Communication: why do we need to communicate?

• • • • • • Power Survival Co-operation Personal needs Relationships Persuasion • • • • • • Social needs Economic needs Information Making sense of the world Decision making Self-expression Dimbleby and Burton, 1998 Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 12

Types of communication

• • Synchronous: happening at the same time (e.g. conversation, telephone call, one-to-one meeting, presentation) Asynchronous: indirect/delay on delivery (e.g. report, email, text message) Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 12

Source

Theoretical concepts: models of communication

• • • • The Shannon and Weaver model Communication includes five elements Encoder: when you communicate you have a particular purpose in mind Decoder: source needs encoder to translate; receiver needs a decoder to retranslate Senders and receivers must use similar systems or else information is without meaning Destination Encoder Signal Decoder Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 12

Theoretical concepts: models of communication

• • Berlo (1960s) Medium aware Transmission model: source-message-channel receiver • • • Carey (1975; 2006) Context aware Rituals and social context of the message important e.g. away days, water cooler conversations, meetings Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 12

Theoretical concepts: models of communication

• Galloway and Thacker (2007) Interaction between communicators • Argenti (2003) Strategic approach: spin/manipulating the message • Li and Roloff (2004) Strategic negativity Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 12

Non-verbal communication

• • • • Context specific Symbols and artefacts are drawn on (LeBaron, 2003) Only 7% of communication is speech (Mehrabian, 1967) Negative delivery of positive information is upsetting for receiver, whereas positive delivery of negative information does not upset (Dasborough, 2006) Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 12

Non-verbal communication

• • • Silence as non-verbal communication Acquiescent: compliant Defensive: fear or self-protection Prosocial: to protect others (Van Dyne et al, 2003) Body language • • • Visual memory is accessed as the eyes move up (eyes move to the right for remembered memory and to the left for creative memory (e.g. lies)) Engaged: person is visibly listening Disengaged: disinterested or distancing Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 12

Communication and culture

• • • There are cultural differences in preferred information styles (LeBaron, 2003) High-context culture: a culture with many rules; implicit understanding of nuances and etiquette required Low-context culture: little background knowledge required to understand rules; explicit Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 12

Work and communication: appraisal

• • • • • Communication is at the heart of the appraisal process (DeNisi and Pritchard, 2006) Sharing standards in advance to establish ground rules (Grote, 2002) The appraisal should be a two-way communication process (Losyk, 2002) Goals should be set together to ensure greater success in reaching targets (Latham and Latham, 2000) In a 2009 CIPD survey managers were rated poorly by their employees Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 12

Learning summary

By the end of this chapter you should: • Understand the purpose of communication • have an overview of communication theory and theoretical models of communication • • • Understand the role of non-verbal communication Appreciate the relevance of communication to HRM Understand international challenges Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 12