Solving Internal Communication Problems Through An Internal Audit Process - Essay.

In this task, you will write a memo in response to the case study provided below. The memo must be logically structured, free of grammatical errors, professionally styled; in addition, follow the writing conventions for memos as discussed in the lecture and supporting material.

Case study: You are the CEO of Data Solutions, which is a medium sized company that sells data management software. The company is based in Brisbane and has offices in both Melbourne and Sydney. You have become aware that although the external marketing and promotions communications are effective there is a problem with the internal communication. There are three primary general problems:

1. Decisions made at the executive level are not being communicated clearly and in a timely manner to the employees.

2. For the most part supervisors and employees do not work in the same offices. Due to this situation, the supervisor to employee communication is ineffective.

3. Emails are being sent out that are unprofessional.

Problems in Internal Communication

The purpose of this is to highlight the operations taking place in the external marketing and in promotional areas. However, the main priority of the memorandum is to highlight problem occurring in internal communication. In the organisation Data Solution, it has been seen that decisions that are being taken in the executive level are often not being effectively disseminated amongst employees within time. As a result of which employees are not able to handle their tasks properly. Secondly, it has been seen from the case study that most of the supervisors and staffs do not work together in the same office due to which the internal communication in between them is not effective enough. Moreover, emails that are being sent for the official purpose are not professional. Based on these problematic factors the main purpose of the memo is to deduce logical suggestions to solve the problems through an internal audit process.

Communication audit process will be used to identify the internal strength weakness of Data solution organisation.  It will be done to evaluate the communication of the employees and to fix the problems taking place in within the workplace premises (Greenaway, 2015). Audit communication process will be done by conducting a survey and by assigning an individual to analyse the communication of the employee. According to Mishra, Boynton and Mishra (2014), quality customer feedback and upgraded feedbacks will help in evaluating the performance of the employees within the organisation. Currently there are three problems that are present in the office, first one is associated with the ineffective decision making, second is related to the communication gap between supervisors and staffs. Third problem is the unprofessional mails that are being sent.

The specific purpose of the communication audit process is to evaluate the strengths and weakness of communication in between employees and supervisors.

The general purpose of the audit process is to enhance the internal process of business communication and transform it in to effective form of business communication.

First problem is associated with lack of decision making process in the organisation. As seen from the perspective of quantitative significance the decisions taken by the executive level are not being communicated properly to the lower level employees in periodic manner. As a result of which most of the employees do not understand the need for decision making. Moreover, the organisational productivity is declining.

From the quantitative overview it can be seen that employees and supervisors do not work in the same office. Qualitative significance here is that, due to lack of proper management between staffs and supervisors the communication between them remains ineffective. Moreover, employee turnover is gradually increasing owing from the lack of effective communication within the organisation.

Solutions to Problems

Quantitative significance here is that the mails that are being sent for the official purpose are often not professional. As a result of which employees are not able to communicate with their customers and hierarchy (Raina & Roebuck, 2016). Moreover, the percentages of consumer are falling down and productions are declining.

In order to solve the problems arising from the lack of decision making a business meeting is required to be scheduled for all the members of the organisation including supervisors, executives and staffs. As stated by Sarapaivanich and Patterson (2015), in the meeting the manager of the organisation can bring all of them in to decision making process by motivating and engaging other in the process. This will help the executive to communicate their ideas to others and employees will be able to share their opinions as well. Therefore, the meeting conducted will help to identify the flaw present within the internal communication system thereby providing an effective solution to the problem.

For mitigating the communication gap between supervisor and staffs an up to date feedback process is required to develop a transparent form of communication among all the employees. As stated by Luftman (2015), supervisors need to consult with the employees in a motivating way so that they find it comfortable to discuss their problems within the workplace. Furthermore, a process of brainstorming communication will help the organisation to communicate all the necessary information to all the employees. As influenced by the opinion of Tarhini, Ammar and Tarhini (2015), employees and supervisors will be able to understand each other problems in dealing with the tasks. In case an employee is unable to understand certain task, supervisors will be able to support them in doing the tasks. In this context, all the employees and supervisors are required to mitigate their workplace communication problems in an informal way within the workplace premises. An individual work associated employees is needed to bring in to attention their respective problem to their immediate supervisor and discuss their problems of concern in a timely way.

In order to solve the problems occurring due to un-professional mail, employees as well consumers who are receiving this kind of mails are needed to file a complaint against the incoming of the mail. In this context, a formal mail is required to be made by the employee or a customer who received the mail. The complaint must be notified to the supervisor within the period of working days of the received mail on which the complaint is being made. The copy of the complaint is needed to be forwarded to the manger (Wang, Pauleen & Zhang, 2016). After receiving the mail, within the period of certain days the supervisor will be required to confer the problem with the employees and to make additional query related to the problem. Apart from these all the employees are needed to be effectively trained to deal with the unprofessional mail. As indicated by the view of Huang and Rundle-Thiele (2014), after the approval of the complaint made against the mail, the supervisor is needed to retain a copy of the approved decision to deal with the unprofessional mail. Therefore, these procedures will help to reduce the number of unprofessional mails that are being sent.

