6. Workplace Communication • The conclusion is simple: Good communication skills are vital in today's workplace. • The better an employee's communication skills are, the better his or her chance for success.

7. Business and School Writing • While all good writing shares basic principles, business writing is often different than other school writing. • For instance, business writing prefers shorter sentences and paragraphs, a more conversational tone, and more dynamic document designs than a typical college essay

8. Business and School Writing • Essays may be written primarily for instructors, business writing often has multiple audiences.

9. Business and School Writing

10. Internal and External Audiences • Communication—oral, nonverbal, and written—goes to both internal and external audiences. • Internal: people in the same organization • Subordinates • Supervisors • Peers • External: people outside the organization • Customers/Suppliers/Stockholders • Unions/Government Agencies • Press/General Public

13. The Importance of Listening, Speaking, and interpersonal Communication • Informal listening, speaking, and working in groups are just as important as writing formal documents and giving formal oral presentations.

14. Basic Purposes of Messages • Workplace massages can have one or more of these basic purposes: • To inform: explain or tell readers something. • To request or to persuade: want the reader to act. • To build goodwill: create a good image of yourself and of your organization. • Most messages have multiple purposes

15. Good Business Writing(Effective Message) • Is clear: The meaning the reader gets is the meaning the writer intended. • Is complete: All of the reader’s questions are answered. • Is correct: All information are accurate. • Builds goodwill: The message presents a positive image of the writer. • Saves the reader’s time.

16. Good Business Writing(Effective Message) • Whether a message meets these five criteria depends on: • the interactions among the writer, the audience, • the purposes of the message, • and the situation. • No single set of words will work in all possible situations.

17. Poor Business Writing • Poor correspondence costs even more. • When writing isn't as good as it could be: • you and your organization pay a price in wasted time, • wasted efforts, and • Lost goodwill.

18. Before WritingPAIBOC Questions you need to answer before you begin composing your message. PWhat are yourpurposesin writing?List all your purposes, major and minor: specify exactly what you want your reader to know, think, or do. AWho is (are) your audiences? How do they differs from each other? What Characteristic are relevant? How will they respond to your message?

19. PAIBOC continued IWhat informationmust your message include? Make a list of the points that must be included; check your draft. Put the information without emphasizing in the middle. BWhat reasons or readerbenefitscan you use to support your position? Make sure the benefits are adapted to your reader.

20. PAIBOCcontinued OWhatobjectionscan you expect your reader(s) to have? Some negative elements can only be deemphasized. Others can be overcome. CHow will thecontextaffect reader response? Your relationship to the reader, the economy, the time of the year,..etc.

21. Assignment • 1.11 Introducing Yourself to Your Instructor • Write a memo (at least 1X pages long) introducing yourself to your instructor. • Include the following topics: • Background: • Where did you grow up? • What you done in terms of school, extracurricular activities, jobs, and family life?

22. Assignment • Interests: • What are you interested in? • What do you like to do? • What do you like to think about and talk about? • Achievements: • What achievements have given you the greatest personal satisfaction? • List at least five. • Include things which gave you a real sense of accomplishment and pride, whether or not they're the sort of thing you'd list on a résumé.

23. Unit One End of Module 1