Communications Channel Paper
Kristen Peoples & Rebecca Mckeeth
HCS/320 Health Care Communications
Professor Paul Woods
May 7th 2012

Communication Channels
Communication is something very important no matter what organization or workplace one might reside. It is something that is absolutely necessary in a business model and as described by the lay networks website the essential components include encoding, medium of transmission, decoding, and feedback ("The Process of Communication", n.d.). With everyday living, comes communicating with others. Some people are great communicators, some people are horrible communicators and some just need to be pushed a little and learn the ropes of how great communication can be. Communication doesn't just come to us as human beings. We are born knowing we have a voice, but there are things we need to learn along the way to perfect and make ourselves the best we can be. With that being said, there is no stopping to our communication skills. Even as working adults, we are still learning different ways to communicate within our jobs. In this brief paper that will outline all forms of communication and how we use it on an everyday basis, we will be able to educate the reader on the different ways we as students use communication at our workplaces and everyday life. Although we all come from different areas of living and study we will concentrate on the different types of formal and informal communication and how we use it every day. Technological uses of communication were the most popular. Although it may not always be the best way to communicate with others, it is the most simple and things like e-mail, chat, instant messaging, video chat and phone calls that people use the most to communicate. These ways are simple and most widespread. This meaning that everyone can usually use one or more or all of the listed above to communicate with others in some form.

Compare and Contrast With the organizations across the board everyone utilizes the basic communication methods of the following: Phones, email, face to face chat, and monthly meetings. There were some very different forma of communications based on the business type. There were two medical organizations compared with one financial group. Let us take a look at the first method of communication mentioned. E-mail is now a worldwide and universal way of communicating with others. More than ever, e-mail has shown people how to communicate without having to actually speak or see the person face to face. This makes things easier when there isn't enough time in the day to actually meet with someone. Text messaging is also another form of communication that has taken the world by storm. So many businesses like to stay in contact with their employees this way when they have something simple to relay without a long message attached. One type of communication that was similar yet a little different would be the instant messaging. Instant messaging is used in both places yet one is used through an internal email system and one was utilized through MSN. (Oddly enough the company with the msn usage was the financial industry to which one would think there would be a higher level of security)
Text messaging among businesses and other employees are usually consistent of small sentences and one or two word answers. It makes everyone's lives easier with just a quick text message. Another popular way of communicating that has been brought up is face time meetings. These are a way for the companies in different locations to all come together for a common goal one industry utilized this form and the other two medical fields tended to be more face to face with monthly meeting. Meetings are the way of communication that goes all the way back. Before technology, business men and women would hold meetings to conduct business. Still today, this form of communication is widely used on an everyday basis. Face to face confrontation and clarification is still the most used form of communication among businesses.
The last one mentioned is the use of the telephone. The phone has come a long way among the years. Not only is there the generic use of telephone in workplaces to communicate, but there are great features that have arisen with the use of the phone as well. Conference dialing where more than two people can be involved in the call, call waiting, detailed voicemail and the use of mobile phones with businesses are all ways of using the telephone system. The phone has definitely come a long way and is still used almost entirely in every company or business place and all inventoried organizations utilized this form of communication. With the medical organizations it is comparative in the in the fact that there is a communication channel that is set up to receive in potential new patient inquiries. This system is set up to receive the information in and require a response to the potential patient or patient’s family with in a certain period of time. Usually this is done within twenty-four hours. One particular form of communication which was called a call night, this was interesting due to the name. It would seem as though it could be a line that was operated by a nurse that patients would call in need, however this was a system that took inventory of perspective patients and help in gathering information on perspective clients.
It seems as though, reviews are still utilized across the board to gauge c employee’s effectiveness at their job. This was done in both environments, however in the financial company the review was based on a bonus that could potentially pay out up to 150% of the bonus potential. This entails a much larger question, is this good thing or a bad thing?
Improvements and Recommendations When making money part of performance it becomes a very emotional issue. People become very emotional when it comes to their pay and potential earnings. Does this really encourage genuine participation for the goal of the company vision? Yes and No, you will see people take a more active role in customer satisfaction when their pay is directly affected by how they interact with their customers or patients and the voice of the patient is what determines their pay. It encourages going above and beyond the industry standard to command such praise from the client, yet does it take away from genuine care? A recommendation would be to not base the entire bonus off of one person’s performance but to equally divide the load. By this would to be to require responsibility from every department to hold the value of integrity and compassion of each patient, to the highest standards and reward accordingly. This would mean that fifty percent of the bonus was based off of how the organization did as a whole and the other fifty percent is based off of how each individual did. This would get the entire company in line with each other, holding each other to the same standard with the same goal visible through each interaction the patient has.
Conclusion

When concluding this paper, there are many points and ideas that came across from the findings that were mentioned. With so many different organizations and companies to work for, each one has their own special and unique way of communicating with the people within the work environment. From E-mail, to texting and from face time meetings to phone calls. Each method of communication helps the business in one way or more. In conclusion, the world needs to communication to thrive. When speaking about a workplace or organization, there are many ways like the ones mentioned here that keep a business growing and thriving. The use of e-mail, text, meetings face to face and the telephone are just to name a few. With time and with the advancement of technology, it is almost inevitable that more ways of communication are on the rise to help organizations and businesses all over the world. With time, it is sure to be just as useful and helpful as the tools we use and love today.
References
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