Technology and workplace communication challenges for future executives

Integrated Business Communications

Integrated Business Communication. Write (3-4) page paper addresses: As a future executive, explain important communication issues face embark career. Discuss communication complex, complex,

Assessing integrated business communication today

Ultimately, business is about serving customers, and customers will not understand the value one's business can give them without effective communication. However, the need for effective communication is not limited to people who buy an organization's goods and services. The ability to frame a cohesive organizational message begins with strong, effective workplace relationships between employees and employers and then spills out into the other facets of the workplace.

Technology

Given the profound shifts that have occurred in workplace communication, it is necessary even for well-functioning organizations to review their standard operating procedures. Workers, thanks to the availability of online technology, are often spaced out farther from one another than ever before yet are also far more constantly connected: the home office may be in New York, but employees in London are able to communicate in 'real time' with supervisors via their smartphones; a team working on the same project may be spread all over the world but have weekly video conferences.

While these forms of communication are essential, the etiquette of using technology and the demarcation of public and private space can be fuzzy. Workers may complain of too much informality in communications, given that their colleagues are so used to using smartphones for talking to friends and family; bosses may not allow their workers to have critical 'downtime' on the weekends because it is so easy to point, click, and send email. "For others, technology, social media and mobile devices are what keeps workplace communication flowing even if they are just across town from each other, and not in another part of the world like us" (Adams 2012). The 9-5 workday is no more.

Technology has not only changed how we physically communicate -- it has also altered our attention spans. For better or for worse, customers and employees alike demand succinct and to-the-point communications. The Internet has also created a more visually-oriented method of communication -- there is a new demand that information be visualized, not simply verbalized. That is why Tweets and Facebook status updates used to promote a business must be short and eye-catching and preferably linked with enticing visuals and the age of long, deadly presentations at work with only a few graphs is no more. Verbally, communication may grow simpler, but the multi-channeled nature of the different communication formats open to businesses and the way businesses relate to customers and employees paradoxically makes communication infinitely more complex.

In the case of customers, the relationship-building fostered by online communications can be very beneficial. Before, customers were merely the passive recipients of information. Today, they can actively interact with businesses they enjoy, provide feedback, criticize, follow and 'friend' them. This creates a sense of personalization and a bond with what was once a faceless organization. A business becomes 'part' of the identity of the consumer via social media.

Culture clashes

Workplaces are growing increasingly diverse, given the globalization of small-scale commerce. This will further add to the complexity and nuance of communications. Employees must be self-conscious of the fact that their 'normal' is not the normal of all other employees in the workplace. On one hand, cultural differences must be tolerated -- on the other hand, organizations must have a cohesive organizational culture. The democratic ideal of the future is that all employees have potentially valuable ideas to give to the organization and workers of all levels eat side-by-side CEOs at the workplace cafeteria.

My personal philosophy

"Integrated communication is the perfect matching of internal and external communication activities" (Winistorfer 2013). Ideally, an organization should strive to create culturally and generationally-appropriate communication messages using all channels at its disposal. It should build relationships, not merely dictate a message. Good communication is about dialogue, but there also must be consistency to the organizational message, no matter how diverse.