Use of Nonverbal Communication at Work

At the Country club I experienced a situation with our Catering Manager. She had an issue with my administrative assistant leaving at certain times and emailed her that our General Manager gave her the authority to keep track of her sick time and sent me a copy. The administrative assistant is one of my employees plus as the comptroller of the club I keep track of everyone’s sick hours. I first communicated with the General Manager through an email about my concerns and to find out if he had indeed given her the authority to track my employees sick time.

He informed me that he did not and he would talk to her about the email. A week went by and the employee was still having issues with the catering manager so, I setup a meeting with the General Manager and talked with him about the situation and what he would do to fix the problem. He assured me that he would talk with her about this issue and that would be taken care of. His facial expression of non-concern said otherwise that he would get to it if possibly or not at all. Of course it took another week before I was able to hear back from my employee that the problem was resolved but, no disciplinary actions were made or a letter written in her file. This is not the only incident we have had with this catering manager.

You can tell that the General Managers nonverbal communication said one thing and his actions said another. He told you what you wanted to hear but his actions was completely different. Another nonverbal signal was that he practically pushed me out the door because he was wanting to have a cigarette break. If I was the General Manager I would have setup a meeting with the catering manager to address the issue. Then I would have written a letter abou...

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You need to be conscious of their behavior due to the fact you are always communicating nonverbally. You would not dress the same as you would for a dinner party as you would to go jogging. “But the more you can consciously adapt your nonverbal behavior to what seems appropriate to the situation, the more effective you will be as a communicator”(Cengage Learning Verderber, 2009).

References

.Helpguide.org, n.a., retrieved from http://www.helpguide.org/mental/eq6_nonverbal_communication.htm

Dr. Jenna Carpenter, n.a., Non-Verbal Communication, The Key to Understanding Others and Communicating Effectively, Retrieved from http://coes.latech.edu/assets/owise/non-verbal_communication.pdf

Cengage Learning Verderber, 2009, Communicating through Nonverbal Behaviors, Retrieved from http://4ltrpress.cengage.com/comm/COMM_Ch04_website.pdf