What is the Importance of Office Communication?

Communication is a vital tool of management. Communication is not a one way traffic the process starts from the sender and proceeds to the receiver. But the effectiveness of communication process is further enhanced if the reaction of the ‘receiver’ to the communication moves in a reverse flow and reaches the ‘sender’.

This is known as ‘feed­back’ process. It is said that the success of an organization depends on the adequacy of communication. The importance of communication is as follows:

1. Effective Functioning of the Organization

The efficient functioning of the organisation totally depends on the effective communication system. A business organisation consists of people and network of decision affecting them. Managing an organisation is getting things done through others Communication serves the management and makes everyone aware of what the organisation wants to achieve.

2. Smooth Running of the Organisation

A smooth running of an organisation greatly depends on the effective system of communication. It is only through a good and effective office communication system that effective leadership, good human relations, high morale and motivation in the organisation can be maintained to ensure success of management objectives.

3. Proper Planning and Co-ordination

Plans and decisions must be effectively conveyed to those who translate them into action. Effective communication is essential for quick and successful implementation of the management decisions. Good communications are essential to co-ordination. Effective communication is a pre-requisite for solving managerial problems.

4. Exchange of Information

Communication helps executives to acquire more knowledge. It also facilitates executives to share the acquired knowledge with their subordinates which results to increase in the overall managerial skill of people in the organization. It also helps in understanding the problems and offering solutions to them.

5. Human Relations

Most of the conflicts arise due to misunderstood motives and ignorance of facts. Proper communication helps to minimize friction and maximise mutual understanding, co-operation and goodwill. A good relation can be created with the help of an effective method of communication.

Communication Barriers to Communication:

Communication is most effective when it moves speedily and smoothly in an uninterrupted flow. Communication is the nerve system of an enterprise. It serves as the lubricant, fostering for the smooth operations of the management process. Despite the development of high speed electronic devices, communications are not successful in many cases.

All messages are not effectively transmitted or received. Several obstructions, blockades, hurdles, stoppages or bottlenecks, called barriers to communication, distort the message and make communication ineffective. Some of the barriers or obstacles to effective communication are given below:

1. Language Barriers

Words and symbols used to communicate facts and feelings may mean different things to different persons. This may act as a barrier to effective communication. The meaning intended by the sender may be quite different from the meaning followed by the receiver. The language of the sender may be very technical or incomprehensible to the receiver.

2. Inattention Barriers

When the receiver does not pay complete attention to the message, communication becomes ineffective. The efforts to communicate with someone not listening will fail. Generally, people are found paying half attention to what is being communicated orally.

3. Organizational Barriers

The classical organisation structure with a scalar chain of command restricts free and frequent communications. These days the organisation structure of most big enterprises is complex involving several layers of supervision, and long communication lines.

Too many levels intervene causing delay in transmission and distortion in the message. When the message has to pass through several hands, there is filtering.

4. Status Barriers

Every organization has some kind of status system. Some individuals have higher status maintain status differences. Subordinates, usually, tend to convey only those things which the superiors would appreciate.

Such selective communication is also known as filtering; A subordinate may also feel reluctant to report his shortcomings or may not seek clarification on instructions which are subject to different interpretations for fear of loss of prestige in the eyes of superior.

5. Premature Evaluation

Some people have the tendency to form a judgment before listening to the entire message. This is known as premature evaluation. “Half listening is like racing your engine with the gears in neutral.” Premature evaluation and response tend to stop the transfer oil information.

6. Perpetual Barriers

Every individual has specific areas of interest. So, he may hear, read or see only that part of the message which is valuable to him. There may be deliberate filtering of the message by the sender.

7. Emotional Reaction

Barriers may also arise due to emotional attitude because when emotions are strong, it is difficult to know the frame of mind of other persons. Emotional attitudes of both, the sender as well as the receiver, obstruct free flow of transmission and understanding off messages.

8. Channel Distortions

Physical or mechanical barriers may also cause distortion of communication. A; communication is a two-way process, distance between the sender and the receiver of the message is an important barrier to communication. Many people talking simultaneously, inaudible telephone lines, electronic disturbances, wrong transcriptions in telex messages, noise etc. are examples of channels distortion.