Figure 1: Highways Industry, (2017).
The importance of communication skills within transport engineering sectors cannot be underestimated. Transportation highway engineers are reliant upon their team members’ communication skills to enable them to work safely and effectively on complex projects, in challenging environments within tight time and budget constraints. Organisations working communication procedures supports every business function; and underpins successful project delivery, performance, and productivity, promoting effective teamworking communication and safety adherence (HSE, 2017; Madhukar, 2010).
The literature review explored communication models, methods, and procedures to gain understanding of what promotes or hinders effective working communication procedures. This included examining teamworking communication and organisational culture in transportation highway engineering teams. A study was conducted to determine whether working communication procedures affected the attitudes of transportation highway engineers.
Study results were analysed using a quantitative Likert scale, based on questionnaire responses from 43 transportation highway engineers. The study identified that a relationship exists between working communication procedures and engineers’ working attitude and that the engineers’ strength of attitude significantly correlated with their job position.
Implications and future directions for research linking attitudes to working communication procedures were discussed.
Keywords: Transportation engineering, highway engineering, groundworkers, teamworking, effective communication, attitude, communication models, public sector, leadership, followership, interpersonal skills, professional communication skills, Likert, safety, working procedures, relationships, education, culture, sub-culture.
Page
Acknowledgements……………………………………………………i
Statement of Originality………………………………………………..ii
Abstract………………………………………………………….iii
Table of contents…………………………………………………..iv-vi
1. Introduction ……………………………………………………..1
1.1 Necessity of Research…………………………………………..3
1.2 Aims………………………………………………………4
1.3 Objectives…………………………………………………..4
2. Literature Review…………………………………………………..5
2.1 The engineering-communication relationship……………………………5
2.2 Communication models………………………………………….6
2.3 Communication in teams…………………………………………7
2.3.1 Interpersonal and intrapersonal communication……………………7
2.3.2 Leadership and followership………………………………..8
2.3.2.1 Effective followership………………………………..9
2.3.3 Motivation…………………………………………..10
2.4 Organisational Culture and teamworking in engineering……………………11
2.4.1 Organisational culture and subcultures…………………………13
2.5 Working communication procedures………………………………..14
2.5.1 Verbal and non-verbal communication…………………………15
2.5.1.1 Verbal communication………………………………15
2.5.1.2 Non-verbal communication……………………………16
2.5.2 Functions of working communication procedures………………….17
2.6 Communication skills and education………………………..19
3. Methodology…………………………………………………….21
3.1 Study Method……………………………………………….21
3.1.1 Study design and distribution……………………………….21
3.1.1.1 Design consideration………………………………..21
3.1.1.2 Independent and dependant variables…………………….23
3.1.2 Questionnaire participants………………………………..25
3.1.2.1 Hampshire County Council Highways: Areas Covered…………..26
4. Results…………………………………………………………27
4.1 Strength of attitude towards working communication questionnaire statements for all participants 27
4.2 Strength of attitude towards working communication questionnaire statements by job category: Managerial, Supervisor and Ground Operative 29
4.3 Strength of attitude towards working communication questionnaire statements by job position: Managerial/Supervisor and Groundworker/Contractor 32
5. Discussion………………………………………………………44
5.1 Study results observations……………………………………….44
5.2 Study observations summary……………………………………..46
5.2.1 Improving attitudes towards working communication procedures, is it necessary? …………………….. 46
5.2.1.1 Previous research………………………………….47
5.2.2 How can attitudes be improved towards working communication procedures? 47
5.2.2.1 Further considerations………………………………49
5.2.2.2 Future investment………………………………….49
5.3 Study Limitations……………………………………………..50
6. Conclusion………………………………………………………51
6.1 Recommendations…………………………………………….52
7. References………………………………………………………53
8. Appendices……………………………………………………..63
Appendix A: Professional Needs Model……………………………………..63
Appendix B: Sample Questionnaire Front Cover………………………………..64
Appendix C: Sample Questionnaire………………………………………..65
Appendix D: Questionnaire Statements, Likert Scale questions and participant responses …….66
Appendix E: Participants response to 9 individual Likert scale items by job position…………71
Appendix F: Questionnaire statement results frequency displayed as histograms…………..76
Appendix G: Ethics Review……………………………………………..81
Appendix H: Health & Safety Risk Assessment…………………………………83
Tables
Table 1. Questionnaire statements grouped by variables………………………….24
Table 2. Hampshire County Council Employees…………………………………25
Table 3. Frequency of results. N = 43……………………………………….28
Table 4. Likert scale attitude responses……………………………………..33
Table 5. Working Communication Procedure Statements – Independent variable aspects……..37
Table 6. One-way independent ANOVA test results: 3 Job Categories………………….39
Table 7. One-way ANOVA test results: 2 Job Positions…………………………….39
Table 8. T-Test results: 2 Job Positions………………………………………40
Table 9. Pearson’s correlation coefficient results: 2 Job Positions…………………….41
Table 10. Regression statistics results: 2 Job Positions…………………………….42
One of the oldest engineering professions, civil engineering, incorporates a variety of major sub-disciplines, one of which is transportation engineering (Bugliarello, 1994. p. 290). Transportation engineering projects are mostly undertaken by public sectors that respond to the changing social infrastructure landscape (Horikawa & Guo, 2009, pp. 2-5).
