A new role for the technical communicator: facilitating improved supervisor-employee communication

It is suggested that, with their communication skills, technical writers and editors are in a unique position to contribute to the improvement of supervisor-employee communication. As part of the trend toward total quality control within organizations, management must recognize the need for improvement in both upward and downward communication. When managers use a noise audit to determine the factors that act as barriers to interpersonal communication, they can learn to reduce or eliminate those barriers. Managers may also use a noise audit to understand the characteristics of managers who successfully combat psychological noise in communicating with employees. For technical communicators, designing and facilitating appropriate noise audits can prove to be a valuable contribution to productivity improvement within their organizations. It is concluded that today, when management´s quest for continuous improvement has spread from the manufacturing process to such concerns as the quality of documents and presentations, technical communicators must be ready to contribute to supervisor-employee communication