Timeliness And Method Of Internal Communication Management Essay

Timeliness And Method Of Internal Communication Management Essay This final chapter will provide an overview of the information and most important findings of the research. Next, a broad analysis of the conclusions and amelioration aspects will be provided in order for the organization to improve their current business strategies with regard to corporate reputation. Finally strategies for improvements will be presented. 5.2 Conclusions One of the variables analyzed in the research is the way, timeliness and method of internal communication within the organization is conducted as part of the Corporate Communication variable. In this specific case, the internal communication was not rated as high as it should be when evaluating its importance in the day- to-day business operations. Although the vast majority agrees that internal communication within an organization is important to smoothen and facilitate the core tasks that the organization has to carry out and that it also impacts the corporate reputation, it was established to be below average. When new projects are introduced, these are not explained internally as the employees would like them to. The lack of this information implies that they, in most of the cases, learn about certain developments in the media instead of being the first ones to be informed. It is also very remarkable that, although the SBAB is classified as a vertical organization, the management decisions are not well communicated to the employees, according to 50% of the respondents. If an organization has a vertical manner of doing business, where most of the decisions are made by the Di in dialogue with the management, it is a must for the organization to have an impeccable top down communication. This is with the main focus to prevent misunderstandings and miscommunications in the core business. The employees fully agreed, with a score of 70%, that the organization is being managed in a top down way. A lack of internal communication can also be perceived externally by the tax payers which will result in a lack of credibility towards the organization itself. This clearly shows that, although team meetings have as their main objective to communicate decisions taken by the management, this is obviously not the case. However, although the fact that decisions are not well communicated, the employees do not get information from the outside world. Another important aspect in the communication process is the timeliness of the communication. In this specific case the organization scored a low grade because a majority of the respondents disagreed with the statements that information is timely provided when a new event is about to take place in the workplace. Another aspect that did not score as well as it should is information regarding change management. Most respondents think that changes are implemented and afterwards when questions come on behalf of the employees, they get the information regarding the change. Based on the questions asked by the researcher on the internal communication aspect of the communication, the relationship with the organizations reputation was established to be a moderate one with a correlation coefficient of .615. In other words, a positive relationship was established between these two variables meaning that the internal communication moderately affects the corporate reputation. With regard to the external communication variable on the other hand, a rather large percentage of the employees neither agreed nor disagreed with the statements regarding the organizations efforts to communicate plans of new projects and other events with the external audience. These percentages surpass half of the amount of respondents. However, they acknowledged SBABs efforts in communicating effectively and efficiently with the external stakeholders but there is definitely more to be done. Furthermore, almost 82% of the respondents definitely agreed on the fact that the external communication has an impact on the organizations reputation. In this case the correlation coefficient for this variable, external communication, in relationship with the organizations reputation, this was established to be .880 which means that there is definitely a high correlation between these two. These responses on the statements regarding these two variables regarding communication, are the main reason why the employees gave a 6- (5.92) for SBABs overall communication efforts. The variable that has greatly impacted this mark is the internal communication aspect which they consider to be below what is acceptable. The last variable to be analyzed in relationship with the corporate reputation is the corporate social responsibility strategy. The SBAB has scored very high in its efforts to give back to the society. The organizations strategy of giving back to the less fortunate children of our society and the involvement of the personnel in this process is a big hit with 95% of the respondents agreeing that these efforts help in the corporate reputation building. The overall mark provided for this business strategy is an 8.05. However, the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation was also established to be moderate (.619) because, as stated in the literature review, it is not mandatory for an organization to adopt this strategy in the reputation building process. Nevertheless, if this strategy is well implemented and consistent, it will definitely affect the stakeholders perception of the organization. For the organization to know what the steps are that need to be undergone in order to improve its way of doing business, it should know how it actually performs. Based on this, an analysis was also performed on the current reputation of the organization. It can be concluded that, although a lack of internal communication was identified, the employees do not think that the SBAB currently has a less positive reputation. More than 80% say that through the years, they heard more positive news about the SBAB than negative. Although there is a relatively large amount (respectively 41.7% and 50%) that say that the news that they hear about the SBAB in the media is not always positive and that they do not always receive a positive reaction when they tell an outsider that they work for the SBAB. 5.3 Recommendations In order to improve the reputation of the organization, the following actions should be taken to stimulate a clearer, timely and transparent communication towards the employees. The management should involve the employees more in the process of making decisions that directly affect the employees. In other words, stimulate more bottom-up communication as the employees can give valuable input in certain situations because they work in the field and definitely know better. This can be done by polls managed by the manager of each team. In the case a certain rule will be adapted, for example the team managers must gather with the team members and let them vote on the proposed change. The manager of each team must present their results in the management meeting with the accompanying arguments. After these have been analyzed, decisions can be made in personnel related aspects. Assign a person and a substitute when absent who are solely responsible for all communication towards the organization itself and the external audience (a Communication Officer). This in order to prevent misunderstandings and confusion about who is the one that gives the accurate information. Management meetings are mostly held once a month. Decisions taken and other significant information with regard to new projects and personnel, for example must be communicated to the Communication Officer who will develop a newsletter, on a monthly basis, to inform the internal audience properly. After the employees have been informed, decisions regarding the external audience must be made public through press releases and, where possible, television interviews. This last part is in order to achieve a greater awareness. All of these efforts must be done by the Communications Officer, thus by centralizing of the information channel, in order to also prevent misunderstandings and confusion by the press. This monthly bulletin will only cover management decisions and other objective information. For more subjective information about new colleagues, birthdays and other personnel-related, non-work related activities, the BAB Aktueel must be published quarterly as it is currently done.. In order to create a higher level of awareness of the core tasks of the organization and its corporate social responsibility strategy, a monthly column can be publicized in newspapers (both in Papiamentu and Dutch) as well as in short television program of approximately 5 minutes to be aired during prime time on both local television channels, in which an employee of the organization is interviewed about tax legislation changes, the way and reason of a tax audit and to highlight the organizations efforts in helping 150 less fortunate children of the society etcetera. A timely and accurate communication is not only part of the reputation building process but also in the maintenance hereof. A method of continuously monitoring the corporate reputation is also through an evaluation form that has to be handed out by the tax auditor to the tax payer. Although paying taxes and correcting what did not go well is not the most favorite subject and people tend to be negative about it; however, if the process has gone according to the rules and with the respect needed, the organization can also receive valuable feedback from the external stakeholders also. If these recommendations are aligned next to each other, the conclusion can be drawn that in order for the organization to be perceived positively among both the internal and the external stakeholders, timely and accurate communication is the key aspect. The communication within the organization itself and from the organization towards the outside world is like the heart in a human body. It is the main organ and the one which life is not possible without. A smooth corporate communication will definitely facilitate the core business and from an external point of view the organization will be considered a transparent one. Corporate communication Organization Figure 1 Human body and the heart function