Working within strained public sector budgets, transportation engineers are relied upon to continually manage the tense interface between ‘newly built and deteriorated assets’ (Kaewunruen, Sussman, & Matsumoto, 2016, pp.1-3), often resulting in the planning and design of modern infrastructure transportation systems being outpaced by urban growth. Whilst managing those compatibility issues, transportation engineers are expected to ensure transportation systems are operating safely and efficiently; providing risk management and robust monitoring of those systems (Kaewunruen et al., 2016, pp.1-3). Furthermore, natural disasters such as the increase of severe United Kingdom (UK) flooding events (Lavers et al., 2013), not only add to the existing infrastructure pressures but also significantly impact and threaten infrastructure stability (Dawson et al., 2016, p.4).
According to a roadway analytics report conducted by INRIX Research, the UK is facing the largest predicated traffic congestion cost of any other European country (Cookson, 2016, p.3). With economic health dependant on transportation systems and infrastructure (Allport, Brown, Glaister & Travers, 2008, p.12), the UK government is beginning to invest record amounts into road improvement schemes (Department for Transport, 2016), promising to ease some of the enormous pressure on highway transportation projects. Yet, Shane et al., (2009, pp.221-229) warn that within transportation engineering projects, costs are ‘consistently underestimated’, Flyvbjerg, Holm, & Buhl, (2002, p.8) agree, claiming that this underestimation occurs in 90% of all transportation infrastructure projects.
While acknowledging that transport projects in the UK can be notoriously difficult to manage where ‘major over-runs are seen as the rule, rather than the exception’, Allport et al., (2008, p.16) offer suggestions as what may contribute to project issues, arguing that within those turbulent working environments, successful project delivery happens because of ‘people and management processes’ not from trying to manage the technical aspects of the project. Shane et al., (2009, pp.221-224) support their viewpoint, maintaining that while management of technical and natural resources are important, effective cost management of transportation projects rely on the coordination of organisational and human resources. Shane et al., (2002, pp.221-224) identified 18 common project cost escalation factors within transportation engineering projects. Their study proposed that external cost escalation factors, such as inflation, can be predicted but not controlled, whereas internal cost escalation factors such as managers not sharing clear project information with their team and miscommunication between management and groundworker engineers, can be controlled by improving teamworking communication.
Transportation engineers who specialise in highway engineering, often work in teams and sub-teams known as engineering ‘groundworkers, crews or gangs’. Highway engineering teams are made up of a workforce that routinely include managers, supervisors, groundworkers and contractors. Close collaboration within those teams is needed for the successful completion of engineering projects (Association, 2017, pp.3-7), and efficient, effective collaboration within teams depend on the sharing of their expertise (Nunamaker, Briggs, and Romano, 2014, pp. 27-30; Jowers et al., 2016, pp.1-4). In other words, teamworking collaboration depends on the team members’ ability to communicate effectively with each another.
Although it is common knowledge that good communication within organisations and engineering teams are essential for project delivery, how to achieve and maintain good communication within teams can often be overlooked, the assumption being that this type of good quality communication will naturally occur within engineering teams (Doherty, 2015). With effective communication being critical to the success of engineering projects, engineers are routinely relied upon to have strong communication skills (Khan, 2014, pp.28-29; Dulevičius & Naginevičienė, 2005, pp.19-21).
McCuen, Ezzell, Wong, & Mongan, (2011, pp. 87-91), argue that engineering communication ‘has a value basis’ where poor communication within teams can hinder the success of engineering projects, impact productivity, and significantly increase risk factors. Their argument emphasises the engineers’ reliance on the quality of their team members’ communication skills to be able to work safely and effectively within projects. In addition, events such as the Challenger disaster (Arnold & Malley, 1988, pp.12-14; Dombrowski, 1992, pp.73-76) have drawn attention to the consequences of ineffective organisational communication, particularly between management and groundworker engineers. Therefore, it seems vital to consider what factors support good quality and effective interdisciplinary communication.
An extensive search of published journals, articles and books related to transportation and highway team communication covering a 30-year period, from 1987 onwards, revealed that communication skills for transportation engineers remains an under researched area. Furthermore, the literature dealing with what supports effective communication in other sectors of engineering (Lester, 2014, pp.371-380; Goleman, 2014, pp. 3-28; Turner, 2008, pp. 128-136) cater for project management engineers developing leadership skills.
As miscommunication between management and groundworker engineers can lead to project failures (Shane et al.,2002, pp. 221-224) and potentially cause injury or loss of life (Gudmestad, 2014, pp.55-60), it seems important to acknowledge the need to better understand what promotes effective interdisciplinary team communications and to investigate the impact of working communication procedures within transportation engineering teams.
This paper aims to investigate the effect of working communication procedures on transportation engineering staff and contractors, to gain insight of what may promote or hinder communication in teams, from the groundworker engineers to management levels.
At first glance, the engineering-communication relationship may appear to be incompatible, with one part based in science, the other in the arts, and yet transportation engineers need to use interpersonal and teamworking communication skills within their daily work.
“Communication is the essence of science”. Frances Crick. (as cited by Garvey 2014, p.ix).
