Impact of Informal Communication on Employee Motivation and Transgressions at Workplace

This paper discusses the impact of informal communication on employee motivation and transgressions at workplace. It covers topics like unconscious organization, emotional labor, grapevine technology, and transgressions. The paper also highlights the current trends in business communication and the importance of emotional intelligence in managing emotions at workplace.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Unconscious Organisation...............................................................................................................3
Emotional Labor..............................................................................................................................5
Transgressions.................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................9
References........................................................................................................................................9
1

Introduction:
1.1 In any organization information circulates backwards, forwards and sideways which is
known as communication. Formal communication can be defined as the communication that
occurs by following predefined or official or prescribed rules, regulation and policy of the
organization. Such kind of communication generally takes place between employees or managers
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of same level or between subordinate ad superior and vice versa. It may be written or oral but
full record of such communication is kept in an organization(Saleem & Perveen, 2017).In
contrast, informal communication is a communication that does not follow any formal lines or
predefined channel to share information in an organization. It generally takes place between the
workers to share their ideas and to satisfy social needs. Example: Coworkers talking about the
behaviors of their seniors(Lunenburg, 2010).
Communication channels is the way in which information transfers in the organization. There are
several communication channels which are being used to circulate information(Chand, n.d.).
Formal communication channels generally transfer information like policies, goals, reporters and
procedures of an organizations etc. The most commonly used technology for formal
communication are communication newsletters, formal meetings, company magazines, memos,
letters etc. There is always an informal communication network within a formal working
environment in an organization(Weedman, n.d.). Team work, quality circles, several training
programmes etc. fall under this category. Informal communication media includes telephone,
email, voice messaging, chat etc.
Formal communication is flow of information’s through different levels of organizational
hierarchy and sticks to predefined rules and regulations, policy and standards of the organization.
While the informal communication does not follow any kind of set patterns. The main purpose of
formal communication is to pass the information among several departments of an organization.
While the purpose of informal is to maintain relationship inside and outside of the organization.
The formal communication is not flexible and can be changed according to the situation(Surbhi,
2015).The preference of individual differs based what they are communication with whom.
According to a survey in June 2009 on marketing 24% of the customers communicate more often
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through text. Out of them 33% are using email more often than they were 6 months ago in
comparison to the 10% people who uses email occasionally. Further, majority of people i.e. 67%
wanted the permission-based promotions via text.As per the survey conducted by ethics resource
center, stated that the half of the people who were surveyed had witnessed some kind of ethical
misconduct(Rodriguez, 2015). The result also stated that most of the employees or workers of
America perform their job in correct manner and also reported those who did not follow the
ethical standards of behavior.
The motivation level in employee is vital for any organization as its significant for the growth of
both individual and the organization. It is important for any organization to understand the
requirement of its employee to cope different challenges so that the policies are developed
according to their needs. This paper briefs on different aspects of informal communication and it
impact on employee motivation and transgression at workplace.
Unconscious Organisation
The unconscious and hidden sentiments is defined as an aspect of an individual’s behavior and
thinking which affects his action in a certain way towards some individual (Dalal, 2017). The
people are generally unaware about their behavior towards certain races of people which may
seem discriminatory.
2.2
The flow of information among employees or between the employee and employer in an
unprofessional or informal manner is know as informal communication. Though this
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communication style is carried out in friendly manner, it has its drawbacks. The more the
informal communication within the organization the more people gets involved in rumor and
gossips about other employees(Mikkelsen, et al., 2015). This sometimes leads to situation when
employee becomes rude and hurt others feelings and emotions. This certainly, hampers the
working environment and eventually affecting the employee performance. The gossips and
conversation of longer duration affects both organization and individual’s productivity. The
impact of these kind of activities also affects the performance of employee who are true and
dedicated towards their job. Informal communication also give rise to conflicts affecting the
relationship between fellow employees(Jones, 2017). The communication style of this nature
gives undue advantage to employee while communicating with their superiors thus affecting the
relation between them. Informal communication mostly consists of gossips which may be vague
that could harm the productivity of the organization. Thus, there is use of both informal and
formal communication for any organization to succeed. It becomes difficult at time to control the
flow of informal information and its origin(Iasmina, et al., 2010). All these activities affecting
the overall performance of the employee and the organization which eventually hampers the
motivation level of the employee.