Advantages of Compliance

A monthly update is needed to be enquired to the manager of Data solution organisation regarding the suggestive procedures. According to Stubbs and Higgins (2014), it is necessary to evaluate the progress of the action that is being taken to solve the problems within the workplace. The problems are expected to be completed within a period of six months and the actions will be effectively updated to the clients. All the three problems occurring due to the lack of internal communication within the workplace will be clearly notified to all the members through the meetings and regular feedback. If necessary another meeting minutes can be conducted to mitigate further issues within workplace.

The memo here highlights the various problems occurring in between executives, supervisors, employees and clients due to the lack of proper management of communication. It is evident from the memo that effective internal communication is necessary. Data solution organisation seems to lack proper methods of communication such as regular staff meetings, telephonic conversation, and professional mail to exchange the organisation’s vital information. It has been seen that specifically, there are three major problems occurring due to lack of poor decision making that are being taken by the executive level. The information is not properly communicated to the employees. Therefore, the memo has been prepared to help the employee members to deal with all the three problems by applying various methods of internal forms of communication using the tools.

There are several advantages of compliance to the staffs and organisation. An effective program of compliance will help the organisation is preventing failures prior to occurrence thereby minimising the requirements of repeated tasks (Burke & Clark, 2016). Moreover, early guidance on issues assures that compliance store time to perform the repeated tasks. Apart from these, it is evident that being a software management company, Data solution is increasingly seeking new operations to enhance the returns of the shareholders. Therefore, it can be said that greater amount of operating compliance within organisation and among employees will help to spread greater amount of efficiency within the organisational premises. Moreover, it will help to broadly build trust and loyalty towards the organisation in effectively communicating within the workplace. As per the view of Crane and Glozer (2016), this compliance procedure will allow the organisation show their determination in conducting business in an effective way. The major benefits of compliance to the employee is that this will help is management of risk that takes place in the form of strategic, operational and other process of business. According to Henderson, Cheney and Weaver (2015), a broader risk management program within the company will allow them to ensure the risks that may occur. These risk management procedure can be easily discussed within the process of decision making and will help in ensuring the mitigation of risk in an efficient way.

The purpose of the memo is to provide assistance with essential support for the employees as well as the customers. Hereby it is to notify the way by which services can be provided for helping the employees in all possible way.

Reference

Burke, J. J., & Clark, C. E. (2016). The business case for integrated reporting: Insights from leading practitioners, regulators, and academics. Business Horizons, 59(3), 273-283.

Crane, A., & Glozer, S. (2016). Researching corporate social responsibility communication: Themes, opportunities and challenges. Journal of Management Studies, 53(7), 1223-1252.

Greenaway, K. H., Wright, R. G., Willingham, J., Reynolds, K. J., & Haslam, S. A. (2015). Shared identity is key to effective communication. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(2), 171-182.

Henderson, A., Cheney, G., & Weaver, C. K. (2015). The role of employee identification and organizational identity in strategic communication and organizational issues management about genetic modification. International Journal of Business Communication, 52(1), 12-41.

Huang, Y. T., & Rundle-Thiele, S. (2014). The moderating effect of cultural congruence on the internal marketing practice and employee satisfaction relationship: An empirical examination of Australian and Taiwanese born tourism employees. Tourism Management, 42, 196-206.

Luftman, J., Derksen, B., Dwivedi, R., Santana, M., Zadeh, H. S., & Rigoni, E. (2015). Influential IT management trends: an international study. Journal of Information Technology, 30(3), 293-305.

Mishra, K., Boynton, L., & Mishra, A. (2014). Driving employee engagement: The expanded role of internal communications. International Journal of Business Communication, 51(2), 183-202.

Raina, R., & Roebuck, D. B. (2016). Exploring cultural influence on managerial communication in relationship to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and the employees’ propensity to leave in the insurance sector of India. International Journal of Business Communication, 53(1), 97-130.

Sarapaivanich, N., & Patterson, P. G. (2015). The role of interpersonal communication in developing small-medium size enterprise (SME) client loyalty toward an audit firm. International Small Business Journal, 33(8), 882-900.

Stubbs, W., & Higgins, C. (2014). Integrated reporting and internal mechanisms of change. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 27(7), 1068-1089.

Tarhini, A., Ammar, H., & Tarhini, T. (2015). Analysis of the critical success factors for enterprise resource planning implementation from stakeholders’ perspective: A systematic review. International Business Research, 8(4), 25.

Wang, W. Y., Pauleen, D. J., & Zhang, T. (2016). How social media applications affect B2B communication and improve business performance in SMEs. Industrial Marketing Management, 54, 4-14.