Derived from Latin ‘communis’, meaning to share, communication is the imparting and exchanging of information (Stevenson & Dictionaries, 2010, p.352), and is at the heart of effective engineering (Association, 2017, p.6). According to The Institution of Engineering and Technology (2017), good communication skills are essential to a successful engineering career. Expectations for engineers to have well-developed, strong communication skills is increasing, due to the rapid advancement of communication technologies; globally diverse interdisciplinary teams, and customer bases (The National Academy of Engineering, 2004).
Engineers are well known for possessing strong technical, analytical and problem solving skills alongside their ability to maintain high professional and ethical standards – all highly valued key attributes of engineers. Dulevičius & Naginevičienė, (2005, p.19) claim that although engineers may be technically competent, if the engineer lacks good communications skills necessary to transfer information, then this makes ‘the engineers excellent technical skills superfluous’ further demonstrating that engineers’ communication skills are critical tools for success. And Khan (2014, pp. 28-29) agrees, stating that ‘effective communication is critical to the success of engineering projects.’ Despite evidence that communication is so important to working engineers, limited data based information is available that supports better understanding of the ‘specifics of how and why communication is important’ for engineering professionals (Darling & Dannels, 2003).
Transportation engineers who specialise in highway engineering commonly work in very large multidisciplinary teams consisting of managers, supervisors, groundworkers and contractors. Often working on complex projects with both time and budget constraints, it seems highway engineers face a combination of pressures while working in challenging environments. Under those conditions, engineers need to rely on their teams’ ability to communicate effectively (Lester, 2014, pp.371-380). Which raises the question, what factors influence the efficacy of communication? Over time, many different types of communication models have been developed to answer this question.
One of the earliest models used to explain human communication was attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle (350 B C). Since then other communication cycle models have been developed including Shannon-Weavers’ (1949) model, which although developed for telecommunications, introduced the concept of the sender or receiver encountering ‘noise’ or interference as a barrier to communication. This early linear model of communication was unable to identify what makes human communication effective. Wilbur Schramms’ (1954) interactive model of communication identified that for effective communication to take place, an encoder and decoder of information was needed to establish a communication cycle, and if they shared a field of experience, then effective communication could take place. Schramm’s model accounts for feedback although not for the continual fluidity of communication.
In contrast, Dean Barnlund’s (1970) transactional model of communication identifies each person as being a sender-receiver, not just a sender or a receiver, and accounts for communication being a creative, dynamic, continuous process, creating meaning. Barnlund identified barriers to effective communication he called filters, where individuals receive and interpret information based on their life experiences, background and culture. This suggests that how an individual perceives and interprets communication influences how they react to the communication. From the 1980’s, information processing models of communication closely mirrored the ongoing developments in both psychology and computer science fields (Hollnagel, Woods, & Woods, 2005, pp.14-20; Goodwin, 2005, p.411). Cognitive processing was no longer seen as being sequential but cyclical, with the receiver of communication being anticipatory and active rather than being a passive or simply a reactive participant. With the deeper complexities of working communication now being acknowledged, it was accepted that communication was closely connected with human performance due to humans being involved with and dependant on other humans in their interconnected working environments (Hollnagel et al., 2005, pp.16-20). Current research of communication models claim that working environment quality is an ‘essential determinant of psychological wellbeing’ (Fixsen et al., 2000; OECD, 2014, p.13), which can directly impact productivity (Morgeson, Garza, & Campion, 2012).
A positive and supportive psychosocial work environment primarily involves ‘good quality, effective interpersonal and social communications within the workplace’ which can influence, and benefit teamworking behaviour(Gellman & Turner, 2012, p.1587). ICE (2017) state that it is vital engineers collaborate and communicate well with their team, as effective team collaboration improves project delivery (Gerrard & Kings, 2015; PMI, 2013).
This raises the question as to what makes team collaboration effective? According to Nunamaker et al., (2014, pp.27-30), effective collaboration within teams depend on the sharing of their expertise. However, McCuen et al., (2011, p.97) argue that good teamworking communication skills requires the engineer to be more than an effective technical communicator; that to share knowledge and work collaboratively in teams relies on the engineers’ interpersonal skills. Whitcomb & Whitcomb, (2013) strongly support this point, claiming that the space shuttle Challenger disaster was caused by ‘flawed interpersonal and technical engineering communication.’
‘Inter’ means between, and therefore interpersonal communication takes place between people whereas ‘intra’ means within, intrapersonal refers to the persons’ unseen, internal dialogue (West & Turner, 2010, p.8). Interpersonal skills used within working relationships are mostly goal directed communication interactions to influence and bring about a desired result (Hayes 2002; Lane 2009, p.5), which when driven by a range of personal agendas, has the potential to impede the two-way participative qualities of those communications (Hargie, Dickson, & David, 2014, p.5). Weisinger (1998) identified that intrapersonal competencies underpin effective interpersonal communication which promotes team cooperation because these competencies allow team members to maintain and practice emotional self-regulation, and good levels of self-awareness while pursuing their goals and objectives. Yost & Tuckers’ (2000, p.101), study promotes the idea that to develop more ‘satisfied and successful teams,’ communication skills training and development need to take account of how to develop and promote team members’ emotional intelligence skills. Riemer (2007) agree that for engineers of the future, emotional intelligence has an important role to play in strengthening team communication.