2.3
Grapevine technology that have used as informal communication
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It is a type of informal communication which is comprised of rumor and gossip. It is popular in
most of the organization as it does not follow any kind of defined rules and spreads any message
very quickly(Smith & Smith, 2014). It happens through both external and internal channels. It
mostly passes information, rumors, suspicions which do not flow in case of formal
communication. This type of communication is not governed by formalities and official
regulation but by personal and social relationship(Anon., 2015). The flow of information in
grapevine are either vertical, horizontal and even diagonal linking almost everyone of the
organization. The existence of this style of communication is due to sense of belonging between
managers and staffs brings. Thus, it builds corporate identity and helps in teamwork.
Most of the information passing through this channel are true due to its style of communication.
However, it can also lead to passing wrong information at times which can affect the working
environment within the organization.
2.4
There are several factors which has impacted business communication in todays world. One of
the factor which is reshaping the communication world is the introduction of technology or the
digital transformation(Eisenhauer, 2014). The following are the current trends which the current
generation uses for communication at workplace are as follows:
Cloud base communication system
The introduction of cloud commutation has replaced the costly and premises-based system of old
days. Most of the companies in today’s context has realize the value of cloud-based
communication services because it requires less capital, low operating expenses, user friendly
and faster than the previous modes of communication.
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Mobile devices
The use of smart phones has revolutionized the business and commercial world. The various
mobile applications ahs further made the exchange of messages or in information faster that can
reach to desired number of people within the fraction of a second.
Instant communication
There are many messaging applications which the employees use on daily basis and remain
connected even after their work time. The options like video calls for conferencing, sharing of
documents, storage, and transfer of data, project management tools etc. have replaced the older
age systems with newer team collaboration tools.
The fall of the face to face meetings:
It is not odd to state that the face to face meetings has been mostly replaced with the introduction
of emails, video conferencing, mobile or landlines, messaging applications. According to a
survey, 95% of people wishes to use communication tools instead of meeting person face to face.
Emotional Labor
Emotional labor can be defined as the process by which workers manage their expressions and
feelings to fulfill the emotional needs of a job according to the defined guidelines and rules of
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the organization. In 1983 sociologist Arlie Hochschild introduced this term in her book called
“The Managed Heart” that described the things service workers do beyond mental and physical
duties(Wharton, 2009).
It occurs when workers suppress or introduce their emotions in order to represent themselves in a
certain way that results a wanted state of mind in another. It is important for workers to control
their emotions while interacting with co-workers, superiors and costumers.
To show a genuine concern to the needs of customers making positive eye contact and smiling
are very important to customer’s perception on quality of service. So emotional labor includes
these activities which are important to worker’s performance(Yoo & Jeong, 2017).
When worker engage themselves in emotional labor they need to control their feeling to fulfill
the expectations and goals of the organization. They need to express only positive feeling and
hide or suppress negative feelings.
To manage negative thoughts and emotions people tend to show the emotions that they actually
don’t feel, hide their true feelings and create a suitable emotion for the situation.
There are two labor techniques that involves:
Surface acting: People pretend or fake to have an emotion by using artificial and unnatural verbal
communication and body language. Using a soft tone of voice and smiling helps to hide people’s
true emotions and show emotions that they don’t feel.
Deep acting: People control their internal emotions and direct them to believe that they are
actually enjoining the interaction with other and convincing themselves that they are not feeling
and negative kind of reaction.
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3.2
Emotional labor is the tendency of recognizing self and other person feelings to keep ourselves
motivated and manage our emotions to maintain healthy relationship at workplace(Handel,
2013). There are mainly four attributes of emotional labor; self-management, self-awareness,
social awareness and relationship management. One of the effective way of improving
communication skill is how an individual manages his emotions of workplace. For example:
when a CEO of a company lacks emotional intelligence, then he may lose his emotion and react
unexpectedly while encountering an unexpected question(Roh, et al., 2015). This issue is not
only limited to media interviews or public speaking. The company representatives or leaders who
lack or have not developed the emotional labor often reacts to the situation s without controlling
their verbal and tone responses. This may lead to inappropriate body language and can further
deteriorate the relationships with customers, employees, strategic partners, investors. This kind
of behavior at workplace could also lead to financial loss and it is apparent that, managing
emotions at workplace is beneficial to both company and individual’s performance.
