Communication In The IT Workplace – Importance, Strategies, And Channels

Process Flow of Communication Needed to be Maintained by the Manager of an IT Organization

Discuss about the Communication in the IT Workplace.

The report depicts the importance of effective communication in an organization. It is required to be maintained by both the manager and his or her fellow members. This is the process of information transmission from the sender side to the receiver.  In order to maintain the working relationship in the workplace, appropriate communication is required to be maintained by the manager and all other employees working for the organization.

The strategies of effective communication, different communication processes, channel of communication and importance of effective communication in the workplace is discussed in this report. Not only this but also, quality of a manager helps to build creativity and innovation in the team of IT professional. In every IT organization, the project manager or the branch manager should maintain open communication process so that, they could gain ideas from all other employees working for the organization.

The process flow of communication holds five different components such as sender, encode, communication channel, receiver, decode and feedback. The sender initiates the process of communication by formulating idea from different resources (Jehanzeb, Rasheed & Rasheed, 2013). The sender might use words and different communicating symbols to create effective ideas that the receiver could easily understand. In an IT firm the IT manager is required to convey the desired idea to his fellow team members so that they could execute that idea effectively. The proper execution of that idea will be beneficial for the IT firm. The communication process must adapt certain strategies it will help the manager to become more and more innovative and creative as well. The manager should encode his ideas by integrating different words, expression, gesture and symbols to compose a message (Muenjohn & Armstrong, 2015). The outcome of the message might be in the form of written language, verbal, non-verbal.

The information or idea flows through a communicating channel. The IT manager can convey his message to the receiver through meeting, conference, emails etc. After getting the information it is needed to be decoded by the receiver to convert it into a meaningful message.  In effective communication, the receiver is required to decode the information properly. If the receiver does not understand the message properly then the entire flow of communication will be a failure (Dobre, 2013). From the contemporary researchers it has been found that, effective communication process inside the global business ambiance is currently one of the most important areas of research.  If the form of transmitting ideas changes than the perspectives will also change.  After receiving and understanding the message properly a feedback or invoice is needed to be delivered. After sending acknowledgement the communication process will be stated it be completed.

Effective Communication Strategies adapted by Manager for Sustainable Innovation and Creativity

Sustained innovation comes from developing a collective sense of purposes. The unconventional opportunities help to built creativity and innovation in the existing IT management system (Noruzy et al., 2013). The managers should adapt certain strategies for sustainable business innovation and creativity. The strategies are as follows:

Establishing a clear sense of direction: In every level of IT organizational innovation, manager creates a psychological ambiance. As, the business grows the organizational management structure also develops and the roles and the responsibility of a manager also increases (Barrick et al., 2015). The cultural change changes the mind and the thought of the manager and the employees.

A tolerance for risk and failure: The capacity of risk tolerance is also required. Tolerance of certain degree of failure, as a necessary part of growth is an important part of encouraging innovation. Innovation includes different types of risks It is known to all that, the employees do not take risks until they understand the objective of an organization (Zhang & Venkatesh, 2013). The risk management provides flexible framework to the employees through which they can operate and also understand that failure are recognized to be a simple step in the learning system.   

Elimination of the non working projects: The manager should focus on the progress of the entire organization. In order to maintain the revenue and cost benefit management and to avoid the exceeded cost the unwanted projects are needed to be listed and eliminated from the core business process of the organization (Keyton et al., 2013). The business processes and IT projects that are no longer required by the organization should be eliminated from the progress activity. If the manager does not remove the unwanted project then it will affect the cost management of the business organization.  

In order to maintain the effective communication certain communication strategies are required to be adapted by the IT manager. This is referred to as one of the major components of communication to be considered. If a manager of an organization unable to deliver proper communication then, the manager fails to gain the commitment from the fellow employees. It also affects the pre determined business objectives (Mazzei, 2014).  Not only this but also no one bother about their intension, if an IT manager fails to become a leader. For the overall success of an organization, clear messaging system is very important.  Though, all employees cannot use same level of communication process, but still there are certain level of communication processes that are generally followed by the IT managers and other team members. The communication strategies are as follows:

Channels of Communication

Open communication process: A manager of an IT organization should maintain open communication process rather than downward and upward communication. In this process the top level management is bound to listen to others to formulate effective and beneficial ideas. Open communication allows both the manager and the employees to be more engaged with their work. In this process, the employees feel free to share their opinion with their superior (Guzzi et al., 2013). With the help of collaborative communication process, a well structured IT project can be created.  