According to Dixon, Mercado, & Knowles, (2013) professional leadership communication skills development within engineering sectors do not go far enough towards strengthening interdisciplinary team communication. They propose that this is because the vast majority of individual professional development is focused on developing the engineers’ leadership skills to manage a team of engineers, and yet promoting leadership communications does little to promote effective followership skills. Fielding & du Plooy-Cilliers, (2014, p.12) support this view, highlighting that workers are no longer prepared to ‘just take orders’, forcing managers to move away from a leadership driven, one-way style of communication, and adopt a leadership role that incorporates two-way communication. These viewpoints would appear to mirror the ongoing developments in communication model theory (Morgeson et al., 2012), giving rise to a new way of considering the connection between engineering working communication procedures and interdisciplinary team communication.
Chaleff (2009), cited by Dixon et al., (2013) reports that the leadership process is a partnership between leaders and followers. Two-way communication between leaders and followers has become steadily more popular since the 1980’s when advancements in communication models recognised the value and importance of establishing effective communication cycles within interdisciplinary teams (Hollnagel et al., 2005, pp.16-20).
Leadership skills are consistently more highly valued and recognised than followership skills; which Kelley (2008, p.11) referred to as a ‘leadership-centric’ viewpoint. An internet search using Google search engine supported this theory, returning approximately 10,000 leadership results for every 1 followership result. The ratio of these results may represent just how little attention is given to followership within organisations. Baxter, (2015) argues that followership has been less studied because followers are assumed to be passive, blindly following the leader, with leaders being the ones contributing to organisational success. And yet followers represent the majority of people working within those organisations, contributing 80% to the success of those organisations (Kelley, 1992; cited by Hall and Densten, 2002).
Hackman & Johnson, (2013, p.365) define followership as being ‘the discipline of supporting leaders to lead well’. Followers are not simply subordinates in an inferior position within a hierarchy structure that are expected to submit to and blindly follow orders from the leader (Hollnagel et al., 2005). Instead, they follow the leader not because they have to, but because they want to lead themselves, often towards the needs of the organisation (Kelley, 2008, pp.5-16). In this way, followership facilitates an important process of collaboration between followers and leaders to ‘optimise performance towards achieving organisational objectives’ and support teamwork communications (Chaleff, 2009).
Hackman & Johnson, (2013) propose that followers are proactive and can encourage and inspire leaders to change course which also supports Kelleys’ (2008, p.11) argument stating that leaders are ‘malleable products of cumulative followership actions’ which suggests that followers must also be malleable products of cumulative leadership actions. Brumm & Drury, (2013) claim that a statistically significant relationship exists between a followers’ perception of the leaders planning behaviours, with the empowerment of positive follower behaviours; warning that, if followers are not clearly informed of planning and goal setting, they are less likely to consider themselves involved in these aspects, leading to poor follower behaviours which are harmful to productivity and project delivery. Best practice in long term project planning is therefore connected to the followers’ level of support of organisational goals and leaders.
Chaleff, (2009, pp.1-15) states that an effective follower balances and supports dynamic leadership by being highly supportive and participative, relying on critical thinking and courageous conscience, yet also able to challenge and question the leader, to impart ethical and safe judgements. Chaleff, (2009) points out that empowered followers challenge leaders and while this may not be easy for leaders to manage, it is in the projects best interest in the longer term for leaders to be available and open to receiving feedback in a non-defensive way that ‘invites creative challenge’.
Hackman & Johnson, (2013) stress that this type of follower to leader communication will not happen without ‘leaders and an organisational culture that support this relationship’. Whitcomb & Whitcomb, (2013) strongly agree with the importance of the need to develop organisational cultures that support courageous followership and argue that the space shuttle Challenger disaster occurred because project engineers concerns about technical issues and further concerns about the impact of cold weather were either ‘not received with enough accuracy’ by NASA officials or possibly ‘expressed inadequately’. This leads to the question of what can encourage and support positive, empowered communication and behaviour in organisations?
Pritchard (2015) acknowledges that to achieve a ‘win-win scenario’ with staff, managers need to work in a collaborative way to cultivate and support true motivational behaviours to emerge within the team. Herzberg (2005) warned that managers who try to dominate and control their team may achieve compliance and get the job done although this is not the same as ‘true motivation.’ Pink (2011) agrees with Herzberg claiming that management is out of date in assuming that its main purpose is to ‘monitor and control employees’ and that motivation can best be produced by providing opportunities for ‘autonomy, mastery (learning) and self-actualisation.’ Maslows’ (1943,1954) hierarchy of needs is a commonly referred to model of human motivation theory, represented as a layered pyramid where each layer represents a basic human need, organised in a hierarchy structure. The model proposes humans are firstly motivated to satisfy their basic survival needs, before being able to seek to satisfy other needs such as belongingness, self-esteem and self-actualization.
Engineers have a range of professional needs, that would in theory need to be satisfied to enable engineers to display optimal performance behaviours within an organisational context (Kenrick et al., 2010). Engineers need to be fit for work; have safety in place to perform their duties, to work effectively as part of a team to complete projects, to feel a part of the organisation to support citizenship/followership behaviours and need to be able to reach their professional potential.
