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.
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