Question

A Business Process Outsourcing centre, ‘Chromosome’ which deals in conversion of voice reports dictated by physicians and other healthcare providers into text format has 40 employees. They ensure that their employees are well versed in at least one foreign language and one Indian language. The employees are also given the required training to ensure that the reports are processed correctly as they are the backbone of the patients’ medical history. On frequent complaints about some of its employees, it was observed that they were facing problems in decoding the message as they were not very proficient with the language in which the voice message was received. As a result, they would make mistakes causing different meaning to the message. Not only this, sometimes there were technical words used in voice reports, the actual meaning of which was also not understood by the employees. Due to this, ‘Chromosome’ was slowly losing its business to competitors.

       The above case highlights two communication barriers. Identify and explain these barriers. 

Answer 1

The case of 'Chromosome' highlights two important communication barriers in their BPO center:

1. Faulty Translations: Employees' proficiency in many languages can create communication obstacles. The organization needs staff to speak at least one foreign and one Indian language, though some may not be fluent. Processing audio signals in several languages can be challenging due to a lack of experience, perhaps resulting in interpretation errors.
2. Technical Jargon: The second obstacle is that employees understand the technical terminology used in voice reports. Understanding technical terminology in medical reports takes specialist knowledge. Errors in report transcription may occur due to a lack of training or familiarity with technical vocabulary.