Running Head: COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE 1

Trevor Henson

University of Arizona, November 2017

COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE 2

Abstract
Over many years, technology has evolved into the most important thing in many people’s lives.
Technology is seen in the workplace, throughout the education system, and even throughout
other countries of the world. Children have grown to know technology like a second language,
and are beginning to enter the working world, where they will be the ones that change the
world. These children are many times referred to as “socially awkward” as they cannot
communicate like previous generations. Going outside and play is a saying of the past and
people are beginning to see this in the workplace as employees and/or employers are not
having face to face conversations like they once did. Many people in these large corporations
never meet in person as they only know each other through technology. The communication in
the workplace has been permanently changed, but it can be changed for the better by
educating the population. One of the primary areas affected is the workplace, and many have
noticed and began to take a stance.

Workplace Disconnect
By exploring the realm of the workplace, it is not hard to see disconnect between workers. As
more and more people enter the work force, a diversity among ages, races, and even genders
thrive like you would have never seen before. The expansion has been amazing and it shows a
much broader representation in the workplace, but as more and more people come to work,
barriers arise in regard to gender, age, and race, but most importantly, workers are feeling a
disconnect. Yes, there are barriers between employees within the company, but many
employers are also distancing themselves as time goes on. Working a simple retail job is
becoming more and more disconnected as companies are not providing enough time for those
in management to fulfill their duties. A classic example is when companies grow too quickly and
more and more people are hired to replace someone as they move up into more important
positions. A basic worker will never get to know the boss of the company as they only get to
work with the current supervisor. Many upper management employees are beginning to hear
from the lower-level employees of the company about not being informed in regard to
company changes, company policy, and/or management, etc. A common occurrence happens
in retail companies when corporate sends hundreds of boxes of product with no notice or even
enacts price changes without notice and in turn creates a loss due to “the customer is always
right” policy.

To counteract disconnect, companies are setting goals to make more connections with their
employees. According to Robyn Hannah, writer for NewsBank Inc., the top priority for
employers is to make employees feel like they are informed and connected (Hannah, 2017).
Employers tend to see their businesses grow and succeed when they have happy and
passionate employees. Companies like Apple promote diversity among the workplace which in
itself creates a thriving environment with friendly staff. Happiness resonates and without
communication, the happiness begins to dwindle away. A change is needed in thousands of
companies around the world, and with a bit of effort, these companies can change the way
their company thrives for the better.
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The Structure of Communication

As companies begin to analyze what they need to do to improve their companies, they begin to
ask what their employees need to thrive in the workplace. There are thousands of people in the
United States that are students or parents that need a steady job but are unable to be full-time
employees working forty hours a week. Many companies have begun to change their full-time
policies to include schedules as low as twenty-four hours a week. This is an amazing change
that companies are making as benefits are a helpful addition and to be able to work a near part
time schedule but still receive benefits shows how motivated some companies are to make a
change. This began to happen as employers began to notice people leaving their companies as
they were not being able to provide enough hours for them to live off of or not being able to
provide a consistent work schedule for those with inconsistent schedules. Along with better
work schedules, flexible hours were needed for many students and more commonly, people
with children. Having unexpected events come up can be difficult for those who work in jobs
where the schedules are posted weeks in advance. Many states have created laws to require
sick pay for those who need to take time off work for sickness or other reasons. To add onto
that, many employers have become more lenient for specific situations and have allowed for
people to easily find ways to get their shift covered or allowed for tardiness due to specific
circumstances.

It is necessary for people to find a balance between their everyday life and work, and it has
been hard for people to do that in recent years. For quite some time, people have gone to work
and gone home tired and not done much else, yet with flexible schedules and for involved
employers, workers are able to reinstate personal time into their lives. It is evident of these
flexible hours becoming a reality by “job sharing, condensed hours, and more part-time work
being available” (Nordbäck, Myers, & McPhee, 2017). Modern technology has allowed for ease
of scheduling and employee interaction with each other and their employers. By structuring a
business in a more realistic way, it becomes clear that there are happier employees which in
turn helps the business’ customer service and ultimately, profits.

Communication in the Educational Workplace

Education is the key to success in preparing youth for the workplace and their communication
skills. By engaging students in the process of change, we can prepare them for what is to come
in the working world that is known today. At the professional level of education, healthcare for
example experiences one of the biggest barriers when it comes to education, language. By far,
the field of healthcare can be the most diverse in terms of languages and without a central
language depending on the region, there is no advancing on a case or problem. Many
healthcare professionals in today’s world do not share any native tongue, making English the
most crucial language (Shah & Barker, 2017). English is spoken in many countries around the
world and is even required of students in many countries around the world.

