University Report: Workplace Communication and Miscommunication Issues

This report examines the impact of organizational communication, especially in diverse cultural settings, highlighting the challenges posed by miscommunication. It presents a scenario involving two employees from different locations, illustrating how differing communication styles (high vs. low context) and external factors like weather can lead to misunderstandings. The report analyzes key challenges such as operational differences, time constraints, and a lack of awareness of contextual issues. It then proposes solutions rooted in Media Richness Theory, emphasizing the effectiveness of face-to-face communication, including video calls, to overcome communication barriers. The report concludes by advocating for a communication model that prioritizes face-to-face interaction to reduce ambiguity and foster stronger employee relationships, ultimately improving organizational operations.

Running head: WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION
WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION
Executive Summery
Organizational communication has a huge effect of social culture as employees from
different cultures meet under one roof. The communication that occurs among the
employees are influenced by high context and low context communication. The report
gives an outline about the challenges regarding miscommunication that hamper the
productivity of an organization. The report discusses about the mitigation of
communication challenges with the help of Media Richness Theory. Lastly, the report
concludes with the solution based on face-to-face communication.

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WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION
Introduction
The given scenario is clearly projecting a miscommunication between two employees.
The miscommunication hampered the organizational communication. The organizational
communication is mostly verbal. The style and model of organizational communication
largely based on the culture of the society. In an organization, employees from different
organization meet each other hence, the communication varies (Shockley-Zalabak 2014). The
disadvantage of diversity of communication in organization is as the employees come from
different cultural background so the mode of communication changes during verbal
interaction.
Some cultures patronize high context communication some follow low context
communication. High context communication uses jargons; information is not explicit so
there are some messages remain unsaid (Ward et al. 2016). On the other hand, low context
communication information is stated clearly.
In the given situation, Kelly is from Chicago based company United Technologies
and Henry is also from the same company but he deals with customer servicing in Indonesia.
In order to speed up the task Henry was asked by Kelly to train all the service representatives
in a very short term. Henry stated the challenge the operation may face is the weather
condition. It was witnessed that the only 65% work is done but Kelly being a superior to
Henry who operates from Chicago became offended regarding progress of the work.
Key Challanges
The communication challenge is faced by both the employees is place. The
operational place is different for Kelly and Henry. To improve the service of the company
employee training is essential. Kelly was not aware of the fact that the city where is looking

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after the customer servicing the city face problems during monsoon. The second challenge is
time; the time schedule is too short to train all the employees (Celuch and Cecil 2014). The
communication gap impedes them to comprehend each other’s challenge. The 65% of work
was done in a pick season, which results the loss of productivity of an organization. The
communication, which happened between them over phone, was ineffective because none of
them understood urgency of time and the challenge of the work (Peltokorpi 2015). Another
problem was that Kelly did not pay attention what Henry tried to alert her during the climate
condition in monsoon.
Mitigation of Problems
The miscommunication can be avoided through face-to-face communication.
According to Media Richness Theory, the face-to-face communication is considered as the
most efficient communication. With the help of technology, people can perform face-to-face
communication to reduce the confusion. To perform a 93% successful communication face to
face communication helps to understand two individual as the verbal communication is
performed and one can see other`s body language (Lundgren, F.E.R.E. and McMakin 2013).
Even is the communication is high context but the body language helps to understand the
unsaid messages and decode the delivered messages. In face-to-face communication
disagreement or any matter, which is the matter of concerned, can be settled. Here, in the
given situation, Henry should choose video call instead of phone call then the challenges can
be understood and an alternate way can be considered. Instant feedback is important in some
cases and here it was essential if the conversation is performed over video call then a
negotiation of time can be done in order train all the employees working on customer
servicing. In order to perform an operational task in an organization one has to be patient and
understanding. Here Kelly did not consider the fact that their service may face some external

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challenge, which may hamper the productivity of the organization (Håkonsson et al. 2016). In
terms of overcoming that, Henry should present the problem precisely by sending some
pictures regarding the problems, which may help to understand the actual problem.
Conclusion
To perform a good organizational operation the Media Richness Theory is most
appropriate to carry out a healthy communication among the employees. It has six level in
terms of effectiveness on communication. The most effective level is face-to-face
communication, then Video conferencing, phone calls, two-way radio, letters or e-mails, bulk
mails or posters (Shockley-Zalabak 2014). This model of communication is appropriate for a
business organization to remove the ambiguity of messages and reduce the barriers of
communication. This model of communication also includes the feedback of the employees,
which helps to build an effective employee relationship among the employees.

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References
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Håkonsson, D.D., Obel, B., Eskildsen, J.K. and Burton, R.M., 2016. On cooperative behavior
in distributed teams: the influence of organizational design, media richness, social interaction,
and interaction adaptation. Frontiers in psychology, 7.
Kramer, M.W., 2014. Managing uncertainty in organizational communication. Routledge.
Lundgren, F.E.R.E. and McMakin, A.H., 2013. Face-to-face communication. Risk
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p.191e205.
Peltokorpi, V., 2015. Corporate language proficiency and reverse knowledge transfer in
multinational corporations: Interactive effects of communication media richness and
commitment to headquarters. Journal of International Management, 21(1), pp.49-62.
Shockley-Zalabak, P., 2014. Fundamentals of organizational communication. Pearson.
Ward, A.K., Ravlin, E.C., Klaas, B.S., Ployhart, R.E. and Buchan, N.R., 2016. When do
high-context communicators speak up? Exploring contextual communication orientation and
employee voice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(10), p.1498.