How do informational and motivational functions of organizational communication help organizations?
Communication is everywhere and it is unique in every area. This is why the communication process in an academic setting may differ from that of the hospital or medical setting. Organizational communication as we all know is practiced by organizations. Let us tease our minds here. When we say organizational, what does it really mean? Most often, people tend to associate organizations with non-governmental organizations and non-profit ones. In actual fact, an organization is just a group of people who are envisioned to achieve a common goal.
 |
| How do informational and motivational functions of organizational communication help organizations? by quikcounsel.com |
If you take quikcounsel for instance, I am an individual behind this website hence I can not define myself as an organization even though I am bound by vision and want to achieve a common goal. Immediately I added one more person, we are eligible to form an organization if we have a goal, there are people (that is us) and there is a structure (that is maybe I the writer of this article will be the manager, there would be a technician and that order). That is all about organization and communication comes in when we tend to discuss developments, address issues, and engage with people who are outside the quikcounsel organization. In this case, I am communicating with people who are not part of my team.
Every organizational communication has four functions. What does the communication in organizations seek to achieve? For the purpose of this article, I will discuss two with you and in the subsequent articles, I will talk about the remaining two. The informational and motivational functions are the subject matter for this information to you. Why do you have to know this? As you are reading this now, you are one way or the other belonging to an organization and you probably do not how the communication processes work not to mention the importance of communication in that organization you belong to. Anyways, let's begin.
When we talk about the informational function as a function of organizational communication, it is no new thing but a lot of people do not actually know the term given to that process within an organization is the informational function. I am currently a student at one of the top universities in Ghana. Every university school, faculty, or department has associations. I belong to an association in my school and that association is an organization. Why? There is an organizational chart such that someone is acting as the president, followed by the vice, secretary, in that order. Now, when the people in the top position or let me put it the executives want to inform us about a policy or any update, the process and procedures they use is what is termed as the informational function of organizational communication.
It is basically how employees, members, or followers are informed. It is known to be the basic function of them all because every organization uses this function to disseminate updates and other information. Now, let us try to understand it within the working environment aside from the personal scenario I gave.
At every workplace, there are various means employees or workers get to access information. Some receive it directly on their electronic devices, others have to go to the notice board and others receive it in person from the management. You should know the difference as an employee and an employer. Of course, you can combine two or more organization communication functions at a time but it is necessary to focus on one at a time. There is time for everything.
As an employer, you should know when to inform, control, and give the chance for employees to express themselves and motivate them. As an employee, you must know how you react to updates. Some are just information to you thus the informational function and some are to outline new rules and regulations, with that, you just don’t get informed, you are forced to abide by certain standards as provided through the control function of organizational communication. (we will delve into this in the next article).
Now to the motivational function of organizational communication, who does not like to be motivated? Have you had that experience when you went to a workplace especially where instant services are offered and then you see an image on a notice board with the caption “Worker of the Week” before? What did it communicate to you? It means the person did excellent right? In most cases, management does not even inform the one who is going to receive such praise so imagine a worker getting up and coming to work to see his or her photo on the notice board with that inscription, how would they feel? People often bring out more when they are appreciated for the little they do. This is what most managers in organizations are failing to do.
They fail to utilize the motivational function of organizational communication and that is what makes most workers unhappy because no matter the efforts they put in, it is not appreciated by the management; they are not motivated, or appreciated, just nothing but only salary. This does not help organizations to flourish. Motivation is not just about giving an employee money or something extraordinary even though they are all necessary but applauding the person in front of his or her colleagues does not just motivate the former, it also motivates the others to put in more effort to receive similar treatment.
Comments
Post a Comment