Herzberg (2005) expanded on Maslows’ motivational needs theory, proposing that ‘motivation is more than the absence of demotivation.’ Herzbergs (2005) study of engineers identified what he called hygiene factors that can prevent demotivation, but do not tend to support long-term motivation of employees. These factors Include things such as good working conditions and adequate salary. In contrast, factors such as opportunities for advancement, promotion, and feeling a valued part of the organisation supports long-term motivation and good teamworking attitudes (Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman, 2011). In this way, engineers’ professional needs can be supported by the organisational culture and working communication procedures.
Organisational policies that support organisational culture may only be partially effective if those policies are not converted into practiced organisational values. Bateman & Organ, (1983) describe citizenship behaviours as ‘being able to lubricate the social machinery of the organisation’ which suggest that engineers can both negatively and positively contribute to their working environment and influence the wider organisational culture.
‘We ought to blame the culture, not the soil’. Alexander Pope. (Pope, 2001, p.109).
Organisational culture is the collection of ‘attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterise an organisation’ (Kitchin & Kitchin, 2010, p.25). The interest in why organisational culture impacts teamworking communication and behaviours became more popular since the 1970’s when academics started to take interest in what made Japanese manufacturing firms more productive and successful than other countries (Kitchin & Kitchin, 2010, p.25). These research interests made the important connection between how organisational culture influences teamworking attitudes and ultimately productivity.
A study by Francis (2012), examined how organisational culture can impact civil engineers discovered that engineers who perceived their organisations culture to be unsupportive had lower organisational commitment, had higher intentions to leave their job and reported reduced life satisfaction. Bianchi (2015) stresses that within interdisciplinary teams, the organisational culture impacts interpersonal relationships, adding that, how people interpret their psycho-social environment determines job satisfaction and organisational citizenship commitment.
Bateman & Organ (1983) use the term citizenship to represent belonging to and taking part in organisational civilization and culture. They identify a causal connection between overall satisfaction with organisational culture and the subsequent display of citizenship behaviours related to performance; performance defined as the quantity of output or quality of craftsmanship. Bateman & Organ (1983) propose that due to the manager being a representative of the organisational culture and values, workers equate organisational satisfaction with how management is treating them. Consequently, citizenship behaviours are often displayed for the benefit of the manager and as such, the managers’ attitude has a powerful effect on how the worker perceives and evaluates the organisational climate, impacting job satisfaction, absenteeism, and productivity (Bateman & Organ, 1983).
The organisational climate has a strong impact on teamworking communication (Bateman & Organ, 1983) and when the organisational climate is disturbed or stressed, communication barriers can emerge, leading to interpersonal conflict (Madhukar, 2010). This suggests that with external pressures on highway engineering projects unlikely to cease, the stressed organisational climate contributes to communication barriers and interpersonal conflicts within highway engineering teams. Fielding & du Plooy-Cilliers, (2014) highlight the need to have harmonious interpersonal communications, stating that for effective communication to take place, there must be ‘sharing of meaning created that is the same for all’ (Fielding & du Plooy-Cilliers, 2014, p.11).
In contrast, Hollnagel et al., (2005, p.15) argues that interpersonal conflicts are inevitable in teams because each team member holds different viewpoints based on their personal interpretation and perception, which is formed from their individual knowledge, experience, and expectations. This pragmatic explanation of interpersonal conflict explains why managers will likely have very different views and expectations from groundworkers. Davis’ (1997) hypothesis supports this, proposing that engineers are mainly concerned with safety and quality, while managers with costs and customer satisfaction. In practice, it is likely that engineers and managers share those concerns yet have separate agendas. However, differences in hierarchical positions can create psychological and cultural barriers (Madhukar, 2010).
As within most companies, the organisational hierarchical structures in highway engineering give rise to cultures and subcultures which emerge from shared rank or status (Wilson, 2001), such as groups of workers that share the same job-titles, responsibilities, level of education and training. Anderson (2012, p.299) proposes that management methods create unique site working cultures, and that within those site cultures, numerous subcultures must coexist on projects such as ground working crews or sub-contractor gangs.
Groundworkers and surfacing crews are known to create their own subculture and are commonly referred to as a ‘gang’ (Cohn, 2008). According to Gorse, Johnston & Pritchard (2012, p.179), the term ‘gang’ refers to ‘a group of skilled operatives who perform as a team’. The ‘gang’ may also been seen as ‘a gang of labourers’ separated from skilled, professional engineers, potentially creating a social status barrier to management and the wider company. And if groundworkers and sub-contractors need to develop subcultures, this suggests that they may not be treated or feel as if they have much in common with the project owners or managers. According to Anderson (2012, p.299) and Tutt et al., (2011), ‘crews and gangs’ who form subcultures can lead them to behave differently in terms of adhering to the sites established health and safety rules. Because gang foremen and supervisors share a similar employment history with the gangs they supervise, and have progressed from a trade background, they are better placed to positively influence their gangs’ safety behaviours because they are part of those subcultures (Hartley & Cheyne, 2012; Tutt et al., 2011). Therefore, managers who work at the ‘frontiers of different subcultures’ need to learn to interact with those subcultures and acknowledge good citizenship behaviours by groundworkers which could reduce barriers to communication, promote inclusion, improve perceptions of the organisational climate, and encourage health and safety adherence. (Kitchin & Kitchin, 2010, p.39)
Bateman & Organ, (1983) argue that the organisational culture should support a work climate that allows interpersonal conflict to be minimised within interdisciplinary teams to protect and conserve organisational resources. Although interpersonal conflict may be minimised by adjusting the working climate, it may be useful to expect subcultures to form and conflicts to occur, a point supported by Spaho (2013). Spaho claims that it is not possible to imagine organisational communication without conflict because people have different opinions, conflict is normal and therefore should be expected. To expand on this point, it may be necessary to encourage a working culture where the formation of subcultures and interdisciplinary teamworking conflicts are normal and expected, and ensure that there are working policies and procedures in place supporting the management of, and swift resolution of those clashes.
