Communication Within The Workplace

7 Pages 1829 Words

t backgrounds they are dealing with.
The growing diversity of the American workforce is no longer a prediction, it is a fact. According to Workforce 2000, 85 percent of the 26 million new workers who join the American workforce will be members of minority groups, women and immigrants (Reference 3). What distinguishes one individual from the next often goes far beyond race, sex, age, ethnic origin and other visible differences. There are also differences in attitude, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background and job status-differences that can undermine good working relationships and hinder productivity if they are not acknowledged and understood.
One obstacle that organizations may have to overcome is the language barrier, both verbal and non-verbal. It may be assumed by most American’s that if a co-worker is an English speaker that they are speaking the same language and code and decode messages the same way, but this is not always true. Even if everyone all spoke English, just think about how use of the language differs between different English speaking countries; or how it varies in different parts of the same country for that matter. The same can happen between departments or teams within and organization. Each department or team may have their own jargon that no other department uses and an “outsider” may not be familiar with their language. This also applies when it comes to dealing with non-verbal expressions from different cultures or departments. They could be anyth...