Communicating in the Virtual Workplace
Communication is an integral part of every workplace because it makes it possible for all the employees to work together as a cohesive unit. Globalization and Internet have dramatically changed the business environment and has led to the development of a global and virtual workplace. Today, technology has made it possible for people to work from home and communicate with team mates who are working on the other part of the world. This necessitates a more effective communication that will cut across cultural and linguistic barriers. Also, the absence of non-verbal gestures make it all the more imperative that communication should be clear, crisp and unambiguous.
Communication has been defined by Guffey, Rhodes and Rogin (2010) as, "the transmission of information and meaning from one individual or group to another." The communication process that makes it possible to transmit ideas start with the sender. The sender thinks of an idea, encodes it in a message, sends it to the receiver through different communication channels, the receiver receives the message and decodes them and finally the receiver sends feedback to the sender. (Guffey, Rhodes and Rogin, 2010).
In the light of this process, the three business emails are analyzed below.
Message #1
The sender of this message is the manager while the receiver is the subordinate or employee. The purpose of this message is to let the employee know that there is a mistake in the file sent by the employee and the manager wants the employee to go through the file and correct the mistake. The message says that there is a 158 camera deficit in the spreadsheet sent by the employee, Robert and the manager is unable to identify the difference because there are multiple...
So, the manager wants the employee to go through the list and identify where the count differs.
The environment in which the message was sent is within the office and the technology used in this message is email sent through Internet or Intranet and a spreadsheet software. There is little noise in this message because the message is sent to the right receiver and the supervisor clearly tells the employee what's wrong and how it should be fixed and this presents little room for ambiguity or misinterpretation.
The receiver or employee can respond to the message with the appropriate corrections to the file or can give an explanation for the number to be off. It is also possible that the spreadsheet sent by Kratos Company can also be wrong and this may require communication between the manager and the representative of the company.
Message #2
In this message, the sender is an employee working for a police or other intelligence organization that is looking to further the development of a particular camera equipment for its future usage while the receiver is the person who is responsible for manufacturing and distributing the camera. The purpose of this message is to let the receiver know that the camera sent by the receiver for testing and evaluation purposes is satisfactory and so, the board will fund its further development. Also, the sender wants the receiver to provide the contact details of other agencies using this product so that it will throw more light on the procedures and policies for using the camera.
The environment in which this message is sent is a business one, typically a communication between a representative of an organization and manufacturer of an equipment. The medium is likely to be print or…
