FAKULTI PENDIDIKAN DAN BAHASA

OUMH2203

ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION

Nama

: LOO LAI FUNG

No. Matrikulasi

: 830712085966001

No. Kad Pengenalan

: 830712085966

No. Telefon

: 017-5920186

Alamat E-mel

: llf@oum.edu.my

Tutor

: EN. RUBAN A/L PAUL DURAI

Pusat Pembelajaran

: PUSAT PEMBELAJARAN PERAK

Semester

: SEMESTER JAN 2016

Poor communication in the workplace can lead to poor relations between employees
and an unfriendly work atmosphere in general that renders workers inefficient and
ineffective. This leads workers to reciprocate their feelings to the customers. Rather than
dealing with the effects of poor communication at a small business, it is better to know the
causes and deal with those instead. In my point of view I totally agree that many Malaysians
have difficulty communicating in English in the workplace, especially when it comes to
business-related matters.
So, we need to understand the causes of communication problems first which related
to this topic. Once of the things that is constantly up for debate is whether the poor writing
and communication is a cause or an effect. We should define is it attributed to cause an
individual to have poor writing and communication in the workplace? Was the poor writing
and communication a result of something that occurred at work or at home? These are the
questions that should be asked and answered in order to correct the communication problems.
Many things can cause poor communication in the workplace. From personal conflict
to low morale to lack of motivation, poor communication will often ensue. If you examine
the personalities of the people and the workplace relationships between them, it is often easy
to see where the problem may lay. For instance, if there are individuals who have a
superiority complex this may attribute to poor communication. If there is an ineffective
exchange of information then there will be a breakdown in communication.
Usually, poor communication (whether writing or just general oral communication) is
something that starts on the executive level. If there is a break in communication on the
executive level, then there will inevitably be a break in communication on the administrative
level as well. When it comes to the innate causes of poor communication, individuals need to
analyse the whole situation or the overall picture. Poor communication and writing in the
workplace such as poor email or letter writing do not cause themselves however if left
unattended the effects may detrimental. There are a few causes of overall poor
communication in the workplace.
Bad management could be one of the most leading causes of poor writing and
communicating in an organisation or workplace. If you have bad managers then often you
may suffer from poor communication and writing skills. Bad managers do not allow their
employees to communicate effectively in the workplace. A bad manager would much rather
micromanage their employees and over exert control because they do not have the self-

control necessary to manage effectively. As a result they thwart their poor communication on
their employees.
Besides, a bad manager who restrict their workers from communicate with each other
will break the team work between colleague. As we know, unity is strength once we do not
have unity in a team then a lot of works will be complicated and even difficult to solve. So,
instead of employ more workers into a company it is always a better choice to train a group
of workers with quality and discipline.
Communication in workplace will be the key of success that will help a company to
have a better result in any fields. Therefore, a company should hold some activities like
having a trip on the holiday, having a dinner party or having a gathering in someones house.
This enables the workers to understand each other more deeply and nurture their teamwork
indirectly. I will give an example so that we may have a better view in this scenario. Let say a
big company have 1o teams and each of the team is doing their own task, if the management
of the organisation is poor then the workers may be lack of chance to communicate with the
workers of other team.
So, when we need to run an event or program for our company may be the problem
that will face by us is we do not know how to work hand in hand with each other although we
are from the same company. Thus, no matter which department are we from, we need to
communicate with the entire person around us such as customers, team mate, manager or
even our boss. I have a strong stand that a good relationship among the people in a company
will have a better teamwork that enable to have a better future. So, we need to keep in mind
that bad management will be the killer of writing and communicating in a workplace.
One of the major causes that lead to poor writing and communicating in a workplace
is lack of education. As we know, teenagers nowadays were encouraged to further their study
as far as they could. This is because of the demand in society; a company will choose a
employee with a better education level than those who perform poor in their education.
Without a certificate nowadays, it is very difficult for us to have a good job because all of the
heavy industries and big corporation are using machine to replace the number of employee in
every aspect. Knowledge is power, and without the proper education you will not be able to
move forward in your career.
In order to hone in on good communication and good writing it would help to take
extra courses on how to have better communication in the workplace. Training is important.

