Barriers of Communication and Interaction among Employees
Business communication is a fundamental element in the growth and success of businesses. With increased use of mobile phones and the internet the world has been transformed into a small village leading to globalization. This has resulted in emergence of many multinational firms. These firms are managed and operated by different people across the world who have different cultural practices. Therefore, to ensure success of the business as well as its growth, firms should adopt intercultural communication management (Mead, 2009). These management practices will aim at reducing prejudice, minimize communication barriers, improve the process of communication as well as encourage integration and team work in an organization.
The barriers of communication such as cultural barriers can be reduced encouraging employee interactions. These interactions are possible during organizational events such as organizational conferences and conventions. Here, employees are given an opportunity to share about the various beliefs of their country. This helps in reducing prejudice and also boosts the self and confidence of the employees. As a result the employees become more competent and productive (Holmes, 2017, Ang &Van Dyne, 2015).
Effective cross cultural skills help to reduce communication barriers which mainly result from use of non-verbal cues such as pointing, nodding as well as certain facial expressions. Organizations should induct employees on some of the cues they use to avoid message distortion or sending the wrong message which will be interpreted differently due to different cultural backgrounds (Malyuga &Tomalin, 2017).
Training on intercultural communication skills enhances teamwork and integration among employees (Guirdham, 2015). This is because the training enables employees to have a clear understanding of handling each other. It also enhances communication among the employees thereby facilitating smooth flow of information. The cultural knowledge enables the employees to carefully handle the customers thus providing high quality services which results to high levels of customer satisfaction and increased customer loyalty.
It is evident that the success of global organizations requires effective communication across cultures. Therefore, managers should adopt intercultural communication skills which incorporate the various cultures. This will ensure improved performance as well as increased performance in the organization. Thus, companies should conduct enough training and research so as to improve the realization of organizational goals.
Cross cultural communication can affect effectiveness of leadership either positively or negatively. It can enhance leadership by providing efficiency through effective communication. According to Holmes (2017), effective cultural communication enhances leadership and is more productive. This is because there are no informational barriers as it facilitates quick feedback. In addition, it also enables the subordinates to ask questions thereby solving discrepancies between the top management and junior employees. This facilitates easier coordination and supervision of employees thereby enhancing leadership styles. Increased competence and productivity facilitates delegation of authority to junior subordinates. This helps to develop their managerial skills and reduces work overload on top management thereby enhancing management of the company.
Effective intercultural communication also facilitates conflict resolution within the company. Due to different cultural backgrounds and upbringing, conflicts might arise in the organization due to misinterpretations of non-verbal cues. Efficient training on cross cultural communication enables leaders to solve these conflicts easily and quickly. It also enables them to be aware of their values and how they might affect other employees due to their cultures. This ensures that the leader is thus able to involve everyone without discrimination or cultural prejudice (Tudor et al, 2017).
Effective Cross Cultural Skills
Cross cultural communication can also act as a barrier to effective communication. This is evident where the leader is not conversant with the cultural beliefs and practices of the employees. His utterances or conduct may offend others. For example, among the Chinese it is disrespectful to refer to an adult by the first name. However, this is not the case in America. Therefore, the employees might develop negative attitude towards the leader when he means no harm (Holmes, 2017). This would make the employees to perceive him differently thereby causing a hindrance to effective communication.
Cultural diversity in the workplace can affect the environment of the workplace either positively or negatively. Some cultural behavior can either enhance teamwork and integration or results in high levels of conflict in the organization. For example, there are some cultures which consider women inferior to men. Those who have been brought up in these cultures may not be willing to cooperate with their female colleagues in the workplace. This would result in gender discrimination and reduce the productivity and performance of the organization.
Cultural diversity at the work place can also be a tool to reduce competition from other firms. This is because it can enable the employees to offer high quality services to the consumers thus leading to high levels of customer satisfaction and increased customer loyalty thereby countering competition
According to Ang and Van Dyne (2015), cultural diversity can also help an employee and a leader to be all-round individuals thus improving their communication skills as well as enhance their productivity. This enables them to associate well with other colleagues thus improving team work. This also improves how the handle different customers thereby offering high quality services. Cultural diversity also provides a pool of knowledge from where product development and market diversification is made. This ensures the firm is able to maintain a competitive advantage over other firms in the industry.
According to Al-Jenaibi (2015), some unethical behavior due to cultural diversity is as a result of poor knowledge on the meanings and use of the words. For example, when Asians visit Australia they are educated on the predominant language in Australia. The words taught to them usually have other meanings. This results in unethical behavior due to cultural differences. Other unethical behavior may result from misunderstanding of the cultural practices of other people. Therefore, the unethical issues arise out of knowledge and may not be intentional. According to Malyuga and Tomlin (2017), cultures vary across the world. Thus what may be considered unethical in one culture may be ethical in other cultures. This creates a conflict of interest and thus results in some unethical issues due to cultural diversity thereby resulting in conflicts.
The values professed by top managers may enhance intercultural communication in an organization or lead to cultural discrimination (Holmes and Stubbe, 2015). Managers who do not show any interest on the importance of people’s cultures may cause cultural discrimination among the employees. This results in reduced employee morale as well a reduction in team work among employees. This may make the employees to develop negative attitudes towards the leaders as well as the job itself (Varner, 2017). This results in poor performance by the employees. Some unfavorable behavior such as absentees, late arrival at work as well as high employee turnover. This may result in creation of an unconducive psychological environment for efficient performance of the employees.
Training on Intercultural Communication Skills
According to Cheng and Toomey (2010), when employees develop negative attitudes towards work their productivity greatly declines. Managers should thus adopt values which will make the employees feel that the organization is concerned and cares about their well-being. This will improve their morale and improve their interactions with other colleagues. The leaders should not only encourage these values but should also follow them as they are the mirror of the of other employees. This is because employees will tend to emulate the behavior and values of their role models. When top managers exhibit values that boost intercultural communication then this will also be emulated by other employees and therefore improve interactions in the organization. It will also improve leadership of the organization since there would be creation of a conducive environment which allows free flow of information in the organization. Efficient communication will enhance productivity and provision of quality services thus ensuring success of the organization.
Leaders, who recognize the importance of culture on the performance and effectiveness of employees, incorporate these cultures in their leadership styles. They also encourage ethical intercultural practices to reduce prejudice. This encourages and boosts employee relationships in the corporation. The leaders also aid in developing the abilities and techniques of the subordinates thus leading to increased delegation of authority. Leadership also facilitates the sharing of knowledge about different cultures. This helps to reduce the myths and misconceptions which may lower the self-esteem and morale of employees from those cultures. Therefore the employees are equipped with enough knowledge which improves their interactions with other employees as well as the customers of the organization (Martin & Nakayama, 2017).
According to Martin and Nakayama (2017), leadership can negatively impact cross cultural communication especially when the leader fails to recognize its importance on the productivity of the employees and thus of the whole organization. Therefore, employees would develop negative attitudes towards the leader and the organization. As a result, the employees would be highly dissatisfied with their employment leading to lower levels of productivity. Leaders should therefore inculcate values which will reduce unethical behavior at the workplace but also ensure there is fairness in reduction of prejudice and discrimination. Their values should not favor any cultural practice but should be neutral in order to solve the conflicts within the organization. They should be keen listeners to know how problems related to culture develop, criticise any form of prejudice due to cultural differences as well as be a role model to the subordinates to embrace cultural diversity as an essential tool for the growth and success of the organization. These values will give as sense of direction to the junior employees and will improve the supervision of all employees in an organization as well as encourage productive employee interactions.
A research carried out on a multinational company in Australia showed that intercultural communication had high impact on the performance and efficiency of the management. Before implementing new cross cultural techniques of communication, the company had approximately 200 complaints from customers. These customers complained of poor service from the employees. From the report by the manager, they said many of the employees were rude or showed little or no understanding of their issues. The company incorporated cross cultural communication by training both subordinates and top managers on different cultural practices. This helped the employees to know how to effectively communicate with the employees. As a result, the customers were served quickly and efficiently. The number of customer complaints reduced greatly by nearly 90%.
Importance of Adopting Intercultural Communication Skills
Efficient cross cultural communication also improved the productivity of employees in the various demand. This resulted in high performance of the company thereby increasing the revenues of the company. The company also had an increase in the number of clientele. This is because of high quality services as well as customized products.
Training of all employees both the senior employees and junior employees improved the communication process. Most of the employees were familiar with the goals and objectives of the company. They were able to know their respective roles and responsibilities. This resulted in decrease in employee turnover as well as increased job supervision. This reduced information discrepancies and resulted in efficient performance of the employees.
There were also increase in delegation of authority due to increased competence and productivity of employees. As a result, problems faced with junior employees were solved easily. This improved the managerial skills of the subordinates thereby improving their motivation. This resulted in increased in high levels of job commitment. It also engaged the level of cooperation among the employees thus reducing conflicts in the organization. This resulted in increased performance and minimal prejudices as well as discrimination.
In general, training on efficient cross cultural communication results on improved performance of the organization. It also reduces the costs of operations due to low supervision costs as well as reduced costs of reduced of employee turnover. Therefore, organistions should ensure efficient cross cultural communication techniques which incorporate various cultures of the different people.
Conclusion and Recommendations.
Since culture is a vital determinant in the behavior of employees in an organization, firms should promote intercultural communication practices. These will ensure that people are able to learn from one another (Samouver &Porter, 2010). Organizations should ensure that the gestures or even some expression to avoid cultural stereotypes. They should ensure that the people are able to appreciate their cultural diversification instead of using it as a basis of discrimination. This would ensure a conducive working environment is created in the working environment leading to improved performance. These can be done by incorporating the various cultural practices of people into the day to day operations of the business. This will not only ensure effective communication but will also provide employees with the feeling of inclusion in the business activities. According to Ladegaard and Jenks (2015), this would facilitate motivation of employees. These would lead to high productivity and provision of high quality customer service. Consequently, provision of high quality services will lead to excellent performance of the business thereby leading to its success (Varner & Varner, 2014). Effective communication is enhanced with good leadership and a better organizational structure. Good leadership facilitates proper coordination of employees. Therefore, for increased revenue and improved customer satisfaction, global organizations should emphasize on ethical intercultural communication between the employees.
Therefore, multinational corporations should adopt efficient and effective intercultural communication practices which would ensure high performance of the organization. This would also improve the leadership and management of the organization and prove interpersonal relationships among the employees. This facilitates coordination and effective management of the corporations. The managers of these organizations should also recognize that culture can greatly affect the running of the business. They should therefore incorporate different cultures in their leadership styles. This will help in maintaining cooperation among the employees and the managers but also provide an environment for the employees to grow. Leadership adopted by managers should be inclusive of everyone and should not discriminate due to cultural differences. However, there are some cultural practices such as viewing women as inferior which can greatly affect the performance of the organization. In such scenarios, the manager should advocate for high levels of professionalism to ensure there is effective teamwork. This will reduce both cultural differences as well as gender discrimination at the place of work. Cross-cultural communication can greatly affect the operations of an organization. Therefore, quality intercultural techniques should be adopted not only to improve employer-employee relationships but also the relationship between the organization and its customers. This will have a positive impact on the growth of the business.
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