Some Barriers to Communication in Workplaces.

Some Barriers to Communication in Workplaces.

Communication barriers are obstructions that lead to the distortion, disruption or even prevention of successful communication. They can be both temporary and solved quickly and easily, or they can be rooted deeply and take a long time to fix.

Gender Differences, for as long as anyone can remember, men and women tend to have very different conversation styles. One example of such differences is women preferring to communicate face to face whilst men could be comfortable no having any direct body language such as sitting side by side and focusing on a certain point away from the person communicating with him. This kind of communication really comes down to cross-cultural communication more than anything else. For this kind of barrier to be removed, there needs to be a gateway that encourages an awareness and appreciation of gender-specific differences in conversational style. With these kinds of implementations, work atmosphere can remain professional and organizational communication can be enriched.

Cultural Diversity, thanks to globalization and the expansion of company’s outstretching to anywhere on the planets, many different people of different cultures are capable of working under one organization. Despite all the many benefits that are included in this, it is also a factor that can upset the stability of communication. As a result of this, further aspects such as motivation, teamwork and leadership can all suffer as a consequence.  When a person from one culture views an individual from another culture with prejudice based on stereotypes, this creates very tough, emotionally impacting barriers to overcome. A gateway through this kind of diversity barrier is training employees to increase their cultural awareness and sensitivity that could be to develop a guide for an organization to base its understandings and interactions on with members of the other culture.

Language, another aspect that can cause uncertainty in communication could be a direct result of the previously mentioned cultural diversity or due to multilingual individuals, but language can be another barrier to communication. Some people within an organization may not know any form of communication other than that of the most technical terminology. Individuals of the same language capabilities may use jargon or expressions that are only known among them and nobody else within the organization. For this to be fixed, the simplest and most direct and declarative form of language is in the workplace, to keep everybody in synchronization and understanding among one another.

References

Nordmeyer, B. (n.d.).  Barriers to workplace communication.  Global post.  Retrieved from http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/barriers-workplace-communication-1406.html