CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Human use communication as a channel to connect with each other in everyday life (Okyere, 2011). Good communication is an essential tool in accomplishing high quality of performance and preserving strong working relationships within the organization. The trust amongst employees can be develop if everyone is spending time into delivering clear communication. Effective communication increases employee performance and binds employees together. It builds team and enhances employee performance and at the same time it reduces employee turnover in the organization. Nevertheless, weak communication in the organization will bring about loss of confidence and inefficient operation (Bücker, 2014). Organizations that are deficient in their communication do not accomplish the same performance as those that communicate well (Thomaz, 2010).
The individual along with an organization cannot survive without excellent communication skills. It informs or better still share information/message to engage the audience. Some sociologists have defined it as the act of sending and receiving messages. Communicating effectively is essential for business executives, business managers, staff member, as well as job applications for them to understand ways to use communication tools and methods to serve their purpose and achieve their objectives (Duyile Oluwademilade, 2022). Whether at the interpersonal, intra-group, or exterior degrees, effective communication is a crucial component for the success of any organisation, only five from every 100 interviews, according to a recent newspaper article, were considered employable as a result of poor communication skills. Communication is the expression of thoughts feelings, concepts, observation, and so on. (Duyile Oluwademilade, 2022).
Organizational communication takes place upward, downward, and horizontally. Top management communicates downward (the highest position within the organization) with official channels, such as policy documents, guidelines, laws, and so on., to people or groups lower down the hierarchy. An appropriate communication design is crucial to the effective behavior of an organization. In organizations - use open communication between leaders and members to enhance engagement (Hsiung, 2012). Great business communication allows organisation units to boost organizational governance, enhance employee engagement, improve profitability, and, as a result, enhance the overall performance of the organization. For that reason, some studies take a look at effective communication in the work environment and its impact on the labor force, as job satisfaction and lack of participation can impact employees' intent to retire. This has been revealed to be necessary (Sanchez, 2006). A good communication plan is important for a company. Decision-makers and all staff are connected through communication.
Basic capabilities in business communication are acquired or developed by observing other competent people and, as a result, modelling behavior based on the observations of other professionals. Effective communication helps build teamwork within a company and enhance employee performance. It likewise helps in reducing duplicate turnover in the company.
As a result of poor business communications within a company, it impacts the general trust of employees in both employee performance and business unit efficiency. Research researches have revealed that interaction enhances worker efficiency (Goris, 2007) and bad interaction decreases the involvement of workers in the organization. One researcher recommends that gossip serves to strengthen relationships between workers (Sostek, 2006). Particularly, it promotes efficiency and assists organizations to understand how well other groups within them are performing (Sostek, 2006). Organizational objectives and goals in some cases stop working when communication is ineffective. Absence of effective communication is just one of the primary reasons that can bring about confusion and poor planning in many companies.
The interaction with each other has come to be extremely important in organization, so we are definitely feeling the need for good communication skills amongst employees. Consequently, the value of good communication skills is significance to the most organizations due to the fact that it will impact employees job outcomes. It is clearly essential for manager to be able to determine the factors of communication skills and the methods to increase the organization performance. This suggests that, both the managers and employees ought to have strong communication skills to achieve individual and organizational objectives.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Many industrial conflicts originate as a result of failure in communication. Thus, it is necessary to stress that in communication, emotions, environment, psychological and technical characteristics of the medium is significance to improve the organizational performance. In the view of Okoye (2004), psychologically transmission goes beyond reception of information however understanding and feedback. Many businesses conflict has been traced to breakage in communication as corroborated by (Lee, 2003; Scott, 2004). According to Chudi -Oji (2013), despite the admirable roles of effective communication in improving employees' performances, it is regrettable that some faculties pay lip service to the maintenance of effective communication systems. Change is a progressive and continual process, giving room for inputs and adjustments. The new innovations, e-classroom, ICT awareness and evaluation techniques are good in itself however the medium and degree of communication is problematic.
Furthermore, the continuous delay in accessing information by staff appears to limit their academic performance, which might create maladministration in coordinating of organizational activities. Consequently, performance of employees in connection with their responsibilities and obligation appears to question their communication methods in regards to performance in The University. Exposure of staff to the innovations in the university in terms of communication channels have experienced shortcoming which if not effectively dealt with might bring about poor performance of the university in the stream of affairs to name a few universities in the country. These issues discussed above, have posed the questions that would certainly direct the study and thus improve quality of effective communication in the Covenant University.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The main objective of this study is to determine the effect of communication skills and employees' performance by using Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State as a case study. The specific objectives are:
a) To understand the level of communication within an organisation.
b) To establish the effect of communication skills on employees' performance.
c) To investigate the degree to which communication skills affect the level of workers commitment.
1.4 Research Questions
The following statements will be considered to be the research questions for this study:
a) What is the level of communication within an organization?
b) What is the effect of communication skills on employees' performance?
c) To what degree does communication skill affect the level of workers commitment?
1.5 Research Hypotheses
The following statements will be considered to be the research hypotheses for this study:
a) There is a significant relationship between communication skills and employees' performance.
b) There is no significant correlation between communication skill and the level of workers commitment
1.6 Significance of the Study
The research will be beneficial to all service organization especially Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State and their staff as it emphasized the need and encourage the establishment of policy guidelines on the efficient and effective employee performance communication.
It will help managers of various organizations to generate ideas and solution to problems based on the best way to run employee performance communication in their organization in order to achieve desired goals and objectives.
It will equally be useful to small scale business, large corporations, and universities, college of education and to the government. It will also help researchers to know more about employee performance communication as a tool for improving employees’ performance.
Finally, it will be of great value to students as a point of reference and will equally form the basis for further research study.
1.7 Scope of the Study
The concentrated area of study was restricted to the determination of the effect of communication skills and employees' performance by using Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State as a case study.
1.8 Limitations of the Study
In research the main purpose is to find facts, a research project of this nature is never conducted without some inherent factors that may make the findings difficult. And a few of those limitations are;
Time factor, not all respondents have enough time to fill out the questionnaires, in the area where the questionnaires contain a lot of question and they have limited time to fill it as regarding their busy schedule.
Lack of cooperation from the respondents.
Financial constraints (in terms of getting to the place the research is to be conducted, the printing of questionnaires, etc.).
The issue of secrecy on the part of organizations, when they withhold information that they believe is sensitive to their operation and out of possible fear of competitors, is also a restriction.
1.9 Definition of Terms
The following terms were used in the course of carrying out this research work:
Channels of Communication: The use of personalized letters, notes, e-mails, notice board etc in employee performance communication.
Employee: An employee of an organization is a member of that organization who contributes both physical and mental energy towards the production of the goods and services of the said organization and collects as reward wages and salaries. An employee is a member of staff. Employees have jobs, duties and responsibilities which performed individually or collectively will enable the organization to attain her objectives.
Employees Performance: This refers to when a member of an organization(staff) fulfils the duties of their role, completes required tasks, and behaves in their workplace.
Performance: Performance implies the carrying out, execution, operation, functioning, implementation of the employee’s duties and responsibilities. It entails the ability of the staff to carry out his/her assigned functions in the process of production or service delivery.
