Importance of Communication Channels in Workplace

The article discusses the significance of communication channels in the workplace, its impact on project delivery, and recommendations for improvement. It also highlights the communication theory with respect to organizational behavior and the importance of feedback provision in organizational growth.

1: The workplace experience that I have identified to be meaningful is a consistent formation of
communication channel to ensure that the teams are able to work together effectively and efficiently.
This is done to ensure that there is limited amount of discrepancy in following orders and completing
the tasks in time. I have seen that communication channels that are strong have helped in delivering
high quality products and services over time. Companies where the communication channels are not
strong enough, the projects are either not completed within the deadline given or lack in terms of
quality. In every team, there are people who like to sit and make others take care of their tasks as
well. It is for the project manager to ensure that every team member is working in accordance with
the tasks assigned and do not ask others to do their work, while they take the credit for the same.
This is the problem with the team of marketing professionals that I have been working in. Two team
members tend to not work at all and give others to do major part of their work.
2: To support the above reflection, I would like to highlight the communication theory with respect
to organizational behavior as stated by Winarso (2018). The author stresses on the growing
importance of effective communication strategies to be adopted in order to ensure that the projects
are delivered in the best possible manner. The theory includes factors such as Upward
Communication model, lateral communication schemes, horizontal communication and the
importance of the overall flow of information. In my organization the vertical communication model
is adopted i.e. top to bottom flow of information and bottom to top flow of information.
The team leaders tend to share information and distribute the tasks among the different members.
However, at times, some of the team members do not work in accordance with the fair share of
workload that is assigned to them. In view of this, the others who are taking care of parts of their
work are at times unable to complete their work in time which eventually leads to repeated number
of performance issues with them. Apart from this, although the theories suggest that the bottom to
top level communication works in majority of the cases; however, in our organization, feedback is
not taken very seriously at times which is eventually causing unrest among team members.

3: The recommendations for improvement in this situation is as follows:
 Team leaders must be more attentive to the workplace issues that the team members are
facing
 Individual feedback by team leaders should be taken to understand the team dynamics rather
than assigning tasks and just making sure that the project is delivered
 Senior management must take feedback from team leaders and understand the impact of such
situations on teams. A deeper analysis of the problems faced by the team should be taken into
account and actions must be taken against team members who are not performing their
responsibilities appropriately
 Feedbacks from employees anonymously must also be allowed so that individual can share
their problems in case the team leader is being biased towards other team members
 A more concrete project management tool can be put into place where every employee is
expected to record their daily activities and showcase the progress that they have made.
 All communications should be done in a formal manner so that some bullies of a team are
unable to exploit others and get them to do their work
4: As a result of this exercise, I was able to understand the varied other implications of non-
compliance to the communication channels as described by an organization. I have also been able to
comprehend the flow of information and how communication has been able to deliver the most
complex projects since the team members were able to share information in time. From the varied
other communication theories, I also understood that the importance of feedback provision in
organizational behavior is crucial for the overall growth of the individual and the organization both.
The flow of information in the communication theories must not be only vertical but also horizontal
which ultimately makes an organization more successful.

References
Winarso, W. (2018). Organizational Communication, A Conceptual Framework. DOI:
10.17605/OSF.IO/G9UBC