Free Communication Skills revision

i. Be prepared: The interviewer should be prepared before the interview by brushing up their interviewing skills, as well as the interviewee’s skills and employment history by going through their resumes/CVs.
ii. Choice of questions: he interviews should select question wisely to ensure they are tailored to the role they are hiring for. The questions should cover skills, job knowledge, and work history, as well as behavioral and situational skills.
iii. Interview structure: The interviewer should set us structure during the interview preparation since if the interview is unstructured, they can lose tract and end up wasting their time and that of the interviewee structured interview should be organized (i.e. start with a brief introduction, followed by questions and lastly give the candidate opportunity to ask questions).
iv. Note taking & listening: By taking notes, the interviewer will be able to compare candidates once the interview stage is over. The interviewer should listen to the candidates carefully to ensure they note all the negative and positive attributes. By using a scorecard, the interviewer will be able to assess the candidate’s answers effectively.

i. Lack of formality: Non-verbal communication is not well structured like written and oral communication, so it cannot be used to any formal situation (e.g. business reports and advertising).
ii. Ambiguity :Receiver may fail to understand information send using ambiguous or unfamiliar non-verbal cues, leading to failure of communication between them.
iii. Culture oriented: Since use of non-verbal cues are generally culture oriented, use of non-verbal cues of one culture cannot be used in another culture. Though some cues remain the same across different cultures, their meaning differ significantly.
iv. Expression of contradictory meaning: Though non-verbal cues help in expressing the meaning of verbal messages more accurately, they may express contradictory meaning with verbal statement.
v. Long conversations are not possible and no party can discuss the particular issues of the messages.
vi. While watching someone’s eyes, you may miss something significant in a hand gesture since everything is happening at once and therefore it may be confusing to try to keep up with everything.

i. Downward: Here, communication flows from a higher level in an organization to a lower level in an organization (i.e. from seniors to subordinates). It is used by managers to transmit work-related information to the employee at lower levels. Managers use downward communication to:
• Provide feedback on employees performance
• Give job instruction
• Communicate the organization's mission and vision to the employees
• Highlight areas that need more attention
• Explain employees’ duties and relation to the organization’s goals.
Examples include organizational publications, circulars, letters to employees, group meetings.

ii. Upward: This refers to the communication that flows to a higher level in the organization. (i.e. from subordinates to superiors). Subordinates use upward communication to:
• Convey their problems and performances to their superiors
• Tell how well they have understood the downward communication
• Share their views and ideas to participate in decision making
Examples include Grievance redress system, complaint and suggestion box, job satisfaction survey, performance reports made by low level management for review by higher level managers, employees attitude surveys.

iii. Lateral/Horizontal communication: This refers to the type of communication that takes place at the same level of hierarchy in an organization (i.e. communication between peers or managers in the level). Its main benefits include:
• Saves time and enables sharing of information.
• Facilitates coordination of the task and co-operation amongst team member.
• Provides social and emotional assistance to the organizational members.
• Helps in solving various organizational problems
• Can be used to resolve conflicts between /within departments

iv. Diagonal communication: This refers to communication that crosses both levels and functions or departments where staff members from different departments interact with one another within the organization, irrespective of their reporting relationship (i.e. it is not affected by any lines of authority). For example, junior staff from finance department can interact with a senior staff from the operations department. Advantages include:
• May speed up the flow of information
• Can help create a healthy environment and relationship.
• Can help build better coordination amongst staff members.
• Can help in solving problems easily as different ideas are brought together.
• Not easy to distort information as individuals are in direct contact with one another.

v. External communication: This refers to communication that takes place between managers and external groups, such as vendors, banks, customers, suppliers, etc. Advantages of external communication include:
• Used to communicate new information & news relates to an organization’s customers, shareholders, suppliers or other stakeholders.
• Can be used to build an organization’s image & workplace culture to its customers and other stakeholders through different mediums (e.g. newsletters, press release, etc.).
• Used to create awareness of a company’s products or services to its audience /customers