This assignment asks you to conduct a communication audit of an existing organization. You will choose your own organization—however, it needs to be of sufficient complexity to be worth your time. In general, the organization should include at least 18 members, have established for at least a decade and be open to your investigation.
procedures:
1. Identify a contact person as high up in the organization’s structure as possible. If you can work with the president, director, CEO, or owner, your work will go more quickly. Try to avoid working with someone who will have to ask someone else for permission. Don’t try to persuade the organization to allow you to work with them. If they aren’t interested in giving you access to their organization or can’t give you an answer within a day or two, move on to another option.
2. Set up a meeting with the contact person and all the members of your group to discuss the organizational communication evaluation assignment, needs, procedures, expectations, schedule, and presentation. Get approval at that time or as soon as possible. Stress confidentiality and professionalism, but acknowledge that you are students who are learning through this process. Find out what limitations you will have in terms of access to documents, personnel, and the contact person.
3. Follow up the meeting with an email explaining and outlining your understanding of the arrangements and indicate a time when you will call to confirm agreement/changes to your understanding of the project. Make a copy for your instructor.
4. Get a tour or walk-through of the organization and begin observing communication (This could even start with the initial meeting). Take note of nonverbal aspects of communication: arrangement, doors, windows, clothing, decorations, traffic flow, and telephones. Listen for verbal communication, forms of address, noise level, and interruptions. Notice technology, oral & written communication, and anything that tells you something about the organization before you even talk to anyone.
5. Arrange for interviews with several key people. Interviews will probably take 15 to 20 minutes if planned well. You may not get this much time depending upon the organization. Get what you can and use it wisely. These will help you decide what research methods you will need to employ. In the very least, you will use direct observations, interviews, questionnaires, and basic content analysis. You may find focus groups and network analysis useful also. Note forms of address, myths, metaphors (military, sports, family, etc.), and stories.
6. Gather as much written material as you can. This could include: mission statements, organizational charts, handbooks, orientation materials, correspondence forms (bulletins, memos, message notes, voice mail, e-mail), and employee publications. Note the content, form, and distribution of these materials (who gets them, how, and why).
7. Administer the survey questionnaire to a representative sample of the members of the organization. Remember to include key people, a cross section of the ethnic, racial, and sex differences in the organizations.
8. Summarize the data. Describe what trends or themes emerged from the direct observations, the interviews, the questionnaires, and the documents. What can you say about communication in this organization? Be descriiptive at this point.
9. Synthesize the data. What does the information you have gathered mean? What are some implications of the current state of communication in the organization? What do you NOT know about communication in the organization? What are some limitations on what you can say?
10. Evaluate the data. Is communication in this organization effective, ineffective? Complete, incomplete? Too much, too little? Overall, how would you rate the organizational communication in this organization? Remember, you need to have some sort of benchmark for this evaluation. This might come from the mission statement, written documents, or interviews with management. Perfection may not be the goal. Complete communication with all members of the organization is probably not wanted, necessary, or even legal.
11. Make recommendations. What would you suggest to management? Should they continue as they are, strengthen certain areas, change some procedures, add, subtract? You have considerable background in communication and should be able to offer some insights.
12. Write your report. The report should include a Title page, executive summary, Table of Contents, References, and Exhibits. Headings and subheadings should be used and APA style should be followed. No length requirement is expected, but about 20 pages of text should be plenty. The report should be neatly bound for presentation.
This is a fairly general outline for the breakdown of the paper. An audit’s presentation should have some givens but you have some room to play with in constructing the format.
1. What is a communication audit?
1.What are the goals?
2. How does it proceed?
2. History/profile of the Organization/company Procedures
1.All about the organization and its history its founding, heroes, key moments and positions relative to other organization.
2.Observations on the organizational structure. This should include an organizational chart showing the relative authority of entities.
3. Observations on the flow of information. Where does information start, how does it make its way through the organization. Examine the four flows of information.
4. Review of major sources and content of information. How are policies kept and disseminated to the constituents of the organization? How are new members socialized into the organization and how does the organization make sure that people buy into the culture of the organization. What is the method of management and the levers of power in play?
5. Methodology
1.Interviews
2. Survey Instrument
3. Sample Results
6. Results
1. Research summary—identifying the main findings of the analysis
2. Strengths of the organizational communication/culture
3. Weaknesses of the organizational communication/culture
4. Recommendations/suggestions for change (SWOT analysis—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threat)
7. Summary Personal Summary
1. Review of the major findings
2. Review of the limitations of the study.
