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Summary Learning Unit 3: Communicating in the workplace
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- University Of South Africa (Unisa)
A comprehensive guide on communication in the workplace
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Learning Unit 3: Communicating in the workplaceTheme 1: Interpersonal Communication
Effective interpersonal communication is important and is linked to the employees’ well-being and
satisfaction in within the organization. Poor interpersonal communication causes many employees to
move jobs constantly, and this high staff turnover is very costly to the company. This type of
communication is known as person-to-person communication and takes place in dyads (2 people).
People in organizations should be sensitive about their roles and the rules for interpersonal
communication.
Roles in dyads: Roles in dyads are dependent on the context of the communication taking place. Roles
include being a: student, son, daughter, friend, employee, brother or sister. This is the same in the
workplace e.g. being a manager, accountant, etc. Roles affect the way you relate to others, as well as
expectations on how someone in that role is meant to behave.
Roles are linked to the other person’s or our own:
Professional status and qualifications
Age, gender
Level of seniority, authority or power
Level of experience or expertise
Job position.
Rules in dyads: A set of rules are negotiated once working relationships with colleagues have been built.
These rules deem what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior or conduct and are understood by all.
Example of rules include:
Not interrupting fellow colleagues before they’ve finished their thoughts
Not arriving late for meetings
Not using offensive and inappropriate language
Respecting everyone’s cultural and religious beliefs
Not lying about mistakes.
Skills in dyads:
1. The difference between assertion and aggression: Assertiveness is a proactive way of
communication by expressing your thoughts, feelings and perceptions in a way that your point is
made with confidence, but doesn’t offend or disrespect others. Being assertive leads to two-way
respect, and will assist employees in achieving business goals as one company. Aggressive
people are likely to dominate others which may lead to tension and a breakdown in
communication. Aggressive people are arrogant, insensitive, inflexible and insulting. People
easily lose respect for them, and will refuse to cooperate with them.
2. Clearly expressing your feelings and perceptions:
How you perceive a situation and whether other participants share this perception or not
How you interpret and understand a perceived situation
How you feel about the situation, yourself and other participants.
3. Clearly stating facts, intentions and motives behind actions: The ability to state facts or
problems clearly, and to state your motives and intentions behind those facts or problems. It is
important as you are informing people on what you are doing, why you are doing it and the effect
this action will have on others.
, Theme 2: Non-verbal Communication
Differences between non-verbal and verbal communication:
1. In face-to-face communication, each participant has a turn to speak, or to make use of verbal
communication, but non-verbal communication is continuous process that never ends even if
nothing is being said.
2. People are more likely to believe the non-verbal communication (root of contradiction between
the two). It is easy to manipulate others with words, but it is harder to control non-verbal
messages, and will expose the participant, especially in terms of deception.
3. Non-verbal communication is more effective than verbal communication in showing emotions and
attitudes.
The need to be sensitive to non-verbal cues:
1. Often relying on first impressions to make up our opinion on strangers. We notice obvious things
such as age, hairstyle, clothing, tattoos, accent etc. From these superficial cues, we make
judgments on the individual, and can be inaccurate.
2. When meeting strangers we judge them in terms of our beliefs about appearance and non-verbal
behavior, and these may be inaccurate. We still use these beliefs to fill the gaps in our knowledge
about them.
3. First impressions are based on non-verbal communication and once formed, they are hard to
change.
4. We make up our minds about people from facial expressions, eye contact, posture, voice,
gestures, hairstyle, use of time and space and clothes worn.
5. Use of non-verbal stereotypes to judge people e.g. short men are aggressive.
Problems with the interpretation of non-verbal communication:
Non-verbal communication can be highly ambiguous and isn’t always clear on what is being
communicated.
The meaning of any non-verbal message needs to be established within the total context rather
than from an isolated behavior on its own.
We communicate non-verbal information by using groups of behaviors. We must interpret non-
verbal signs in cluster rather than individually e.g. disapproval is shown by a frown, crossed arms,
and unblinking gaze.
The range of non-verbal communication:
1. Silence: Encourages turn-taking and is possibly a sign of listening (genuine two-way
communication). Pauses in public speaking allows the audience to absorb the information given
by the speaker, and to get the attention of the audience. Silence could mean the following:
Contemplation, fear, respect
Shyness/reservation
Concentration, boredom, anger/disapproval
Embarrassment
Lack of understanding.
2. Paralanguage: These refer to voice qualities (vocal communication), and is how something is
being said and not what is being said i.e. the way we speak. The tone of ones’ voice and
emphasis determines the meaning of the sentence. Paralanguage covers the following:
The rise and fall of someone’s voice
How fast/slow someone speaks
How loudly/softly someone speaks
The resonance of someone’s voice
The harshness of the voice
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