Good listening: Rather than a good speaker an IT manager of an organization is needed to be a good listener. Communication process is not just all about talking. A great deal of management level communication process includes listening to others (Guzzi et al., 2013). Most of the times it is found that, people concentrates on giving answers while listening to others.     

Inclusive: If inclusive communication process is adapted by the managers then, it forces the employees to feel that they are also involved in the decision making approach. Even this process affects the daily work of the organization (Jones et al., 2014). The involvements of the employees are key factors that affect the employee level satisfaction and success as well.  

Two ways: The managers should adapt two way communication process including upward and downward. This kind of communication referred to as conversation. The thought of different people also differs from one another. In order to build appreciable IT project, the thought of others are needed to be integrated together to build an innovative as well as creative ideas (Mishra, Boynton & Mishra, 2014). The mangers those who can successfully engage the employees are also capable to build efficient projects for the organization.  

Result driven: In order to measure the result, the business communication is required to be strategically focused.  The behavior of the managers helps the employee to know the role of the individual.

In order to maximize the messaging strategies for the employers including the managers and other employees the manager need to understand the communication channel. They must select the effective communication channels. The employees want to achieve benefit from the communication generally in three different ways such as formal, informal and unofficial.

Formal: The objectives, policy and the procedure of an organization send information through the help of this communication channel. These kinds of channels are generally used in the organizational purposes (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).  The messages can flow through a chain of command. The information flows from the managers to the subordinates. The formal communication channel helps to built business plans, customer satisfaction, annual report formation and other review meetings.

Informal: The usage of only informal communication is not effective in an organization. In order to develop the communication process, a strict and hierarchical web communication approach cannot work efficiently in an organization (Brown et al., 2013). The chain of command, manager’s need could be disrupted if an organization uses particularly this type of communication channel.

Unofficial: Sometimes interpersonal communication might take place in n organization. These types of communication processes are free of formalities it means that, when the co-workers communicate with each other they do not maintain any particular flow (Brown et al., 2013). This kind of communication is known as unofficial communication.  

Nobody can deny the importances of communication in the workplace as in a working organization different people come from different location and their language also differs from one another (Muenjohn & Armstrong, 2015). In order to eliminate this issue, the manager of a particular IT project should maintain certain standards to develop the communication. Though the professional and social backgrounds of different working employees are different but still they have a single organizational goal.  The importances of communication in the workplace are as follows:

Creation of job satisfaction among the employees: If the managers communicate efficiently with fellow team members then, the support acts as the motivation. The motivation of the managers, gives job satisfaction to the employees and it reduces the number of employee’s turnover (Zhang & Venkatesh, 2013).  The effective communication also helps to build loyalty and trust that attributes as a   job satisfaction for the employees.

The level of conflict decreases: If the employees work together with trustworthiness then, the level of conflict also decreases. Many conflicts can be resolved and prevented from the business organization, if the manager involves open communication process in the organization.  With the help of open communication and mutual discussion, the organizational conflicts could be resolved.     

The productivity and innovation increases: One of most important and effective components considered by the workplace communication process, that plays role in the success and failure of an organization.  Each and every organization has a predetermined goal, vision and objective (Jehanzeb, Rasheed & Rasheed, 2013). If all employees including the manager focus on a single objective then, it will help to increase the level of productivity.  Effective communication helps to deliver quality products to the consumers.  

Relationship formation: With the help of effective as well as open communication, relationship between personal and professional relationship will be developed and it will make the employees feel genuinely cared and valued as well. The friendly environment helps to create a better relationship among the working employees including the managers.   

Utilization of proper resources: If an organization faces different issues then, those are needed to be resolved to gain competitive advantages from the marketplace. Due to miscommunication different issues might occur in an organizational staff member. Unnecessary delay in the business process might take place (Brown et al., 2013). Therefore, for any organization effective communication and utilization of appropriate resources are needed to be served.  If unnecessary resources are used then it will lead to wastage of money and effort as well.

Conclusion

From the overall discussion it can be concluded that, different the IT managers are needed to adapt certain communication strategies to foster creativity and innovation in a team of IT professional. The proper communication process flow from the initiation to feedback has been mentioned in this report. Apart from this, the report also demonstrated the different channel of communication that an IT manager uses and at the same time, how an open communication helps to evaluate the project objectives exactly are mentioned in this report. In addition to this the report also mentioned, the importance of communication in the workplace is also elaborated. Though, certain barriers in communication are also found, which are needed to be mitigated to build effective communication between the manager and other IT professional project team members.

References

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