Issues with the Existing Internal Communication System

Background:

The background of the proposal is the tendering of a risk management design for AOK Securities Limited with a large organization. Pinkerton based in the United States has been selected as the company to float the tender for the risk management design. The problem is to outline a project proposal and emphasize on good flow of internal communication within an organization. AOK Securities is setting up a new communication and securities systems with the latter company to strengthen its internal communication system.

AOK Securities is facing some serious issues regarding internal corporate communication which is hampering its productivity and created a lack of security. There has been loss of strategic business data of critical importance (Lake, D., Milito, Morrow and Vargheese 2014). A huge gap of communication between the employees has been created which is affecting flow of information between the employees. The managers instruct their subordinates but do not take interest or initiative in the execution of targets. The marketing and order procurement department often fails to communicate the orders to the production department which often results in deadline misses. The management has set tremendous target which often leads the employees in following unethical steps. There gap in communication has resulted in conflict and stoppage of work in the departments which has caused huge loss to the company. There exists a remarkable difference in opinion and communication gap among departments and there is no transparence in operation. There is a prominent lack of coordination and cooperation among the departments (Bartek 2014).

The project consists of the following steps and the duration of those steps:

Project description:

The project is about proposing a risk management system and highlighting the importance of strong internal communication within AOK Securities Limited. The company is a security company which provides security to various organizations.

Strong communication is indispensible to a strong risk management system and needs to be emphasized on right by the apex management. The project will require involvement of all the staff members and the management (Kerzner 2013). The management needs to set up a new team which will assess the present standard of internal communication within the organization and should hand over the report to the management within 6 months time.

The aim of the project is to assess the present level of internal communication within AOK Securities and propose ways to develop it. Communication is extremely important for the successful execution of risk management system to be put up by Pinkerton. There exists a very acute lack of internal communication the securities company at all levels (McNeil, Frey and Embrechts 2015). The managers merely communicate the targets to their subordinates but do not take initiative in the execution. There is a huge lack of communication even between the management and the employees. This often leads to conflict which results in loss of productivity and business opportunities (Gensby et al. 2014). There also exists a serious lack of communication and sense of responsibility among departments. They do not exchange business related information on time which results in business losses due to deadline. The company wants to issue a tender with Pinkerton in order to put a new communication system. This will help the company to strengthen its internal flow of communication and bring about strategic management.

Project Overview

The objective of the project is to create improve the flow of internal communication by improving the existing communication system which would support the risk management system. There is need to improve the personal communication among the employees and they need to get rid of their reluctance to cooperate with each other. The objective is to bring about total quality management within the organization which will require involvement of all the employees and the management. The management should improve the organization culture from an authoritative to a participative type which will encourage all the employees to participate in the execution of orders and targets (Goetsch and Davis 2014). The objective is to put up a system that will increase cooperation and coordination among the departments and allow them to share ad exchange huge quantity of data. This will also help to reduce the conflicts and improve productivity. This will improve the communication between the departments which will result in delivery of high quality products on time and customer satisfaction. The communication system of Pinkerton will also provide the management with accurate data about the human resources which will allow it the allocate jobs as per competencies. This will motivate the employees and improve their morale. This will lead to high performance and job satisfaction (Marcelino-Sádaba et al. 2014).

The research about the need of internal communication within AOK Securities and the sheer lack of it can be divided into primary and secondary sources. The planning of  research involves interviewing for primary information and article for secondary information.

The employees were asked two questions stated below to assess the present situation which took 3 months for them to get a dependable amount of responses. The objectives and the audience were defined in the first month to encourage a large amount of responses.:

1. Are you satisfied with the organizational culture and autocratic leadership?
2. Do you feel motivated?

The next step figuring out the message took place after 3 months which formed the bases of the findings. About 70% of the employees showed that they were not happy with the organizational culture and do not feel motivated. 20% of the employees did not opine clearly while only 10% employees told that they were happy to work under the present situation.

The finding clearly shows that majority of the employees were not happy and motivated under the autocratic organizational culture and that shows the communication system needs to change.

