Literacy, the ability to read and write, is a skill that can be applied to any business or workplace situation. Written communication is a major communication modality used to communicate complex ideas through a relatively fast and easy medium. With the rise of internet technology over the past decade the need to write and interpret texts across the internet has called for an increasing need in individual literacy. The role of textual literacy in the 21st century workplace is more prominent than ever.
“Illiteracy costs United States businesses and society at least $225 billion annually because of lost workforce productivity, crime and unemployment” (Sessoms 2013). Illiteracy in the United States is a growing problem with new forms of communication modalities such as youtube.com and other internet mediums that allow citizens of the United States to acquire information through videos and other non-written forms of communication. Since every form of communication is not found via videos on the internet the need to interpret written texts found outside of these internet platforms is becoming a more pressing issue. Written communication is an everyday occurrence in the workplaces of the United States. My father, a project manager of Macy’s website development team, has to sift through hundreds of emails on a daily basis that consist in written communication. Many other jobs include similar tasks. Even though other forms of communication modalities exist in modern day workplace scenarios, such as oral communication, no other modality thoroughly expresses ideas and information in such a concrete way as written communication. Written communication allows an individual the ability to display information in a specific way that is not replaceable by other forms of communication. This is because written communication allows the user the ability to edit, postulate advanced ideology and cite justification from other written references in an easy and understandable format. Written texts have the ability to last for a longer time than oral communication which can be useful if an individual wants to reference a written text at some point in the future.
In the case of my father, emails consisting of written texts allow for an easy way to understand and respond to any sort of problems that need quick solutions. Written communication allows my father the convenience of understanding quickly what problem he or another person in his development team has encountered and the ability to express clearly and concretely what measures should be used to fix it. If these problems were to pose themselves through another modality of communication such as a video it would take my father a longer time to make a video in response to the problem his team is facing. Fittingly Gail Sessom writes that “Workers who cannot read and interpret basic signs and instructions compromise safety, slow production and cause errors that affect profits” (Sessom 2013). Not being able to read or write in workplace setting can be the decision between whether or not a worker will make a product or deliverable by deadline. If an employee is spending their time interpreting information through a video or audio medium it will take the employee longer to load the video and audio, understand the information and reply to the situation then it would if the information was presented in a written from of communication. In most workplace scenarios written communication is a necessity, no other form of communication modality can display information in such a fast, convenient and proficient way as written communication; therefore, making it one of the most prominent forms of communication in the workplace.
Works Cited:
Sessoms, Gail. (2013). Effects of illiteracy on business. Chron. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/effects-illiteracy-business-22898.html
I definitely agree with you to some extent that written communication can be great however, I doubt it is the easiest and most convenient way of conveying a message depending on the kind of work environment. An individual might need to ask a simple question and in all honesty it is easier to ask someone face to face or pick up the phone than it is to sit down to type an email or write a letter. Also, the content of a message can always be misconstrued when it is in writing as opposed to talking to someone verbally and trying to get a better understanding of what they are saying or what they tried to say. In my opinion, I don’t think written communication will ever take the place of verbal communication.
I thought that this was a very nice way to respond to the “Workers and Literacy” blog post, and also a great way to incorporate and develop the statistical data that Gail Sessom provided.
Recently I was introduced to the concept of multimodality. At first it seemed pretty intimidating but once I understood it I knew it had its place especially in today’s technologically driven work and play places. However, I found myself personally navigating back to or favoring the more textual modes of communication. Yes it’s fascinating that we can adequately and accurately exhibit and convey information using these different media driven forms and modes, but for some reason I found myself getting back to the basics.
Over the summer when this whole idea of multimodality was presented to me, I tried my hardest to get more involved with, understand, and actually utilize more modes of communication.
As I stated I personally favor textual modes, but I happen to support other modes as well. I have gotten to a place where although I am most confident with my ability and experience with textual modes, I have a respect and appreciation for other modes. I no longer see textual modes of communication as superior or “better” in anyway. Instead, I analyze the context, information, audience, and purpose that they will be used with and have decided to at that point let the best mode win.
I have however found that different modes can work just as well and in some situations better than textual based modes. I have been pushing myself to learn about and use different modes. Sometimes we need to stretch beyond the conventions of tradition and as you stated in your blog sometimes the “regular” old text way is simply best.