UNIT 2 – WORKING IN A SCIENCE INDUSTRY
1.2
Different staff members communicate information on practices, procedures
and technical/scientific information in different ways in the workplace. A key
importance for the communication is that it is regular.
For example, management and technical personnel would communicate via
email. Emails are beneficial because they are written down, therefore can be
reread making the information shared much more interpretable and clearer for
the technical personnel to read. Emails would be better to communicate
detailed information which is why management would use them as they would
deal with communicating important information. Although emails are a clear
way of communicating, they would not be as effective in urgent situations.
Staff members do check emails regularly; however, they may be busy doing
other things and as technical personnel are more hands on in a workplace, they
wouldn’t be near their emails as much as management. Alternatively,
management staff members would have to call technical personnel to ensure
they have received the information in more urgent time periods. In order of
planning an upcoming training event or even communicating ways of improving
their workplace, management and technical personnel would also have
meetings. This includes verbal, direct communication.
Management would communicate to technical personnel about important
things like:
● Things that need to be fixed due to being broken
● A change in schedules
● A change in equipment materials
● New procedures
● Any new important changes
Technical personnel would communicate information to each other verbally.
This is because they work in the same area, seeing each other most days.
Talking to each other is effective as there is no point emailing a staff member
who works alongside you. This would be effective during work hours, however
to communicate in out of hours situation, technical personnel would need to
adapt to other forms of communication, like texts, calls, video calls or emails.
These out of hour communication methods could be adjusted depending on
the time scale. For example in more urgent situations, calls would be used.
Whereas in lower-priority, a text or email would be more suitable. Phone calls
are an effective way of communicating because they are direct; video calls
enable technical personnel to demonstrate information to one another and
texts are direct and written, therefore easily understood and can be re-read.
, UNIT 2 – WORKING IN A SCIENCE INDUSTRY
Technical personnel would communicate scientific things like:
● experiment procedures
● experiment results
● what equipment is needed
● where the equipment needs to be set
● if a piece of equipment breaks
● new materials needed to be ordered in
Technical personnel would communicate to staff they support in multiple ways.
Method examples would be training and conferences, this would involve the
staff they support going to certain training workshops in order to improve their
ability. This method is effective because information can be communicated
clearly and verbally. Tasks in training sessions are hands on which means that
everyone is involved and collaborating, also discussions can be created so that
people who are unclear can ask questions and get instant answers. As well as
with conferences, discussions are available to expand knowledge of staff.
However, in the out of hours urgent situations - calls, emails or texts would be a
more suitable option.
Technical personnel would communicate to staff they support information like:
● what needs to be set up
● what needs to be put away
● if there is a spillage which needs clearing up
● new materials needed to be ordered in
● change in shifts
● changes in work environment
● new members of staff
Communicating practices and procedures for staff to follow would be displayed
effectively through posters and leaflets. These are written and therefore clear
to read so that the staff can understand the information being given. Posters
are also shown on walls and so are very noticeable, usually coloured and bold
meaning the staff can easily remember the procedure or practice. For example,
there may be a poster in the lab explaining a baseline of how to clean a burette
etc. Leaflets are good also, they carry more information, may include a method
of how to complete an experiment like titration. Another method would be for
long term communication like access to an online system (LIMS) for example,
this would involve staff signing a contract in order of data protection. Contracts
ensure that staff treat patient info with respect and confidentiality.
Some examples of procedures and practices communicated to staff would be: