Effective Communication: Key To Industrial Harmony

An Organization comprises of a group of people from different walks of life with diverse socio-cultural backgrounds working together for a common cause, and the ability to achieve harmony amongst organizational members is paramount to achieving the goals and objectives of the group. Industrial harmony exists when Management and workers are in full agreement with each other, and all efforts are synchronized towards realizing the corporate goals of the company. This harmony is mainly attained through effective communication.

Communication, which is the art of sending and receiving information between people, is deemed effective only when the actual thoughts and intentions of the sender is received and correctly understood by the receiver whose feedback confirms his understanding.

Importance of communication:

Researches in recent times have shown that at the root of most industrial conflict and disharmony is the problem of ineffective communication and poor communication attitude. Even at home, community, village, religious organizations, and so on, people relate with one another and the need for effective communication cannot be overemphasized. The success or otherwise of any relationships depends largely on communication.

Politicians and public office aspirants have been known to either mar or brighten their chances of being elected or appointed by their speech context and contents.

Communication within the organization:

Top-Down Communication

To begin with, the goals and objectives of an organization are set by top management and needs to be properly communicated to all organizational members through proper and unambiguous means for proper understanding by all concerned. When organizational goals are not properly communicated, it results in misunderstanding of the concept and eventual poor implementation of the execution process. Goals must be communicated in a language and symbols accurately understood by a generality of the people concerned. Humans are not mind readers and as such needs proper information to understand a concept.

Instructions and process procedures are also communicated from the top to the workers by departmental heads, managers, supervisors and team leads. The instructions should be complete, clear, unambiguous and understandable so that the workers will have no confusion carrying out required actions; the instructions may also include the responsibilities of each team member and delegation of authority.

When these communications are effective, the workers are able to decipher the specific goals and vision of their teams and the overall organization, and also create their own visions that support the larger vision, and then getting their efforts to accomplish the vision; this condition results in industrial harmony within the company.

Down-Top Communication

In organizations, there exist the down-top communication channels by which workers can relate to Management. Information here includes reports and summaries, grievances, suggestions among others. Employees are encouraged to correctly communicate their feelings, grievances and suggestions to their supervisors or through the appropriate channels established for such purpose in the company. These information aid Management to understand the feelings, expectations and aspirations of the workers, and allow for proper machinery to be developed to address the issues.

Horizontal Communication

We struggle mostly with ourselves as we debate whether or not to speak up in meetings, confront a co-worker who we have issues with, or approach a supervisor about unreasonable expectations or to clarify instructions. This conflict between what we want to say, and what we actually feel we can say, causes great stress. Note that when people are withholding information, they are also withholding ideas that can help with the growth of the organization.

Communication outside the organization:

Every member of an organization has a responsibility to contribute to the goodwill of the organization. This means every member should directly and indirectly speak about the organization in a good light before the public, promote good corporate image of the company in the public and eschew derogatory, defamatory and slanderous annotations about the company; it is an integral aspect of loyalty to the organization.

In fact, it is unethical to engage in speeches, dialogues and publications that directly or obscurely destroy the image of your workplace before the outside public.  Remember that grievances are not unassociated with workplaces the world over, and as stated earlier in this article, there are internal company procedures and channels to address every such grievance rather than engage in propaganda that destroys the corporate image of the company.  

Company owners are also encouraged to promote their workers’ morale by speaking about them in a complimentary and admiring manner before the outside public. When workers feel their efforts are being noticed and appreciated in the public, they become naturally motivated to put more efforts towards organizational growth.

The underlying philosophy here is the symbiotic relationship existing between the company and the staff members. The company needs the staff input to run and make profit, and the staff needs the company for survival; that being the case, both parties need to promote their mutual image for organizational harmony to exist.