The purpose of effective communication is to co-ordinate efforts towards achieving team goals, enhancing quality of meetings for information to be shared, decisions collectively made, and for there to be shared understanding about the tasks to be performed. A necessary component of team work is establishing shared meaning of the work, and appropriate means of delivering high quality consumer care (Borrill et.al, 2000).
Effective healthcare centers heavily rely on effective communication for them to live up to their missions. Productivity at the workplace improves when information flawlessly flows from one level to another. It leads to more tasks completed, consequently leading to the fulfillment of goals. In the workplace too, effective communication usually has a positive effect on employee performance through increased morale, higher retention rates and the overall productivity at the workplace. According to Aramyan (2015), it also leads to reduced misunderstandings, increased empowerment and truthfulness, as well as higher accountability, and well directed actions.
Relationship Between Communication and Morale
In most cases, ineffective communication is causal to low morale in the workplace. When the people in charge do not communicate effectively, there might be rumors spreading among the employees about problems and potential apprehension regarding teamwork, which greatly affects morale.
This stresses on the need to pass people accurate and timely information, in whatever circumstance an office may be in. All employees in all levels need to be aware and updated about company information.
Good (effective) communication enables a team to stay closely knit. It might be sending weekly emails with updates, or even short, scheduled...
Communicating constantly and effectively with one's team, will affect their morale.
How to Overcome Communication Barriers in the Workplace
Medical assistants carry out numerous interpersonal communications throughout their work schedules. Often, they all have different viewpoints of their roles and responsibilities as regards their patients' needs. This is an indication of different goals among individuals working in the same environment. If there exists no system that encourages effective flow of information between the healthcare workers, there might be a big communication breakdown, which may consequently affect the patients and in turn, the hospital, eventually.
Most of the medical assistants are from different ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds. It is known that these differences, even though beautiful, can be some of the greatest hindrances of effective communication. For instance, in some cultures, people shy away from being assertive. O'Daniel Rosenstein (2008) opine that cultural barriers can also obstruct nonverbal communication.
A workplace should develop and implement a standard set of policies that work towards overcoming this barrier. These policies should be consistent and universally applicable. The policies should become part of the medical staff's bylaws with all employees agreeing to abide by them. The policies should have a standardized procedure clearly showing the expected standards and the manner appropriate for addressing disruptive behavioral issues, commendations, follow-up plans, and punitive actions for resistance or refusal to conform to them. Before implementation, the company should ensure all employees are familiar with…
