Informal communication is casual and friendly communication that can happen anywhere and at any place. Informal communication can happen even in a professional set-up and workplace between boss and employees and between employees and co-workers. Informal communication is important for employees working in an organization to have belongingness and understanding with their company bosses and leaders.
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Informal communication has its own advantages if done properly at the workplace. Remember that informal communication doesn’t give you the right to get into gossip or grouping within the organization. Informal communication is meant to have friendly relations between co-workers. It is so that a team leader can understand and empathize with the situations of the employees who are working in his team. It is not meant to take work lightly or create more chaos in the organization.
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Let me explain to you the importance of informal communication through an example. A boss was going through a financial crisis in his company. This led him to create stricter working environments to get maximum output from his existing staff and remove the highest-paid staff members from his company. The employees’ morale was down because they were unable to understand why the boss was trying to change the work culture into a toxic one.
So, a team leader decided to act as a cooperative person between his team members and the boss. He went to the boss and asked him if he could spare an hour with him outside the office on any given day. The boss wasn’t interested to involve in any informal conversation with the team leader, however, he thought to give it a try to mend his relations with the employees.
The team leader took some graphs and charts wherein he explained the reasons behind the dropping sales and workforce in the company. The team leader kept the tone informal and casual so that the boss doesn’t feel hurt about the consequences of his actions. The boss was delighted to know how far he has gone to change the work culture and how it has been negatively impacting the employees’ performance.
The team leader convinced the boss to drop his ego and even the negative thinking toward his own employees. He came up with a simple plan that sounded win-win for the boss as well as the employees. Impressed by the friendly understanding of the team leader towards the boss, the boss decided to opt for the methods advised by him in relaxing the work culture and making it a flexible one so that each employee can contribute his or her best.
The boss was happy when the employees started reporting to work and delivering the work by the given deadline. He decided to expand his business and also go for team outings so that he could understand the strengths of each employee in a better manner. He decided to not be very formal and strict and instead be informal during team outings like dinners or lunches. He started throwing parties for every achievement and thus, it helped employee morale improvement.
