Kyle Tavares – Events Director – Xplor Ryerson

As a recent graduate from Ryerson University; now stepping into the document industry I wanted to write about something all Xplorers could relate to –workplace communication. This topic is applicable for all Xplorers no matter what specific industry you are a part of. Workplace communication is the transmitting of information between a person or group and another person or group of people. The information transmission includes email, text, and verbal communications.

Communication in the workplace is crucial for employee productivity. There are two types of communication flows, upward and downward. As the terms suggests upward would be an employee communicating with a superior while downward would be a communication coming from a boss geared towards another employee.

The reason upward and downward communication is important for the workplace is that it enhances the productivity of employees. Having upper management communicate in a way that all employees can comprehend will reduce the recoil of information having to be clarified repeatedly. I assume everyone has had an experience in the workplace where they have left a meeting with more questions then answers. At some point in your career you have emailed someone to get clarification or another meeting was held just to clarify points that were not met in the previous meeting.

In regards to internal and external communications I have noticed the definitions of specific terminology that employees use differs person to person. A recent experience I had was with an internal team I was a part, discussing the term “used case”. During an internal meeting the team realized that everyone defined a used case differently, which made it difficult to communicate during the meeting. The team then discussed everyone’s interruption of what a used case was and found a definition that worked for everyone. Later on the team met with the external customer who also used the term used case in a different context. As you can see a single term has caused communication barriers between internal and external teams. It is important to identify terms that are commonly used in the workplace and define them so that everyone is speaking the same language.

One way I have found to improve communication in the workplace include something we were all taught in grade school, active listening. During a time of communication, be sure to listen attentively and don’t be afraid to paraphrase your interpretation of what was just said. I have found this helps myself clarify information at the time the information is being discussed. If my paraphrase was off, I am able to take a set back and have the information rephrased so that everyone can be on the same page.

Finally my question to my fellow Xplorers: When is it appropriate for an email versus a phone call or face to face conversation with a client?