Evaluation Of Communication Process At SMRT Corporation Ltd

Strengths of the Communication Audit

Question:

Write about the Evaluation Essay for SMRT Corporation Ltd.

The evaluation essay is based on the strengths and weaknesses of the communication audit carried on during the project. The essay shall evaluate if the objectives of the organization has been achieved. On the basis of the evaluation, certain recommendations shall be made that would improve the work practice. The detailed evaluation of the communication process carried on SMRT Corporation Ltd, it has been found that the organisation lacks proper internal communication and this is one of the major reasons that creates hinder in the overall development of the organisation.

SMRT enjoys a good reputation in the market with top leaders working at the higher level of the organisation. There is huge scope for the organisation to undertake in order to improve their overall functional activities. The major strength of the project was the participation of each individual in the project. Each of the members worked with great efficiency in order to achieve the major goals and objectives designed for the project. The activity with which the organisation is involved like the transportation activities creates huge scope for SMRT to achieve great heights in the market. The organisation has high designated senior engineers who are in charge of the overall organisational activities. This has automatically increased the value of the organisation in the market where it operates (Grant & Taylor, 2014). The way the Company works and serves its clients and consumers are beyond the approach that the other competitors of its kind undertake. Thus, it can be said SMRT has been successful in terms of its working capability in the market where it operates.

The major weakness identified in the communication process is the hierarchical structure of the communication process. According to Dickfos, Cameron and Hodgson, (2014), when the communication process becomes hierarchical, it acts as a barrier towards the complete communication process. It has to be understood that at SMRT, the operational activities largely depends on the participation of each individual. Therefore, it is important that each individual would participate in the communication process. This perspective lacked at the SMRT and thus, it can be considered as a major weakness of the organisation. If the work as a group project is taken into account, it has to be said each of us had faced major difficulties in coping up with time. Managing the time and meeting at a mentioned point of time became challenging for each of us (Grosseman et al., 2014). Although we have always decided to meet after the lecture, at times it would not happen and we had to cancel our meetings. This way reaching out a common decision at times became difficult.

In order to overcome this weakness better communication approach could be easily undertaken. It has been stated earlier that in the recent time, the scope of technological advancement is huge. The organisation can easily undertake the use of these technologies to improve the internal communication (Mohammad Mosadeghrad, 2014). For instance, cloud computing network is the most effective means of creating a communication forum for the employees and the staffs of an organisation. It is cost effective because unlike other communication means like communication by phone. It can be recommended that the members of a particular project would be involved in a cloud computing system and each of them would be able to participate in the overall operation of the particular project. Thus, it is expected to create a cloud computing network in the organisation for the internal communication.

Weaknesses in the Communication Process

By interviewing one of the ex executives of the company, lot of information has been gained. It has been found that for the internal communicational activities, the organisation is largely depended on e-mails or intranet services. As the organisation has a limited space where the members work, they generally rely on face to face communication only and used to solve out any kind of issue face to face rather than depending on any other form of communication. However, it has to be understood that as the organisation is responsible for public transportation activities, it is important to keep a constant trace on the activities and prevent any kind of mis happenings like accidents. In the recent time it has been found that SMRT has been using the social media platforms like the Facebook and the Twitter as well in order to communicate with the staffs (Leonardi, Huysman & Steinfield, 2013). In fact, it has also been known that the employees also use Watsapp for the communication purpose. The employees have their own group where they communicate with each other.

We had faced some obstacles that prevented us from achieving our goals and objectives meant for this particular research project. For instance, in order to know about the communication process that is being followed in an organisation, it is important to discuss about the same things with an employee of the organisation. However, this did not happen. We did not get the opportunity of talking to a person who was present in the organisation instead we had to rely on an ex-staff of the organisation. It might happen that the ex staff could not give proper information related to the organisation and thus, the authenticity of the research might get hampered (Leonardi, Huysman & Steinfield, 2013). In addition to this, limited time frame was always the major hindrance behind the limited research and the analysis. At times, it happened that the members were not able to come down to a proper conclusion because of the lack of analysis and discussion among the members. In such cases, if more time was made available, the situation would have been better.

