Explain what you think are the most important communication issues
Internal communication is significant for creating a proper and efficient business relation with the internal stakeholders – the employees. This direction should be greatly improved towards encouraging workers to provide feedback upon the actions communicated by the top management. The organization should support the forming of syndicates and to sustain the free dialogue with the representatives of the employees, at the official level. However, unofficial feedbacks should be also encouraged, providing that it offers viable solutions for improving working or the working conditions and the satisfaction of the employees.
The communication with the external stakeholders (clients, shareholders, business partners, social and political actors) is another communication issue that a future executive will face once embarked upon this career. The visibility of the company is crucial for business and the task should be to make the company a viable social actor for its community, gaining brand equity from its involvement in social actions campaigns, hence, an improved public opinion and the support of the community, as well as more business as the company gains a good reputation.
Discuss whether communication will become more complex, or less complex, and why
Communication will need to become complex in terms of communication channels, integrating innovation and approaches to stakeholders. Nevertheless, it needs to become less complex in its applicability (Conrad & Scott Poole, 2012). As such, as the business communication will become more comprehensive and unitary, there will be diverse communication processes and mechanisms that will need to be established in order to elaborate an efficient communication plan and an efficient communication flux. The purpose of these complex strategies will be precisely to optimize the corporate communication, making it less complex, as it will be more accessible. The accessibility is needed because it is prove of transparency, which is an important asset for instilling trust to both internal and external stakeholders.
Technology should support the company in designing an integrated communication, playing the role of linking the corporate message to the intended receivers. Miller (2011) observes that technology plays multiple roles in the organizational communication:
- Classical (wherein technology can supplement or replace the work of the employees);
- Human relations (wherein technology can emphasize workers’ attitude, by liberating them from mundane tasks);
- Human resources (wherein technology is used for enhancing the effectiveness of organizational messages in collaboration with employees);
- System (wherein technology links organizational subsystems with the environment, with a special focus on communication networks that technology provides);
- Cultural (wherein technology is a symbolic manifestation of culture for developing and promoting the organizational values);
- Critical (wherein technology controls the information, allowing a more open communication);
With the help of the technology the messages will reach the employees (in the plan of improving the internal communication) through emails, through organizational networks, through social networks, as companies should be connected to the current reality and embrace the new forms of communicating through social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Likewise, the company’s website should be the technological link with the customers and other stakeholders, therefore, a visible and easy navigable website is needed. This should be supported by an ad words campaign and constant SEO efforts, which should combine the technology with employees’ efforts.
Discuss how the information gap between generations, cultures, income levels, and education can be resolved
There should be an equal opportunity approach that the organization should adopt in relation to its employees in order to address the generation, culture, income or education gap. The company should communicate this business philosophy, by encouraging and engaging the employees to improve their work, in order to reach the self – actualization level, which is the higher level from Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs (Nevid, 2011). Determining the workers to rise on this pyramid of needs the organization would contribute to their self – improvement, which would implicitly come with better working results and with reducing the gap between generations, cultures, income levels and education. As employees rise higher on the Maslow’s pyramid of needs, they would identify different needs that would gradually reduce the income level gap, as they will require an increased income for their performances. Likewise, for solving these gaps, there could be drawn career maps, helping the employees better identify what they need for reaching their career (and implicitly education and income level) objectives (Kezar, 2008).
Include a statement of your personal philosophy on the future of integrated business communication
The integrated business communication should incorporate employee and consumer content. This means that both the workers and the clients of the organization should be encouraged to send their opinions, feedback regarding the way the company manages its work, contributing like this to the business decisions that the company will have and to the future of the business relations between the internal and external stakeholders, on one end and the organization, on the other end. Technology, therefore, should be central to allowing this type of communication to develop and should support the company’s stakeholders to send their own messages to the company, assuring an open communication. Likewise, the focus towards the environmental sustainability should be considered for designing an integrated business communication, as the civic actions contribute to company’s visibility and its approachability, bringing it closer to its targeted audiences.
References
Conrad, C., R. & Scott Poole, M. (2012) Strategic organizational communication: In a global economy. Wiley – Blackwell.
Kezar, A. (2008) Rethinking leadership practices in a complex, multicultural, and global environment. Virginia: Stylus Publishing, LLC.
Miller, K. (2011) Organizational communication: approaches and processes. Boston: Wadsworth.
Nevid, J., S. (2008) Psychology: concepts and applications, 4th ed.: concepts and applications. Belmont: Wadsworth.