3.3
Arlie Hoschild, coined this term to describe the situation of service workers who goes beyond
physical and mental duties. The attributes of quality service are addressing customer needs
making, positive eye contact, smiling, maintaining proper tone etc.
It is particularly challenging to address angry clients who are not satisfied with the provided
service and controlling emotions at that times becomes very much difficult(Hsieh, 2016). It
becomes very much important at that time to hide the emotions and continue with a smile even
after receiving negative feedbacks from customer, it becomes very much important to understand
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the impact of emotional labor on their growth and performance. It is equally essential for the
organization to understand the requirement of the labor so that they can support them and help to
minimize the impact of emotional labor(Rakowska & Valdes, 2014).
One of the major impact of emotional labor is emotional conflict between the fake and real
emotions. According to research, a conflict of this nature can lead to emotional exhaustion and
burn out for the employee who hides their emotions on the regular interval further leading to
mental stress and detachment from personal relationships(Wipulanusat, 2017). The people with
low social awareness and negative personality have difficultly in dealing with emotional conflict
and more often experience emotional exhaustion. Hence, it is important to understand the effects
of emotional labor so tat policies ad steps are implemented accordingly to minimize the negative
impact of emotional labor.
3.4
The informal communication network existing in an organization which is used to spread
gossips, rumors or information by completely ignoring the formal communication
structure(Sharma, 2017). Similar to a grapevine plant, the information in this style of
communication spreads in random ways and directions. In 2013, Pravin identified flow of
information in Grapevine takes place in four ways:
Single strand chain: the information in this flow is in the form of series. For example: X tells
something to Y and Y passes that to Z and so on.
The gossip chain: in this a single person spreads the message to move number of people or
groups. The person can belong to more than one group.
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The probability chain: the information in this type of style spreads from anybody to unknown
groups or persons. This type of communication takes place when the message is interesting but is
of less importance.
The cluster chain: in this style of communication, the information flows from selected groups.
For example: an individual passes the information to few selected individuals and they further
pass the message to other selected individuals and so on. This is one of the most dominant style
existing in an organization.
Transgressions:
Transgression from societal and psychological point of views is defied as an unwanted or
destructive act of behavior, violating laws, norms, budgets etc. in general as per legal,
psychological, social, religious refers to a process of a crossing a permitted boundary to a
process of a crossing a permitted boundary. There are certain disciplinary procedures that should
be followed regarding transgressions:
i. The process of disciplinary act falling under matters of misconducts.
ii. The process of counselling, guidance, training, evaluation etc. falling under matter of
incapacity or poor performance or incompatibility.
The main aim of disciplinary process is to contact undesirable or unacceptable behavior by
applying sanctions or progressive disciplinary measures(Strutchers, et al., 2005). If the imposed
sanctions do not bring desired result then more strict or stringiest action is taken against the
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employee to correct his actions and make him fall into the line. In worst scenario, it may lead to
the termination of the employee.
In case of counselling process, the employers do not impose any sanction rather provides
training, guidance, instructions in order to help them in overcoming their weakness. The
transgression at work place has become common these days due to increased work pressure,
stress and weak motivational approaches which compels employee to transgress.
The transgression at workplace happens due to various factors like work pressure, stress,
stringiest policies, less or no motivations etc. forces employee to break the rule and act according
to their wish.
As per Ingram (2013), there is equal contribution of both employer and employee in keeping the
working environment motivated and the behavior of one party determines the action of the other
party. Hence, the policies of the organizations, determine the action and performance of the
workforce. The management who try to impose strict policies and behave in an abrasive way
then it may affect the working spirit of the employee leading to transgressions.
The reasons for employee transgression are listed below:
Performance
Almost in any organizations, the employee tries to fulfill the organizational goals by following
the guidelines, policies of the organization. The managers always try to deliver top performance
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on daily basis so that the lower subordinates have similar kind of mindset. The managers who
follow the work ethics indirectly infuse the same traits to the people working under them which
decreases the transgression among the employee(Mok & Cremer, 2015).