The objective of communication is to inform. Engineering staff need to be kept informed about the organisations objectives, strategies, policies and procedures, plans, systems, and project priorities (Madhukar, 2010, p.5), and communication is a process that must be managed by companies in an organised way, through their working policies and procedures (Medina, 1999). Working communication procedures within transportation highway engineering organisations use standard communication methods and operating procedures to share information in a clear and systematic way (HSE, 2017). The organisations working communication procedures underpins technical aspects of project delivery such as safety and productivity, as well as supporting effective interpersonal teamworking, working environment and project delivery. In this way, various methods and practices of working communication procedures supports every business function (Madhukar, 2010, p.10). Medina (1999) points out that although there can multiple methods of communication within organisations, working communication can be classified as verbal and non-verbal.
Transmitted though hearing and sight, verbal communication can be oral or written (Medina, 1999). In construction engineering settings, verbal communication is fundamental for addressing issues, problem solving and forming and maintaining collaborative working relationships between team members (Emmitt and Gorse, 2007). Verbal communication can be affected by environmental factors, such a speaking in a noisy environment, personal factors such as interpersonal issues, or cultural factors such as education level, and professional differences (Klimova & Semradova, 2012; Tsai, 2009), which implies that groundworkers could encounter such barriers when speaking with their managers. Miller (2014, p.31), states that communication barriers are also affected by the direction of communication.
Communication can flow in different directions. Downward communications flow from higher to lower levels of authority, such as from a manager to groundworker. The purpose of downward communication is primarily to give instructions, provide company policy information and feedback on performance which may take place in formal meetings, phone calls, emails and documents (Miller, 2014). Whereas horizontal communication flow is often between co-workers, its purpose is to share information, to collaborate, influence and coordinate working tasks, and can take place in a less formal way (Medina, 1999, p.126; Miller, 2014, p.31). Upward communication flow can be from lower to higher levels of authority, education, or experience, with the purpose of informing, to pass on information. This communication flow may not be supported by formal environments such as office meetings, however still requires a formal delivery method such as a professional face to face conversation, phone call or email (Medina, 1999, p.126; Tutt et al., 2011).
Miller (2014, p.31) states that most communication flows downwards, in the form of ‘orders, rules and directions’ from managers to employees with minimal feedback from lower level workers to higher level management and proposes this is caused by the effect of outdated classical management theories, and potentially create negative attitudes towards the organisations’ working communication procedures (Tutt et al., 2011).
With technological advancements, verbal communication incorporates wide ranging communication methods such as email, social media platforms, text messages, video conferencing, instant messaging, and forums. Klimova & Semradova (2012) warns that these communication technologies can cause language communication differences. This draws attention to the issue that some forms of verbal communication are not as clear as others, which could be because they do not allow for non-verbal communication and gestures to be seen and experienced, suggesting that non-verbal communication may be an essential factor in supporting effective verbal communication.
Albert Mehrabians’ (1967) research of feelings and attitudes discovered that during heightened emotional situations only 7% of communication is verbal; the majority are non-verbal, facial and paralinguistic expressions (Mehrabian, & Ferris, 1967). This would mean that the often busy and noisy environments of site-based settings, coupled with engineers working under project pressures can create communication barriers, and impact the ground worker engineers’ communication with their team. Therefore, within challenging or stressful site working environments, to practice safely and effectively, the engineer would need to rely on making use of verbal and non-verbal communication skills.
Miller, (2014, p.32) points out that physical characteristics, such as body movement and posture, can communicate non-verbal working attitudes, and how workers are dressed also communicate non-verbally about aspects of their job status, beliefs and attitudes which can create or reduce barriers to communications. This is evident on highway engineering construction sites, where all workers wear safety clothing, although project owners, planners and site managers dress differently to highway engineering groundworkers to meet the demands of their job.
Facial expressions and gestures are independent of speech but can still have a direct verbal translation (Knapp, Hall, & Horgan, 2014, p.9). This is evident on large engineering projects, when groundworker engineers working on busy, noisy sites makes workers heavily reliant on a range of non-verbal gestures, as it is often difficult to hear and clearly see verbal instructions. To overcome this communication barrier, engineers wear highly visible safety clothing, and use a range of body language gestures to communicate non-verbally to other workers. Verbal and non-verbal communication can therefore support a range of working communication procedures and safety behaviours.