An article by Hogan and Coote (2014) states that organizational culture is expressed through behavior and it can be pointed that the lack of communication clearly presents an autocratic organizational culture. It can be emphasized that improvement in the communication system will help in transforming the organizational culture.

Objectives of the Project

Tong, Tak. and Wong(2015) in their work state the importance of knowledge sharing among the departments and the employees results in free flow of communication. This transparent communication enforces motivates which encourages job performance and jo satisfaction among the employees.  The work also stresses on the important role of information technology in speeding up of internal communication in the organisataion. This article clearly indicates that AOK Securities should put up its own communication system with the help of Pinkerton.

Belias and Koustelios (2014) in their work state that openness to changes, innovation and human centered culture leads to healthy organizational culture. The securities company should first improve internal communication among its employees to bring about positive change in its productivity.

A project aiming to bring about change in internal communication in a organization is not a very easy one and is bound to face challenges and constraints.

The most important challenge was to gain cooperation of the management and persuade them to involve the employees in the process. It was tough to make the management realize that TQM requires involvement of all the employees to bring about rise in performance (Sallis 2014).

The next was to persuade the employees to participate in the change because autocratic management has made them resistant to changes. They were reluctant towards using new technology and were not ready to cooperate.

The lack of communication had created a conflicting environment in the organization which had demeaned the trust between the management and the employees. It was tough to persuade them to work together for the development of the company.

The project faced limitation of finance because of the prevailing lack of communication between the accounts departments and the project department. The management was not sure about the outcome of the project and did not allocate sufficient funds. The employees were insecure and did not provide high quality response.

The biggest constraint for the project was constraint of time. The assessment of the delivery of messages was supposed to be over by September. The lack of cooperation from the employees, management and accounts department inhibited the flow of response to the questions (Doh and Tashman 2014).

It can be expected that the project will create positive outcome and improve the internal communication in the organization. The project of setting up a risk management system will necessitate the management and the employees to realize the value of coordination. It can be expected that the departments will cooperate with each other because communication is the base of a strong security system.

The evaluation plan is supposed to take place in October according to the plan. The employees will be asked the same questions and their responses will be used evaluate the outcome of the project. The increase in their productivity and the value of the firm can also act as grounds for evaluating the success of the project.

Conclusion

The project proposal shows that smooth internal communication is essential for success of any project. The security system will only help the AOK if the internal communication is strengthened and the management encourage participation of all the employees.

References:

Bartek, A., 2014. HOW COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION (Doctoral dissertation, Texas Christian University Fort Worth, Texas).

Belias, D. and Koustelios, A., 2014. Organizational culture and job satisfaction: A review. International Review of Management and Marketing, 4(2), p.132.

Doh, J.P. and Tashman, P., 2014. Half a world away: The integration and assimilation of corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and sustainable development in business school curricula. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 21(3), pp.131-142.

Gensby, U., Labriola, M., Irvin, E., Amick III, B.C. and Lund, T., 2014. A classification of components of workplace disability management programs: results from a systematic review. Journal of occupational rehabilitation, 24(2), pp.220-241.

Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Hogan, S.J. and Coote, L.V., 2014. Organizational culture, innovation, and performance: A test of Schein’s model. Journal of Business Research, 67(8), pp.1609-1621.

Kerzner, H., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Lake, D., Milito, R., Morrow, M. and Vargheese, R., 2014. Internet of things: Architectural framework for ehealth security. Journal of ICT Standardization, River Publishing, 1.

Marcelino-Sádaba, S., Pérez-Ezcurdia, A., Lazcano, A.M.E. and Villanueva, P., 2014. Project risk management methodology for small firms. International Journal of Project Management, 32(2), pp.327-340.

McNeil, A.J., Frey, R. and Embrechts, P., 2015. Quantitative risk management: Concepts, techniques and tools. Princeton university press.

Sallis, E., 2014. Total quality management in education. Routledge.

Tong, C., Tak, W.I.W. and Wong, A., 2015. The Impact of knowledge sharing on the relationship between organizational culture and Job satisfaction: The perception of information communication and technology (ICT) practitioners in Hong Kong. International Journal of Human Resource Studies, 5(1), p.19.