Com12: Business Communications. Week 6: Identifying, surveying and mapping

My post

Drawing a map of a workplace and work groups can indicate physical obstacles to communication (Griffith, 2013).

The last workplace I worked only had 3 employees in the office at the one time as it was a home office and we were all casuals. The office was small so we could not all fit in the office at the same time. The Manager designed our work roster around this issue, but once a week a staff meeting was held and all staff were invited to attend. The meeting had to be conducted in the dining room of the Manager as the office was too small.

The layout of the office was cramped with many obstacles. It was not easy to get to the printer or the filing cabinet due to staff desks and the whiteboard was obscured by other office equipment.

Because the room was so small, it was impossible for two people to be on a phone call at the same time. We used headsets when making calls and customers always complained they could not hear us over the background noise. We had to wait until a co-worker had finished a call before we could make another one.

Cliques did not exist in this workplace because we always worked with the same 2 co-workers for every shift, whether you liked that person or not.

The Manager was in the same room as the admin staff and communication was very relaxed as we could discuss issues with one another at any time. Changes to policies, complaints and company growth issues, however, were always left until the weekly staff meeting.

Author: Dann Bailey

Date: Monday, 30 December 2013 11:11:19 AM EST

Hi Amy - when I started working as a teenager everyone had ashtrays on their desks, which shows progress in that area at least! I couldn't find your reference to "shadow network" on page 48? Our workplace has banned smoking to the footpath which is ironic as the general manager that implemented this policy is a smoker and is often seen out the front "maintaining the smoke screen". I've wondered whether the other smokers have any communication advantages standing out there with him.

Author: Michelle Jenkins

Date: Thursday, 2 January 2014 1:47:06 PM EST

Hi Dan,

In response to the advantage of smokers standing outside with the smoking manager - Bell and Smith (2010) discusses the company grapevine and suggests ways to be including in gossip by standing around the water cooler, or in this case standing outside with the smokers.

Smoking with the managers does have its advantages. For we non-smokers, however, we get excluded from these conversations and left out of the loop unfortunately.

Michelle.

Bell, AH & Smith DM (2010) Communication Architecture for Professional Success: Management Communication, 3rd ed, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Chapter 1, pp 30-37.