Each of us had the equal responsibility towards the project. We were all responsible for the framing the recommendations and strategies for the organisation that they might undertake in order to improve the situation. It was during the time of framing the strategic recommendations all of us faced problems and issues. None of us could get to a particular solution. However, at the end with detailed analysis and taking examples of a number of existing organisations we came down to the strategic recommendation that have been proposed in the project. For example, the reminder system by putting countdown time on the intranet home page seemed not so good idea to the other members (Grunig, 2013). However, I completely agreed with it because there are many organisation that have undertaken this approach in order to create a better communication among the internal members and staffs. It was then, I convinced all the members about the same and then they did understand my point and agreed at this point.

Recommendations to Improve Work Practice

The whole research project was a constant learning experience for me and I have learned a lot. I have understood the importance of internal communication in an organisation and how an organisation should focus on this process in order to gain better outcome of their activities. If an organisation fails to communicate properly internally, there remains the chance that the organisation has to suffer in the business activity. This experience shall positively help me in my future activities. 

If my contribution towards the group project is considered, it has to be said that I have been always active throughput the group project. As we were unable to go down to SMRT to interview their staff, I interviewed an ex-staff of SMRT instead. I did the interview via email. The aim of this interview was to know the kind of internal communication channel in SMRT and other related things. I did the case study of the 22nd march 2016 accident, Study of Social Media relations efforts. The recommendation that was given will have really worked. Most of our research is secondary research and we only mange to interview 1 ex-staff of SMRT on SMRT internal communication and so the overall findings were not satisfactory. One of the group members is presently working at Mediacorp. The company does not allow the employees to interview current SMRT staff due to conflict of interest. The Major decision that my group had made as a team is on the evaluations practices.

The overall experience of working as a member of the group has fetched me enough understanding and knowledge about how an organisation works. I have understood the importance of internal communication and how major organisations works. It is very important for any organisation to create best internal communication method n order to keep a flow of the overall organisational and business activities. By the completion of the project, I have been able to groom my weaknesses. I believe that for making a good reputation in the corporate field, it is important to develop team activities and create better communication as well. This group project has provided me the very basic instinct of such activities. This will definitely help me to achieve the goals and objectives of my career.

In terms of score, the members’ individual marks are Denise 90%, Randy-90%, Ben-60%, Me-80%.

References:

Cornelissen, J. (2014). Corporate communication: A guide to theory and practice. Sage.

Dickfos, J., Cameron, C. & Hodgson, C., (2014). Blended learning: making an impact on assessment and self-reflection in accounting education. Education+ Training, 56(2/3), pp.190-207.

Grant, A.D. & Taylor, A., (2014). Communication essentials for female executives to develop leadership presence: Getting beyond the barriers of understating accomplishment. Business Horizons, 57(1), pp.73-83.

Grosseman, S., Hojat, M., Duke, P.M., Mennin, S., Rosenzweig, S. & Novack, D., (2014). Empathy, self-reflection, and curriculum choice. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 8(2), p.3.

Grunig, J. E. (2013). Excellence in public relations and communication management. Routledge.

Leonardi, P. M., Huysman, M., & Steinfield, C. (2013). Enterprise social media: Definition, history, and prospects for the study of social technologies in organizations. Journal of Computer?Mediated Communication, 19(1), 1-19.

Miller, K. (2014). Organizational communication: Approaches and processes. Nelson Education.

Mohammad Mosadeghrad, A., (2014). Essentials of total quality management: a meta-analysis. International journal of health care quality assurance, 27(6), pp.544-558.

Weber, L., & Kuehn, D. (2015). The Challenges of Internal Communication about Environmental Sustainability.