But at time, when the highest management of the company promotes the undeserving candidates
and become biased then it affects the performance of the deserving candidates and promotes
transgression. The unfair appraisals and lack of recognizing the hard work of the employee
translates into transgression in employees.
Effective communication among the employee
The proper communication of company’s regulation, policies, procedures are significant for any
company. The way both employee and employee communicate directly impacts the performance
and motivation level in employee which may lead to transgressions. According to research
conducted by Khuong and Hoang in 2015 states that, the managers who are in continuous touch
with their employee, replicates the same behavior among themselves (Chapman & Light, 2017).
The employee comes and shares their feedback, experiences regarding various work-related
issues through effective communication which contributes in overall growth of the organisation.
But any kind of barrier to discontinue this process can negatively affect their performance. This
happens due to lack of communication as the workers starts feeling that they are not being
recognized for their hard work. This feeling of transgression among employees translates into
transgressions.
Morale:
The working style of managers in any organisation affects the morale of the employee. This can
be a positive or negative affect depending upon the behavior of the manager(Fay, 2011). For
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example- The manager who is usually friendly with his employees can boost their morale. On the
other hand, the manager who do not care about the performance of his employees and their
welfare often faces difficulty in achieving even small milestone. This habit of ignoring the
contribution of employee and treating them like ordinary workers to achieve impossible goals
hampers the performance of the employee and the organisation as well. In this way, the
employees lose their self-worth and starts doubting on their abilities which eventually leads to
transgressions.
4.3
Pros and cons of Informal communication:
 The advantages of informal communication include:
 It becomes easier for the employee to understand the information properly under informal
system which helps in completing the work properly(Kurose, 2013).
 It helps in maintaining good relationship between the employee and the manager as most
of the issue gets resolved informally which becomes difficult through formal
communication.
 It increases the efficiency of the employee as the employee openly discuss their problems
and gets its resolved instantly.
 Under the informal system, the workers can present their needs, problems, challenges
more openly in front of the higher management.
Apart from the advantages there are several drawbacks of informal system:
 The actual meaning and matter of the information gets distorted under this system.
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 In this the wrong information or rumors spreads rapidly which at times hampers the
reputation of the company(Saleem, 2015).
Grapevine is form of informal communication in which the information spreads
randomly throughout the organisation in an undocumented manner.
Conclusion:
From the above paper it is evident that, the effective communication style is significant for the
growth of both the individual and the organisation. Both formal and informal communication
style should coexist to ensure only useful information flows throughout the organisation blocking
the unnecessary gossips and rumor.The more people involves in gossips and rumors the more it
hampers the productivity of the company. The introduction of various technology has changed
the old age communication style and have made the business communication more fast and
convenient.This paper also explained the ways by which informal communication affects the
motivation level in employees at work place. It also stated the unconscious bias towards certain
race. The informal communication style like grapevine can also be useful in passing the
information among employees as its strengthen the relation which not improves the team
coordination but also enhances the performance of whole team. The management should
understand the need of its employees so that they can support them by planning policies
according to their need and minimize transgressions. The manager should interact with his
employees on regular intervals so that the workers can openly share their concern which would
be beneficial for the growth of individual and the organisation at the same time.
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How can informal communication have negative and positive impacts on employee’s
motivation?