The educational system has always struggled with language barriers. People traveling around
the world for speeches, lessons, experiments, ect., have learned to accept the fact that they
may have communication issues when presenting. These barriers can cause confusion and in
turn lead people to not want to communicate as they are not sure how to do so. As an example,
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PhD students must travel around the globe to present their findings and their thesis to
professionals in order to get their name out there. For students in countries that have
languages very different from English it can be hard for them to understand the native tongue
and “slang” that may go into the language. Therefore, spending more time with students can be
crucial for their success and successful communication around the world.

Age Perspective and Communication

In the world today, age is just a number, not what someone is capable of. Many older people
are going back to work to keep a steady income, or just to keep them busy. Now that more and
more of these older individuals are becoming savvy in regard to different jobs and products, we
begin to see them in more and more companies. Companies such as Apple do not look at age,
sexual orientation, race, etc. their goal is to find a team that can help the brand thrive. Entering
this diverse workforce are many companies that reside in the country of Canada. The Canadian
workforce has grown in age diversity greatly in the past few years and the results have begun to
show. In the words of Sarah De Blois and Martine Legacé, “Results suggest that older workers
perceived that their younger peers view them positively” (De Blois & Legacé, 2017). Many
would believe that the age differences would cause some discrepancies, which that may be true
in some circumstances as the generations grew up in far different times in terms of technology
and such. Their values may also cause conflict which leads back to the overall issue that is being
address, communication. As these generations learn to accept each other and take into account all
ideas, they will become and team and be able to overcome challenges with no problem. An
intergenerational workplace is crucial to the success of a business in the modern world as one
person’s mind is not going to be able to beat the power of ten that grew up at different points in
time.

Intercultural Communication
Language is a key problem when it comes to communication around the globe. Companies have
begun to add people from around the globe to their team, and even if they are not living in the
same country. Remote access is a technology of the future. In a world that is always evolving,
people are able to call another person from two parts of the globe and speak in real time, this is
one of the most important technological feats of this last century. Many may not think anything
of it and the younger generations have not thought any different. Although this technology is
an amazing thing, the unwritten portion of sociocultural rules causes confusion. For example,
many companies hire other corporations in countries such as India and China to carry out tasks
that would be much more expensive to carry out in the United States due to the minimum
wage laws. Therefore, people from these countries that have learned English must learn to
adapt to the thinking and terminology of people in the United States or other countries.

Training can be intensive and is completed in a timely manner to ensure that these employees
are efficient enough to have hold conversations with customers in other countries from around
the globe. A common need is technology support as technology has become one of the most
important things in the human lifestyle. Having this need opened up the opportunity for these
positions, but the communication is difficult to overcome. If communication between
companies is not present, the language barriers will prevent success and could ultimately cause
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a loss in clientele. Even if someone is proficient in multiple languages, not understanding the
culture where the language is spoken can cause even more difficulty. Noted by Yi-Ling Lu, many
employees are proficient in the needed language, but their cultural skills are not up to par (Lu,
2016). By knowing this, companies can begin to inform and train their employees on the
nations cultural background as it can help prevent customer loss. Success is key in the business
world today, and those companies that provide sufficient cultural and language training are the
ones that succeed in their endeavors towards success.

Conclusion
It is clearly evident that many of people, as employees or employers, are guilty of this
disconnect when it comes to our communication skills. People of all ages, races, and walks of
life have taken apart when it comes to technological advances which has led us to socially
awkward children and adults who do not know how to communicate face-to-face. It is just a
matter of time before everyone begins to see the effects of our actions. Hopefully someone
reading this or someone else with the same ideas will all be able to help save the world by
teaching others and informing them on how we can improve the everyday lives of people by
something as simple as communication.
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Reference Page:

Hannah, Robyn (2017, April 18). Dynamic Signal Report: The State of Workplace
Communications is Disconnected. NewsBank Inc.,
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170418005929/en/

Nordbäck, E.S., Myers, K.K., & McPhee, R.D. (2017, August 21). Workplace Flexibility and
Communication Flows: a Structurational View. Journal of Applied Communication
Research, 45, 397-412. Received from
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00909882.2017.1355560

Lu, Yi-Ling (2016, May 23). Learning through engaging in retrospective reflection on a change
process in an English course on workplace communication. Educational Action Research,
25, 453-466. Received from
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09650792.2016.1178154

De Blois, Sarah, & Legacé, Martine (2017, October 1). Understanding Older Canadian Workers’
Perspectives on Aging in the Context of Communication and Knowledge Transfer.
Canadian Journal of Communication, 42, 631-644. Received from
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Shah, Shara, & Barker, Michelle (2017, August). Cracking the cultural code: Indian IT
expatriates’ intercultural communication challenges in Australia. International Journal of
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