Informal Communication, Emotional Labor, and Workplace Transgression

This essay explores the dynamics of informal communication within organizations, contrasting it with formal communication and highlighting its impact on employee motivation and workplace transgressions. It delves into the concept of 'unconscious organization,' examining how hidden sentiments and informal communication can lead to rumors, gossip, and conflicts, ultimately affecting employee performance. The essay also discusses 'grapevine communication,' its role in spreading information (both accurate and inaccurate), and the influence of technology on modern business communication. Furthermore, it analyzes 'emotional labor,' focusing on how managing emotions affects workers, and the potential for emotional exhaustion and burnout. The essay concludes by summarizing the key issues and trends, emphasizing the need for organizations to understand and manage both formal and informal communication channels effectively to foster a positive and productive work environment. The full essay, along with other solved assignments, is available on Desklib for students' reference.

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