Ans.) Communication is part of the organization and each effort of the organization should take
into account the aspect of the human component for the development of the organization. In this
effective informal communication is understood as an important. Informal communication
becomes a critical element that is necessary during the periods of the radical changes in the
organization (Fay and Kline 2011). During the periods of radical changes in the organization, the
management communication acquires ne valences and becomes art that is more than anyone else
is. Informal communication has the potential to allow human minds to change but at the same
time also provoke the hearts of the people to change. A structural change in the organization
demands a rational change in attitude and this can be quite difficult to achieve. An open
permanent, supportive communication and precise that would result from the strategic thinking
and the attitude change in question would be impossible to achieve (Alvesson, Hardy and Harley
2008). Communication has the potential to develop a positive self-image of the individual for a
favorable, rich and coherent communication. Informal communication can be a harmonization
instrument in employee motivation and can be used by the managers for fulfilling the functions
and in achieving the objectives of the organization. With the aim of accomplishing the tasks and
achievement of the organizational goals, every individual in the organization communicates with
each other (Yoo and Jeong 2017). There are times within the organization, when employees
irrespective of their position engage in communication with the employee that is not related to
work; however, is it related to the personal life of the individual. This may involve enquiring
about the family issues of the employees, trying to understand their feelings, different interests of
th employees, thoughts, personal goals, individual motivations and their outlook towards their
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colleagues and their personal lives. Research has found that when the relationship between the
employer and the employee is closer, the employee is more likely to speak about their feelings
regarding the relationship and how much they care about the employees. This feature of informal
communication enables the employees to cdevelop clodse relationsip with the employer and
understands the vision of the employer. Informal communication would provide opportunity to
the employee to understand the motivations behind the employer in establishing the company
and in turn would play a key role in the motivation of the employees. In the situation when
employers and employees are engaged in close relationship they are able to strengthen their bond
and feel motivated to deliver their best performance. The rationale behind the emphasis on
emotion in the context of effective informal communication may be attributed to the power of
integrating emotion in communicating to the employees. Therefore, in modern times it can be
seen that industries are organized around the logic of informal communication. This feature of
the informal communication empowers all the individuals in the organization to work like a big
family. The role of emotional labour in the organizational processes represents the front line of
the customers who embody the image of the organization. High service employees engage in
emotional labour (Duke, Goodman, Treadway and Breland 2009). However, there are evident
negative outcomes of emotional labour in the communication with the employees it can lead to
the suppression of the actual feelings of the employees considering that it would lacerate the
feelings of the employer and therefore, ruin the relationship of bonhomie with the employer. In
this kind of situation, employees would be less likely to communicate their feeling to the
employer and register protest in case of any misdoing. For example, supervisors may withhold
messages stating that he wanted to communicate to the employee that not everything is that easy,
as it seems. Another negative impact of informal communication in employee motivation is that
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the norms of communication can affect the employer-employee relationship. The suppression of
feelings during interaction with the colleagues and the co-workers would lead to the alteration of
perception and the change in communication patterns. Emotions that are expressed between the
members of the organization have the potential to influence the members. It has the potential to
motivate the employees to remain committed towards the organization. Employees have been
found to maintain good relationship with the organization and they feel at least they must feign
friendliness. The organizational culture is the manifestation of the conscious and the unconscious
psychological processes that guide the behavior of the people in their respective organizational
role and the organization as a whole. Unconscious processes of the organization is inspired from
the ideology of functionalism that underscore on the instrumental function of culture as the
structural element of the organization and therefore culture is seen as not a process that just
generates and cast the meanings but are effective for the organization (Nonaka and Von Krogh
2009). In the healthcare sector, people are expected to use technologies that would ease their
workload, facilitate in the collaboration, creation of accurate records, delivery of the medical
care and keeping the information of the patients secured. In case an employee feels emotionally
attached towards the organization, the work performed by the employee would lead to better
results. However, emotions can ruin the employee motivation and come in between the
professionalism of the patients (Nocolini 2012). However, it cannot be denied that when
employees find an opportunity speak their heart out and engage in non-work related topic it helps
them in relieving stress and overcome the work-related pressure by creating a compatible
environment that would facilitate cordiality. This also plays an important role motivating the
employees to demonstrate their loyalty towards the company.
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How can informal communication have negative and positive impacts on employees’
transgression?
