Perspectives on Oral Communication Skills for Engineers in Engineering Profession of Pakistan

Inayatullah Kakepoto, Noor Abidah Mohd Omar, Yusuf Boon, S M Zafar Iqbal
2012 International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature  
Communication plays paramount role for engineers to perform workplace jobs effectively in this modern age of industrialization. The purpose of this research paper was to determine importance of oral communication for engineers at workplace. Thirty engineers from 2 engineering organizations participated in this study. Purposive sampling method was used for data collection since respondents were drawn on specific criteria of engineers with minimum 5 years work experience. Quantitative survey
more » ... on questionnaire survey was used for data collection purpose. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 15.0). The results of the study indicated that oral communication skills such as oral presentation, participation in meetings, conversation, discussion, and negotiation skill play significant role for engineers at workplace. Thus, quantitative data analysis results indicate that oral communication skills play significant role for engineers to perform workplace jobs efficiently in this competitive work environment of organizations. However, the results of this study are consistent with other literature review findings on importance of oral communication skills for engineers at workplace. This paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. words in literature review that indicate that modern engineering graduates should be proficient in these skills if they want to be successful at workplace in order to perform workplace jobs successfully. No doubt, these skills assist engineering graduates to obtain a job and thereby excel in job promotion ladder at workplace. Moreover, industry recognizes importance of communication skills for engineers (Dannels, 2003; Korte et al., 2008) because engineers equipped with effective communication skills contribute to promote business of organizations. Communication functions as soul blood of any organization and engineering organizations heavily rely on effective communication skills of its employees. Tilli and Trevelyan (2008) noted that engineers 60% of time spend in communicating with people at workplace. Thus, these increased communications demand effective oral communication skills of engineering graduates to perform workplace jobs successfully and productively. It is a general perception at workplace that engineers equipped with effective oral communication skills augment workplace productivity of organizations. Thus, management of organizations usually gives important assignments to those engineers who tended to be equipped with effective oral communication skills. As a result, engineers equipped with effective oral communication skills are considered productive engineers for organizations from employer perspective point of view. In certain instances employers show concern that they do not find engineers to perform such roles which include collaboration and coordination with other organizations. Conversely, engineering graduates equipped with poor oral communication skills bring poor financial benefits for organizations. Thus, employers usually consider them as burden on organizations. Engineering graduates equipped with poor oral communication skills tend to fail to persuade industrialists to buy their company products. Marketing has become an important aspect of modern workplace and employers look for those engineering graduates who can play multiple roles to promote business of organizations. This paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Data Analysis Data were analyzed quantitatively using Statistical package for Social Sciences (SPSS15.0) to draw percentages for agreement and disagreement level of respondents for the variables included in the questionnaire. communication dominate conversations and poor conversation skill of engineers develop poor image for them at workplace. For discussion 50% engineers agreed and 34% strongly agreed that workplace discussions promote better work environment of organizations. Engineers identified that oral communication is an important skill to discuss work related matters with senior engineers. In addition, they identified that engineers equipped with poor oral communication skill do not take part in discussions at workplace. Moreover, due to poor oral communication skill engineers usually fail to convince colleagues during discussions at workplace. On the other hand, for negotiation 51 % engineers agreed and 32% strongly agreed that negotiation is an important aspect of modern workplace communication. Engineers identified that engineers equipped with effective oral communication skills bring various financial benefits for organizations. They further identified that engineers equipped with poor oral communication skills damage interests of organization and due to poor oral communication skill engineers usually avoid playing the role of negotiator at workplace.
doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.5p.176 fatcat:zuimm3zbc5edtiuh6mirv33m3q