‘To achieve success in health and safety management, there needs to be effective communication up, down and across the organisation.’ HSE (2017).
This statement by the Health and Safety Executive clearly outlines the importance of communication flow across all team members within an organisation. As working communication procedures are mostly in written form, suggests that this is the most used, reliable, and effective method of imparting information. Miller (2014, p.31) argue that health and safety rules and guidelines must be consistent and permanent, adding that relaying working procedures such as health and safety instructions via oral communication is unreliable, and not as effective as written communication as written communication is less likely to be misinterpreted and remains unchanged.
Millers argument seems supported by the vast amount of health and safety literature widely available for all team members in engineering and construction organisations. Due to risk implications, workers take these guidelines seriously and are routinely part of site induction processes and day-to-day working procedures. Regardless of the vast collection of written forms of health and safety guidelines, employee handbooks, safety rules and instructions, construction engineering continues to be one of the ‘most injury-prone industries’ (Sousa, Almeida & Dias 2014; Kines et al., 2010).
Kines et al., (2010) discovered that site based construction workers have an ‘informal and oral culture of risk’, where ‘safety is rarely openly expressed’. The study examined the effects of coaching site foremen to increase the efficacy of their verbal safety communications with their team, which increased site safety. It is worth noting that these improved safety effects were found to be long lasting. Improving communication standards supported safety behaviours incorporated into daily engineering practice, which increased occupational safety (Brauer,2016; Fielding & du Plooy-Cilliers, 2014).
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE, 2017) suggest, that to create a strong safety culture, a ‘genuine management to workforce partnership’ needs to develop, which should be based on ‘trust, respect and co-operation’ and that when established, health and safety issues can be solved in a collaborative way, where ‘ideas and solutions are freely shared and acted upon’. This they call ‘worker involvement’ and explain that this is more than just manger-to-worker consultation; and propose ways of ‘encouraging open communications’ such as ‘toolbox talks and health and safety walkabouts’ to encourage two-way communication between managers and workers.
The HSE (2017) suggestions of how to create health and safety adherence cultures depend on communication flowing horizontally, between team members, and upwards from worker to manager. It is important to acknowledge then that most written working communication procedures such as health and safety guidelines, are not created by the audience they cater for, because the defining and shaping of an organisations’ policies and procedures are decided within the business owners and senior managements planning processes (Anderson, 2012). Therefore, written instructions, delivered in a downwards communication flow, potentially create barriers to the majority of the audience they cater for, a point picked up by Tutt et al., (2011), who claim that this management to worker information flow stigmatises open discussions of health and safety issues on site, and clashes with ‘construction site culture.’
Wernebjer et al., (2012) propose that in large organisations, workers complained about ‘poor communication from managers,’ and managers complained about how employees ‘did not follow directives’, that ‘information was not being received’. This indicates that the size of the organisation may create barriers to communication, however Brauer, (2016, p.440) argues that whatever the size of the organisation, for workers to follow directives and make use of information relies on modern management methods that can support two-way communication; the giving and receiving of feedback, as workers ‘need to know if they perform tasks correctly and safely’ to prevent harmful results.
Pritchard (2015) proposes that out of date management methods are still used because engineers ‘lack people skills.’ This provocative viewpoint suggests that for modern working communication procedures and methods to emerge, engineers need to improve their people skills, to translate working procedures into practice. Although Pritchard makes a sweeping generalisation about engineers, this view of engineers lacking people skills and being unable to communicate effectively are not uncommon (Williams, 2004, p.72). As engineering practice takes place in such an intensely oral communication culture, skills such as ‘translation, clarity, negotiation, and listening are vital’ (Donnell, Aller, Alley & Kedrowicz (2011) and with frequent interpersonal and small group experiences being commonplace, an engineer needs to possess excellent interpersonal skills. Donnell et al., (2011) draw attention to an ongoing issue, ‘Disparity clearly exists between the communication skills taught to engineering students’ and industry expectations. This leads to the question, that if graduating engineers are underequipped for real-life working situations, what do engineers need to develop or strengthen their professional and interpersonal communication skills?
Communication is a skill and as such can be taught (Nylen & Pears, 2013).
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (2017) stress that it is no longer enough for engineers to have technical communication skills, claiming that ‘good interpersonal skills are essential to a successful engineering career.’ Ruf & Carter, (2009) claim that although students are taught formal communication methods, they lack the interpersonal skills needed to work in a team environment leading to employers being dissatisfied with engineering graduates’ communication skills. Dukhan & Ravess, (2014) argue that as society transitioned from the industrial age towards the information age, led to a ‘knowledge-based’ economy, which calls for a change to engineering curricula to focus on teaching communication skills to better prepare engineers for their professional lives. In response to this need, engineering associations and regulatory bodies such as the Institution of Civil Engineers member attributes (ICE, 2017), acknowledge the importance of developing interpersonal communication skills (Dukhan & Ravess, 2014). The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, state that these skills can be taught and assessed as part of an active and cooperative learning environment (Shuman, Besterfield‐Sacre, & McGourty, 2005) which could address the ‘competency gap’ in engineers’ education (Sageev, & Romanowski, 2001).