Ans.) Earlier it has been discussed that employee transgression is an outcome of the
stringent rules, work related pressure, lack of proper communication channels to address
the concerns of the employees and the autocratic management style like that of amazon
where the employees do not enjoy a personal life. A research conducted by Kouchaki
have shown that unethical behavior at the workplace can be attributed to the state of ego
depletion for the employees (Becker, Cropanzano and Sanfey 2011). It happens when the
employees are worn out as a result of fatigue, physical discomfort or exhaustion of
making continuous choices. Self-regulatory resources in the organization are limited and
it needs to be replenished to be used again. Managers have been found to create a risk
precedent. The grapevine or the unofficial communication is known as informal
communication. Sue to the cfeature of the interconnected network structure of the
grapevine, information would flow quickly between the individuals and that can rapidly
spread across the organization. However, informal communication can have negative
impact on the transgression of the employees when confidential information is shared. It
has the potential to spread rumours and create misunderstandings. It can become quite
difficult to control the gossips considering that the source of the gossip is often not found
and once the gossip spreads, it continues to do so. Some the disadvantages of informal
communication that leads to the transgression of the employees are distortion. Informal
communication since it does not follow any codified rules; it can transmit any
communication to any person without any fear or respect (Feldman and Orlikowski
2011). It can spread and wrong distorted message and push the employee for punishment.
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The wrong and distorted images may tarnish the image and reputation of the person who
is at the centre of the gossip and make the person feel bad. Any secret matter can be
flashed without problem or hesitation and it can lead to huge damage to the organization.
Information that is released from such of communication network. There are chances of
being misunderstood. Informal communication or grapevine communication among the
employees leads to the non-cooperation emerging from confusion and remain separate
without any movement. The real facts are fabricated through informal communication
and rumors are spread about a person. Even if the person is not involved the incident, the
rumor mill may make the person to engage in unethical behavior and transgress laws that
s/he might repent later. Informal communication may lead employees to misunderstand
each other. This may happen due to indecency, lack of conduct, decorum and the conflict
between the employees. This conflict between the employees may escalate to that stage
where the employees engage in unethical behavior. Informal communication may lead to
the employees committing mistakes as it is subject to errors and mistakes because there
are no officials that operate in the informal communication. From the perspective of the
organization, theories of human memory and the learning display pleasant emotions that
would promote goals of the organization (Kandlousi, Ali and Abdollahi 2010). However,
as identified by Humphrey, Pollack and Hawver (2008), emotional labour can be a
double-edged sword and have negative outcome. The emotions displayed can appear
false and poses it to be urgent. It has been argued that synthetic compassion can be much
hurtful than not at all. As argued by Hochschild (2015), emotional labour portray
emotions that are not being felt and creates strain of emotive dissonance that is akin to the
cognitive dissonance. This kind of dissonance may make the labourer feel hypocritical
26

and false. This kind of dissonance can lead to work-related or personal maladjustment
lead to poor self-esteem for the employees along with depression, alienation from the
work and cynicism. Despite the positive impact of emotional labour, deep acting may
distort the reactions of the person and damage the authentic self of the person (Karimi,
Leggat, Donohue, Farrell and Couper 2014). There are associations of emotional labour
with stress and the job dissatisfaction. The fulcrum around which emotional labour is
woven around there emerges discrepancy between the expected emotions and the
emotions that is expressed or experienced. This discrepancy is common considering the
display rules that control the expressive behavior and that cannot regulate expressive
behavior (Hülsheger, Alberts, Feinholdt and Lang 2013). Deep acting can lead to more
difficulties with each of the repetition that tends to blunt the emotion. Researchers off late
have realized the importance and unique demands pertaining to an organization that have
far-reaching effects with the customer-management interface (Kartepe 2013). Employees
use emotional labour to dictate the goals through manipulation. When there is a disparity
between the emotional displays of oneself and the institutional display rules. When there
is a discrepancy between the expected rule and the emotional regulation strategies in the
form of deep acting and surface acting are adopted. Negative affectivity in the individuals
is one dispositional trait that is possessed by the individuals that pushes them to
experience more negative emotions with time and situations and pushes them to enegage
in untoward or unethical behavior (Wipulanusat 2017). Negative affectivity and political
skill of the employee realtes to the perceived negative attitude of the individual that ahs
further impact on stress and job-induced tension of the employee. Linear thinking style is
associated with the with the regulation of the emotions of the employees and non-linear
27

emotions are related to the facilitation of thinking and reasonable use of the behavior
(Jung and Yoon 2014). Considering that the transression of the employees is not a
desirable characteristic it can be stated that informal communication cannot have positive
impact on the transgression of the employees, however it bears negative impact on the
transgression of the employees.
28

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