Essential for success in personal and professional spheres

Key to building favorable relationships

Part of 'soft skills', contrasting with 'hard skills' of technical knowledge

Importance for business executives spending significant time communicating

Telecommuting's impact on interpersonal communication requirements

Transfer of information between people resulting in common understanding

Various definitions by writers and behavioral theorists

Unavoidable Communicated unintentionally through body language, dress, etc

Twoway Exchange Sharing information with continuous feedback

Process Each message is part of a process dependent on past and present context

Involves Sender and Receiver Communication starts with a sender and needs a receiver

Verbal or Nonverbal Communication through words or body language

Successful When Interpreted Correctly Receiver interprets meaning as intended by sender

Dynamic Process Sharing thoughts and experiences while responding to the other person

Enables Understanding Helps people understand necessity for change, reasons for actions, etc

Sender or Encoder📤

Receiver or Decoder📥

Message💬

Channel📡

Feedback🔄

Context🌐

Wrong Person Sending the Message👤

Unclear or Badly Worded Message📝

Wrong Channel of Communication📡

Wrong Interpretation of Message🤔

Inadequate Feedback🔄

Noise Distorting the Message🔊

Wrong Context🌐

Work arrangement where employees work remotely and communicate electronically

Flourishing in Australia and other countries

Meyers and Hearn's survey of 39 telecommuters from 12 Australian organizations

Categories of telecommuters Administrators, computer system designers, journalists, etc

About 46% female telecommuters

Meetings considered important formal office communication

Based on task complexity, management predictions, and need for information currency

Expected frequency Zero times or weekly

Varying satisfaction levels based on meeting frequency and communication patterns

Example Salesmarketing telecommuters meeting weekly with superiors

Difficulty in attending meetings or disturbance to workathome schedule

Lack of communication on meeting schedules leading to missed meetings

Coworkers reluctant to call at home, leading to delayed critical information

Timeliness of communication more important for telecommuters due to lack of proximity

Communication as transfer of information resulting in common understanding

Characteristics Unavoidable, twoway, process, involves sender and receiver, verbal or nonverbal, successful when interpreted correctly, dynamic, enables understanding

Key elements Sender, receiver, message, channel, feedback, context

Telecommuting Working from home and communicating electronically

Decoder Device or person undoing encoding to retrieve original message

Encoder Device or person converting message into chunks known only to it