Skills training needs to be incorporated into engineering curriculums because communication skills are central to ‘everyday functioning’ of the engineering profession, (Vampola et al., 2010), and engineers should be prepared to target their communication skills to different audiences. To be able to reflexively adjust their communication skills to suit various audience, such as presenting information to a manager, raising a safety concern with a supervisor or explaining something to a well-known co-worker, relies on the engineers’ interpersonal skills (Nylen & Pears, 2013). Teaching effective interpersonal communication skills increases motivation, enables collaborative teamworking, supports assertiveness skills development and managing conflict, and improves overall team performance (Donnell et al., 2011; Ellemers, De Gilder, & Haslam, 2004).
Engineers need to have strong, well developed communication skills to work effectively with interdisciplinary and globally diverse teams (The National Academy of Engineering, 2004). Professional communication skill development is therefore a vital part of the engineers’ career path, and yet multiple continuing professional development courses are aimed at developing leadership communication skills related to project management or senior management skills (Lester, 2014; Goleman, 2014). This is to be expected considering communication difficulties in teams are often directed towards the manager to support the resolution of conflict and communication difficulties. In this way, managers and senior managers are expected to become more effective communicators as their leadership role develops, and as such, organisations often support their further training in these areas. What is less clear however, is how groundworker engineers develop and improve their professional communication, interpersonal and teamworking skills.
With downward flow of information from managers to groundworkers being prone to communication barriers (Miller, 2014), there may be ways of improving upwards communication flow, to promote more equal, two-way communication methods by increasing communication skills education for groundworkers (Fielding & du Plooy-Cilliers, 2014). It therefore seems necessary to investigate the impact of information flow, from groundworker to managers. However, currently very little is known about the actual impact of working communication procedures on groundworkers.
Investigating the effect of working communication procedures on transportation engineering staff and contractors, required collecting attitude variation response data from a range of highway engineers. As quantitative data can incorporate psychometric scales, this data collection method was chosen as it supports the statistical analysis of the attitudes or opinions of a group of people (McLeod, 2014).
The study design incorporated a Likert scale within a questionnaire. Likert items focused on working communication procedures to enable highway engineers’ strength of attitude to be numerically represented, quantified, and evaluated (Likert, 1932; McLeod, 2014).
The questionnaire consisted of: A cover page outlining the purpose of the study, participation information explaining confidentiality and a job position identification question (see Appendix B). The main questionnaire contained 9 statements representing a selection of working communication procedures that the participant was asked to evaluate using a 5 point Likert scale ranging from: 1. Strongly disagree, to 5. Strongly agree (see Appendix C).
Even though it is common for Likert research methodology to be criticised because of the assumption that data from Likert scales are ordinal and therefore parametric methods cannot be used (Sullivan & Artino, 2013), Norman (2010) argues that this is not the case as long as care is taken regarding the sample size and that the scale itself offers ‘a symmetry of categories’ around a midpoint. Norman highlights that issues seem to arise interpreting Likert scale data because of the difficulties measuring the strength of attitude in the space between the questions.
However, if items on the scale are designed to be combined into a single variable, then these combined variables (responses) can form a composite score when items on the composite scale are closely related (Clason & Dormody, 1994). This allows Likert scale data to be analysed and interpreted as interval data even when this data may not be normally distributed (Boone & Boone, 2012). Traylor, (1983) agrees that ‘questionnaires can be robust to violations of the equal distance assumption.’ Likert scales do therefore allow for degrees of attitude to be recorded and analysed, although interpretation of any discovered statistical significance may need to be approached with caution. These points emphasise the need for robust foundations to be established in the design of the questionnaire and scale, in order to maximise the power of parametric statistical tests.
For parametric statistical tests to be performed, the study was specifically designed to incorporate a series of statements that when combined, had the potential to measure a particular trait. Boone & Boone, (2012); De Winter, & Dodou, (2010) stress that descriptive statistics recommended for interval scales include; ‘mean scores for central tendency’ and ‘standard deviations for variability’. Further recommending that deeper data analysis include ANOVA, t-test and Pearson’s r test. Because of these considerations, it was decided to ensure that all questions related directly to working communication procedures, in an attempt to reduce distortion and increase the stability of the study (Sullivan & Artino, 2013).
Sullivan & Artino (2013) stress that the sample size needs to be ‘adequate’ ‘at least 5-10 observations per group’ to support parametric test power. Evans & Rooney, (2014) support this point adding that when it comes to analysing Likert questionnaires, the t test and ANOVA test have similar power and are able to provide ‘protection against false negatives.’
The main design concern therefore, was to be aware where weakness in statistical power may reside, and so to address this, further steps were taken:
The self-administered questionnaire was designed to:
The challenge was to try and collect wide ranging attitudes about the effect of certain features of working communication procedures, from engineers with different job descriptions. Therefore, 9 independent variables (questionnaire statements see Table 1) were designed to measure engineers’ attitudes towards working communication procedures (indirect aspects) and the effects of the company’s’ working communication procedures on engineers’ attitude (direct aspects).
Table 1. Questionnaire statements grouped by variables.
| Working Communication Procedure Statements | |
| Independent variable | Indirect aspect |
| 2. The company is flexible with respect to taking time off and family responsibilities. | This statement measured participants attitude towards: Company flexibility |
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