Fundamentals of Effective Communication in the Workplace
Dr. Ronnie Holmes
BUS100
July 31, 2014

In my last position as office manager/assistant director, I was responsible for communications between management, staff, parents and state and local licensing agents, as well as provide training for the staff, which required both written and verbal communication, used at different times. Being in this position for several years, it was only the last two circumstances that were communicated effectively to everyone. This was proven when 1) I knew what I was expected to put in writing and what points to train the staff on and had the experience to pass that on to my audience so they were interested and understood what was being said, 2) the training was understood and every one of the staff possessed the knowledge when they were asked about what they had learned and 3) each of the staff knew what was expected of them and acted accordingly. I had written one handbook for the staff and another for parents when I first started working at the child care center. I set the rules, regulations, standards, etc. that the owner had conveyed she wanted to put into place, as well as the state and local licensing regulations. There was little room on how much of that could be written differently, but when a violation of the handbook was noticed, it was brought to their attention, showing it in the handbook. It was the feedback by the staff that showed me that by adding more or removing some of the wording, the staff, which was generally between 18 and 20 years old, was better able to understand what the points of the handbook were. Then we had new regulations that we had to enforce, so another new handbook had to be created. This time, I had a good idea of how to word things so that it was understood. The verbal training that was done after the staff had been presented with and read the new handbook, proved to be extremely easy, mainly focusing on things that could help them in their position, how to use the new regulation in certain instances and they were able to confirm they got the message as it was meant to be given. Their experience showed them that we actively listened to what they wanted and it made them more comfortable to speak candidly. In conclusion, ineffective communication could