Employees not sociable at work; Gen Y needs to change this

Employees not sociable at work; Gen Y needs to change

A new study by Plantronics focusing on the communication habits in the workplace show that social networking, either on Facebook or Twitter or on business networking sites like LinkedIn, are the least constructive activities for business productivity.

Email unsurprisingly has shot through through the roof in the last five years, increasing by over 70% according to the poll, which surveyed 1,800 knowledge workers in medium-sized and large businesses. Even though video and audio conferencing is on the rise, email remains at the top spot with mobile devices being able to take our written conversations anywhere we go.

However half of the 90% of those surveyed in the enterprise environment stated that they spend nearly a quarter of their working hours off site, making the need for mobile devices connected up to their corporate communications networks all the more important. But with over-the-air bandwidth being sluggish at the best of times mobile email access is the only viable option.

Texting is limiting, social media is public and too ‘personal’ and instant messaging though can be useful, is often not incorporated into the enterprise world.

The way we communicate entirely depends on the profession that we enter into. Those working in policing and intelligence will most likely prefer text-based communications as it enables quick, effective referencing to on-demand data.

Journalists will usually prefer phone conversations or face-to-face over any text based communications because it enables vocal inflections to be detected; stutters, stammers and physiological impairments, because frankly we like to catch people out. Press and public relations, publicists and corporate spokespeople will of course in light of the aforementioned prefer email and text-based communications.

The study goes on to further purport the theory that though there are more ways to communicate than before, most prefer the traditional methods even though they often cause confusion. Email works only so well on the basis that the two or more people in contact are on a level playing field emotionally, professionally and in terms of level of knowledge, language and skill being used.

Using buzzwords and acronyms out of context or in an illegible way requires the recipient to spend more time emailing back and asking for clarification, which causes an imbalance in the working relationship; the person losing self-confidence while the other gains higher ground by exerting even more unnecessary communication to make up for their previous misgiving. A phone conversation will lessen this a great deal.