Communication Challenges and Strategies

Communication and behavioral issues arise in all organizations; it is how they handle and address these issues that make organizations successful. While communication and behavioral issues can become a detriment to an organization if the right processes are put in place to control the problem it can have a positive impact on the organization. Integration of new employees into the workplace is one of the leading causes of communication issues in today's workforce. Generation Y sends text messages, tweets and instant messages to communicate, while baby boomers and older Gen Xers tend to prefer phone calls and emails. Throw in that younger workers tend to use abbreviations, informal language, and colloquialisms, and you've got a recipe for serious communication breakdowns. With this, it forces leaders, managers, and team members to learn the most effective communication style for each member to properly communicate and handle behavioral issues as they arise.

Communications

Communication is what binds everyone together in an organization. Without proper connection established much organization may fail. An interface is a core objective to team direction and success of organizational tasks and goals. This communication comes from senior leadership, and it is essential that they learn and understand what works best for their team. Discussion in a team setting needs to be clear and concise to all team members to ensure success. As leaders, it is essential that they bring their team together as one and learn how to properly communicate and work together. With this, it is imperative that leaders adjust their leadership and develop useful tools to lead both the older and newer generation of workers they face.

A practical tool that all leaders, managers and team member should work to develop to help be more effective in communication is feedback. Such feedback can be received through an email, survey, open communication, etc. Feedback is your audience's response; it enables you to evaluate the effectiveness of your message. If your audience doesn't understand what you mean, you can tell by the reaction and refine the message. As leaders, it is crucial that communication barriers are identified early. Once identify bring teams together and look for potential solutions to the obstacles. Not only does this help to find ideas to eliminate potential obstacles, but it also gives team members a sense of purpose and shows them that they have a voice within their team.

Behavioral Issues

When it comes to managing new hire employees effectively, it is important to establish business work rules. These work roles can be used to protect businesses and protect it, workers, if these rules are effectively implemented and executed. These are usually optional to smaller businesses, wherein larger organizations most of these rules are set by federal and state laws. IT is recommending that the rules are built with general statements that give employees the clear understanding that engaging in improper behaviors will be subject to disciplinary action that could lead warnings, layoffs, or even dismissal from the organization. Other organization issues with first-time hires are their lack of organizational commitment. First time hires now have developed a new mindset and have no concept of company loyalty. In 2008, that figure reached 70 percent. Further, almost 80 percent of all "firsters" move on within three to five years. With it is easier to understand why many organizations don't like to hire first-timers due to lack of organizational commitment, and the cost from an HR standpoint of bringing on a new employee. It has been estimated that it costs roughly $3,500 to replace one employee that is being paid $8 an hour. This is a lot of money for an organization to be put into an employee every couple of years due to low retention rate. The newer generation of first-time hires has now branded themselves in a way that will continue to make it more difficult for organizations to take a risk in hiring them.

Behavioral Issue Solutions

The best solution for the behavioral issues is to identify them early. New hires need to feel a sense of worth in the company to help them stay established within the organization. Organizations need to focus on the demands on of their employees, which is through a PwC study: training and education, work-life flexibility, and the opportunity for advancement ahead of or equal to salary and benefits. By looking for feedback from new hires and learning from their ideas, it provides open and effective communication that new hires respond well too. However, new hires usually have little work experience; they come with a fresh mind and fresh ideas that may be possible solutions. Leaders should have an open mind with new hires, as they can tailor them to be as efficient or ineffective based on the training they give them. Contracts with new employees that help pay back a percentage of educational debts is another excellent solution to help better establish employee integrity to the organization. When organization help employees pay back the vast amount of debt they acquired throughout the years of school, it shows that the organization appreciated their dedication to their education. Usually, these contracts require employees to stay with an organization three year after the time of providing the last payment to their knowledge.

Conclusion

As communication and behavioral issues become more present in the newer generation of hires, it is imperative that organizations find clear and effective ways to work with them. As other generations continue to get older and retire, it will be the younger generation of workers taking over and running organizations. This, however, will take time for all the older generation to be out of work and with this it is imperative that leaders find ways to allow both generations to comingle within the workforce. Such, tactics like establishing clear communication processes, understanding and using the best communication methods per employee and establishing organization rules are just a few of the proper ways to help leaders and organizations be successful during this new generational change. By being flexible, it allows the first-time employee to find a work and life balance and still give the company optimal performance levels. New employees also require proper education and training, giving them this it allows them the opportunity to grow and understand the mission and goals of the new company their working for.