Jake Dooley
U1 P3

General communication barriers:

The barriers that block a general communication are mostly due to the language that the two people speak in or how they talk.  One way that someone might not understand the person that they are talking to is the actual language that they use e.g. if one of the people talking comes from Spain and the other one lived in England then the English person might not understand the Spaniard and vice verse. 

Another example of how people may be blocked from hearing or understanding the person they are communicating with themselves is the accents that they speak in even if the two people who are talking are from the same country the areas of that country might have different accents, e.g. if one person from London talks to a person from Liverpool and if the person from London has a thick cockney accent then the person from Liverpool might not understand that person). 

Another way that someone may not understand another person due to the way that they speak is if the person uses slang, an example of slang is using “my bad” instead of saying “sorry that was my fault” or using “supersize” instead of “large”.  The reason why using slang can cause communication barriers is because if a teenager talks to an elder who doesn't understand slang then the elder will not know what the teenager is talking about or he might take the statement seriously.  There are other reasons why someone may not understand you for example if there is background noise when the people are talking due to other people or technology the person on the other end of the conversation might miss hear or might not hear them at all due to their use of slang.

Interpersonal barriers:

These barriers are due to how the people act during the conversation which includes the body language of the people in the chat, for example if one person in the conversation is looking at the time or is staring into the distance it means that they are bored and they will make the other person on the other end of the conversation will lose confidence and the courage to continue. 

Another body language that is negative is when one of the people talking is pointing at the other person then that means that the pointer is angry and as a result the other person becomes intimidated and will not continue in the argument meaning that the pointer has blocked off the person he or she was arguing with. 

Another barrier that comes from interpersonal communication is the overuse of negative language.  This is a barrier because the person on the other side of the conversation will feel that the other person is angry at them and will quickly become intimidated or agitated and will ether get blocked off or make the person who is using all of the negative language intimidated causing the cycle to repeat if both of them are stubborn.   

The last interpersonal barrier is the over use of closed questions, a closed question is a question that can only have two answers mostly being yes or no, when someone uses a closed question they often want to end the conversation quickly trying to boar the other person so when someone does use them the other person feels that they are pressured and that the other person is trying to push them away.

Written communication barriers:

The first way that someone can be blocked off from written communication is by the network between the two people having an online conversation is ether lagging or is completely down.  This does class as a barrier because when there is lag the other person won’t be able to see what you are typing (or it would be very difficult) and if the network crashes it means that you can’t communicate with that person at all.

Another barrier that can prevent someone from understanding a message that has been sent to them is how the other person spells, how neat their handwriting is and how good their grammar is.  The reason why spelling can be an issue is because if the person who sent the hand written letter can’t spell at all then the person who receives the letter won’t understand what he/she means and will probably not read the letter at all.  The reason why handwriting is an issue is much for the same reason as why spelling is so important however it is a less large margin for error (especially if the person you are sending the letter to has eye problems) and the reason why incorrect grammar is an issue is because if there is no proper structure to the sentences then it becomes unreadable especially if you have the other problems as well.

             

What employers look for in a worker and why

In the workplace it is important that the employees have specific traits about them.  Whether they are related to the job, related to the person or just general skills needed to get the job done employers judge a job hunter on all of them, give their judgement on the picture they gain from looking at all these factors and people who have these good traits have a higher chance of getting into the job that they want over someone who doesn’t. 

The first of these traits that employers are looking for in an IT industry comes under the job related knowledge and it is technical knowledge, this factor should be obvious because people who don’t know how to work with the piece of technology whether it be a standard desktop, a notebook or a printer that person will not be able to do the job that the boss has set for them so it is crucial especially in an IT job to know the technology that you are going to be working with if you want to keep your job and not get fired.

The next job related attribute you need to get employers to notice you is to know the company policies such as health and safety and data protection.  This one might be another obvious one but company employers want to see that you know that you know what you and that you don’t do anything that would purposefully/accidentally harm you or your fellow colleagues and that you will not break any of the company’s policies that they have set out such as stealing from them or breaking one of their machines.

The next set of attributes that employers are looking for when you apply for a job are more based around you as a person rather than knowledge, these include planning/organising skills, time management, team working, communication skills, numeric skills and creativity.  The first on this list is an important one because not does it show the employer that you are good at planning for big events and that you are good at organising files it also shows them that you are more reliable when it comes to work that they must do at home meaning that the work will be in an easy to understand design and font and also that they won’t forget about the assignment under all the work that they will be doing while in the workplace. 

The next one on the list is time management which also has the same reason as planning/organising meaning that they know when an objective needs to be completed by and if they are really good with this trait then they will be able to complete the task quicker and get onto another task and increase the amount of work done in a year.

Team worker is another really important factor that boosts the work produced because when there is a massive project underway then everyone can contribute a little bit and make the job less large for each person and when one person is done with their part then they can go and help the other members of the group decreasing the time it takes to complete the overall task even more.

Having good communication skills also links into team work because if a team doesn’t have good communication then they will be confused on what they must do meaning that the task will be delayed and that the overall progress of the job will be hindered by workers doing the same work as the other members of the group meaning that one person would have wasted there time.

Numeric skills and creativity are important as well because if you are in charge of someone’s money in a bank e.g. an accountant then you’re going to need arithmetic skills to keep track of the money (also links into organising skills) otherwise you are going to lose not only your job but also the respect of the people whose money you were looking after and finally if you are a web designer then you need to be creative in order to attract customers otherwise you ant going to attract many people and your business is going to fail.

The last sets of traits that employers look for in workers are all about their attitudes towards the job.  If a worker is determined it means that that worker will not stop until the job is finished, if a worker is independent it means that you only need to tell them what to do and you won’t need to worry or tell them how to do their job, if an employee works with integrity it means that that worker will put high value into said work and won’t deliver it until it is up to high standard, if a worker is tolerant it means that the worker will be able to take large amounts of pressure without cracking and that worker won’t mind who they are working with (links into team worker), if a worker is dependable it means that he is reliable and that he will be able to complete the work and complete it to an acceptable standard, if a worker is a problem solver it means that he/she can take on jobs  that are more difficult and that they can solve problems between two other workers or relieve tension when there is a lot of pressure on the team (links into team worker), if a worker is confident then that worker will not only be able to believe in them self but also be able to do tasks which are more difficult and if a worker has self-motivation then they will be able to do tasks that ether seem to be or difficult then they can handle or they can push their way through long and tedious tasks.

By Jake Dooley