Introduction: 

Every organization has its own share of internal problems within employee-management 
relationships and also within relationships that the employees share amongst themselves. 
Such problems mostly crop up due to faulty communication between the concerned parties. 
Adopting different strategies to improve communication within the organization will indeed 
be the best way to solve most issues of this nature. 

Description of problem: 

From my observation of the working of this organization, I have a great deal to discuss about 
the problems and the suitable solutions. There has been an unpleasant incident of one of the 
employees maligning another employee, and resorting to a very nasty manner of expressing 
his hatred and anger. This was a totally unprofessional kind of behaviour that the particular 
employee exhibited and this definitely calls for corrective action from the management’s 
side. 

The particular issue under consideration is that one employee ABC, after having a tiff with 
another employee in the same department XYZ, shot off a very offensive email about XYZ to 
all others in the office, including XYZ himself, making very nasty accusations about him. 
The email went to all the staff in the office and He started by calling him derogatory names, 
and complaining about XYZ’s personal hygiene and habits. ABC said that XYZ, who sits in 
the cubicle next to him in the office, had a bad habit of making strange noises sitting in his 
seat, and always spoke on the telephone on the top of his voice. This always disturbed ABC. 
XYZ also dirtied the corridors as well as his own cubicle and ABC was disgusted having to 
walk through the same corridors. 

These irritating habits of XYZ had been disturbing ABC since long, and now he could no 
more forgive him or ignore the matter. That is the reason he said that he finally wrote this 


email to everybody in the office so that XYZ would feel humiliated and be ashamed of his 
bad habits. 

 

However, what ABC failed to realize is that if XYZ was wrong in exhibiting such lowly 
behaviour, then ABC was not right in what he did either. This conflict that existed between 
the two had been progressing in a totally unprofessional way. This was not the solution to 
any problem. Rather such behaviour on the part of ABC was another problem by itself. 

 

Here, it is for the management to find out the pitfalls in its communication process and 
identify where the problem lies. The process needs to be studied and the fault needs to be 
identified. The problem here is that there has been some communication gap between the 
managers and the subordinates and they have not conveyed to the employees the necessary or 
correct strategy to adopt when internal problems come up. 

 

Every employee should know precisely whom to approach in the case of such a problem and 
they should have a particular process in place to address their grievance. Just shooting off 
derogatory emails to co-workers is totally unprofessional and uncalled for. 

 

 

Description of solution: 

The biggest and the best solution to such problems is sprucing up the communication system 
that is in place in the organization. There are many communication strategies that need to be 
adopted by the management to ensure co ordination and harmony among employees in an 
organization. Among the various techniques that are available, one important technique that I 
would suggest in this particular case is that of using more formal and informal networks to 


deal with the conflict in the first place that led to the outburst in the form of this offensive 
email. 

Had there been better formal and informal interaction between the management and 
employees, and in the same manner amongst the employees themselves, then perhaps such an 
issue would not have cropped up in the first place at all. Better formal and informal 
interaction networks can bring out grievances that people have. When such complaints come 
out in the open then management can use different methods to solve the issues before they 
blow up into greater ones like attacking each other through nasty emails. 

Through formal networks like conferences, meetings and seminars, the management can get 
to know the subordinates better and they can pass on important information about how to 
behave in case of such incidents happening. Then the employees would know whom they 
need to approach when they have any problem with their colleagues. They would also realize 
that it is against professionalism to use the company email network to dash off personal mails 
to others. 

Through workshops and seminars conducted on a regular basis the management can guide 
employees into using effective strategies for their dealing with various problems that they 
face at the work place. This will create awareness and prevent offensive behaviour. 

In the same way, the company can make use of informal networks as well to improve 
relations between employees. By organizing informal get togethers, picnics, and creating 
interactive groups, the management can ensure that there is more cordiality between 
employees and thus they get to know one another better. In this way they are able to 
understand and appreciate one another more. 


Such a plan of using both formal and informal networks of communication would be feasible 
because it would be easy to implement. It would be cost effective because there won’t be too 
many costs involved except for small amounts to organize meets; there are no huge expenses 
involved. There is no difficulty in actually implementing it either because conducting meets 
and seminars are not very difficult and do not involve too much of effort. The results that can 
be got from such formal and informal networks are indeed many and fruitful. 

Summary: 

I look forward to the implementation of this plan of strengthening formal and informal 
communication networks within organizations because it will improve employee 
relationships between managers and subordinates and also among subordinates themselves. I 
am positive that the implementation will bring constructive results for the organization 
without too much effort and at very reasonable. 

Works Cited: 

Adler, R.B & Elmforst, J.K (2010). Communication at Work: Principles and Practices for 
business and the Professions. 10th ed. New York: McGraw Hill.