Question

looking at how to communicate technical information to a non-technical audience, as well as how to communicate to different audiences or stakeholders. Based on experience in the corporate environment, we see a lot of one size fits all communication products and fellow coworkers not understanding the importance of addressing different audiences through separate communication products.

Please describe how you currently approach communication in your workplace (or current setting).

Answer 1

In my current workplace, I am required to manage multiple employees. These employees include experienced Engineers, Experienced technicians, fresh Engineering graduates, MBA graduates, Commerce graduates, etc. All these employees come with varied educational qualifications and work experiences. The industry I am working is Renewable energy, and job requirements are both Technical and Non-technical. I, being the manager of the team need to clearly communicate instructions and work requirements to team members, so that they are able to understand what they are supposed to do. Since my team members come from different backgrounds, I need to communicate with them through different methods.

Experienced Engineers- They are technically very strong and have good knowledge in their work domain. Communicating with them is fairly easy. They can be communicated any message, verbally or in writing, smoothly and they immediately understand what they need to do. I generally prefer written instructions to them as their work is very technical and complex in nature. Since they are experienced and technically skilled they are able to easily follow all instructions and are able to do their work efficiently. Sometimes verbal instructions are also given to them, which they understand without any issue.

Experienced Technicians- They are also technically strong but are not as educated as to the Engineers. They face difficulty following written instructions. Therefore, I mostly prefer giving one-on-one verbal instructions to them. They are able to clearly understand the verbal instructions and carry out their work efficiently.

Engineering graduates- They have technical backgrounds but no work experience. To develop their work knowledge, I generally provide classroom training to them. As they fresh from college, they feel comfortable in classroom trainings. They are able to grasp what I tell them, fairly quickly.

MBA Graduates- They are good at both verbal and written communications. However, they do not belong to technical background and find it difficult to understand technical terminologies. Many of them are a part of the Sales team, where they need to explain about the products to customers. Here they are required to share some technical details with customers. So, to make them have a fair understanding of technical terms, I generally prefer Powerpoint presentations. Through such presentations, they are able to get a brief idea of the technical details, process flow and some technical calculations which are generally asked by customers. MBA graduates are able to follow presentations very well and frequently use simlar presentations in front of customers.

Commerce graduates- They are mostly involved in Admin work in the organization. I prefer giving them very short and crisp instructions, both verbal and written, which they can easily follow. This is required as they do not have technical knowledge and their communications skills are also not very good.

With a different approach for communicating with different types of employees, I am able to effectively communicate with my team members which helps them to perform their duties with clarity.