Although some of the people may say I can still run a business without having a good
education. Yes, maybe you are right but how many of them can run a business successfully
with creative and innovative? We always see there is a successful man under the sun but will
you ask what is the darkness that has been experienced by him or her before he can stand in
front of the sun?
So, I will more prefer that we have a good education and we really want to run a
business also we can do a lot of things by our own without employ others. For instance, I
want to make a transport company that will send the stuff you buy online to your house.
Then, if I am well educated, I can communicate with the company by my own or even the
company which is international level. However, we are lack of education, let say that the
manager for certain company is the one who only knows how to speak in English. If I am
poor in English, then how can I communicate with him?
Then, you will need to employ a translator and this make you pay more and affect the
bond between us and our customers because you are not the one who deals with them. So,
teenagers should realize that education will directly affect your ability to communicate with
others. Besides the one who is lack of education, will most probably immature if compare to
the one who is well educated. Actually, the knowledge we learn in school will be useful when
come to society, but the only problem is a lot of us do not know the correct way to apply what
we have learned in their career. So, it proves that lack of education can cause a poor
communicating skill in workplace.
As I mention above some of the person may have high education however they still
not manage to communicate well with others. What is the factors that cause this scenario and
is there any good explanation and evidence that can prove this case. For point of view, all of
this due to lack of motivation and confidence from the individual. There is no relationship
that you score all A in your SPM, STPM or degree level, no matter how good you are in the
test but you may not know that you probably a machine that has been train to score during
exam. Please keep in mind that we learn the knowledge from school is for our own good, it is
not for just scoring A.
Nowadays, we notice a lot of parents nurture their children to be a bookworm. They
always send their children to tuition centre for reason compete with other children but one of
the most important things is they are not be taught that soft-skill is very important when its
come to your career. So, children may misunderstood that result is everything but in reality if

you only have flying colour result, other than that you do not know anything then it will end
up with nothing.
So, we should nurture our young generation the braveness and confidence to talk in
front of people. How to present and perform well when communicate with others rather than
become a bookworm. For instance, a company should give a fair chance to the entire
employee to present themselves in front of people or even an event or party. This can
motivate and sharpen their skill on giving a short talk to others.
In addition, a company can also prepare courses for the employee who is weak in
communication. With this action, the workers have the chance to train themselves and with
some experience gather from the course, it may help them to communicate much better than
before since they are more comfort and more confidence to their communication skill. Thus,
if we are giving motivation from others, we will most probably have the drive to learn how to
communicate well with others.
The bad culture in workplace also causes poor communication. For example, poor
listening. So why does not listening happen? Well there are a few reasons. You may have no
involvement or concern with the topic. You will then have no desire to take part in the
conversation. There also may be distractions.
For example working in an area that is loud and noisy. Here are a couple more reasons
for lack of listening. First there might be differences in opinions regarding the topic. And this
last one in which I have seen many times. Passive listening instead of taking an active role. In
this case you are involved in something else at the same time. How many times have you
made a decision based on assuming something will happen?
Only to find out that it didn't go as planned. We all know that we shouldn't make
assumptions. But we still do it anyway. Assumptions a lot of times will be made to speed up a
process or task. Assumptions are made to cut corners and save time by ignoring the path of
communication. The major problem with making assumptions is that 9 times out of 10 it
doesn't work out. Also by making assumption you will likely miss out on important
information. Non-verbal signals have the potential to block effective communication in the
workplace. Negative body language like waving your hands, raising your arms in discuss and
even shaking your head will send negative messages. It is all about interpretation. The
impacts of these traits can affect workplace relationships and your willingness to take part in

communicating. The best action a leader can take is to understand your own body language.
Quite often people ask questions that lack details. The whole point of asking questions in the
first place are to confirm what has been communicated or for clarification. Asking the right
types of questions will provide effective communication in the workplace. Make sure you use
open ended questions to get the proper answers you seek. This type of question includes
details like who, what, where, when and how.
Many times effective communication in the workplace is blocked by the
overwhelming amount of information. How many times have you seen the same email
covering the same information just from a different sender? What ends up happening is that
many employees start to ignore those emails. The problem is that some of the emails will
have details that were not included in the original. The best way to avoid this is to provide
new emails, just dont cc and forward emails.
In conclusion, I am totally agreed that most of the Malaysians have difficulty
communicating in English in the workplace. However, causes of poor communication can be
daunting, there are plenty of remedies that can help alleviate the problem. Training is
essential and must be done continuously in order for poor communication to cease. Whether
in the guise of workshops or seminars, it is important to have a stronghold on the poor
communication problem before it causes catastrophic effects in the workplace. Continuous
positive reinforcement between management and employees is essential and could be an
instant remedy of the poor communication problem.

BIBLIOGRAFI
http://lifehacker.com/top-10-ways-to-improve-your-communication-skills-1590488550
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships/effective-communication.htm
http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/communicating.htm
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/improve-communication-skills.html
http://www.skillsyouneed.com/general/what-is-communication.html
http://www.skillsyouneed.com/general/communication-skills.html