Organizational communication - Essay Example

Task Talking is a skill which is a physical ability of every human being. However doing that task in an effective manner is termed as "communication". Communication is all about sharing one's ideas, opinions, information and feelings. It is a two way activity which requires a sender and a receiver. "Any act by which one person gives to or receives from another person, information about that person's needs desires, perceptions, knowledge, or affective states. Communication may be intentional or unintentional, may involve conventional or unconventional signals, may take linguistic or nonlinguistic forms, and may occur through spoken or other modes." (National Joint Committee for the Communicative Needs of Persons with Severe Disabilities, 1992, p. 2) The work of managers in large organizations is problem solving and decision making. This is a very critical job as it steers the course of the society along with the economic and governmental organizations. The job includes identifying the issue which require attention, setting goals for it, designing a proper course of action, and evaluating and choosing amongst many alternative actions. Ideally finding an agenda, fixing goals and designing a course of action are listed under the term "problem solving" and the last option of evaluating and choosing a right course of action is "decision making". At the level of business organizations, decision making could be required for product improvement, efficiency to achieve an individual or a collective goal. It is also important to be careful about the reaction of the people around you when the decision is taken. "Most of decision theory is normative or prescriptive, i.e. it is concerned with identifying the best decision to take, assuming an ideal decision maker who is fully informed, able to compute with perfect accuracy, and fully rational. The practical application of this prescriptive approach (how people should make decisions) is called decision analysis, and aimed at finding tools, methodologies and software to help people make better decisions. The most systematic and comprehensive software tools developed in this way are called decision support systems."( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_theory) Decision support system is a computerized system used for supporting rather than automating decisions. A decision is ideally choosing between alternatives which have an estimate value. Supporting a decision means helping people working alone or in a group gather intelligence, generate alternatives and make choices. Decision making is applicable to all walks of life, including decisions about what to buy, whom to vote for, or what job to take. The decision making process starts with the collection of information moving on to inference and judgment before finally choosing the right alternative. In order to understand the organization in total, understanding organizational communication is very important. "Organizational communication, broadly speaking, is: people working together to achieve individual or collective goals". Katherine Miller, p.1 The purpose of communication may range from completing a task or mission to creating and maintaining satisfying human relationships. The word transfer means a lot more than the simple process of the conception of an idea by the sender and interpretation of the same by the receiver. It stresses upon the mind of the sender which created the meaning followed by the recreation of it by the receiver. The intent of the communication fails if the interpretation of the senders mind is wrong. Organisational communication can include: Flow of Communication, Induction, Channels, meetings and interviews. Most recently, Organisational communication has advanced from a stage of communication between a sender and a receiver to a study of ways in which communication is not just the means to accomplish certain tasks within the organisational settings but also how the organisation we work for, affects us, as an individual. "Water, with the property of wetness, is very different from the gases of oxygen and hydrogen of which it is composed. It is this understanding of the system with its emergent properties and characteristics that facilitates insights when managing change or problem solving in organisations. System thinking approaches provide key insights for the management of complexity"(Colleen Guray, p 39) New knowledge and potentialities congregate on decision making as the act to opt for and initiate a decision. The outline or plan and distinctiveness decide upon the selection of the rules and routines that structure the decision making. "By structuring choice behavior through roles and scripts, rules and routines, the organisation simplifies decision making, codifies and transmits past learning, and proclaims competence and accountability. Rules and routines specify 'rational' criteria for the evaluation of alternatives, 'legitimate' methods for the allocation of resources, and 'objective' conditions for distinguishing between normal states and novel situations that may necessitate the search for new rules." (Chun Wei Choo) It is very important for organisations to create a system for receiving, processing, creating and storing of organisational knowledge and information. The impact of information system has been spread worldwide. The experience in the field of new technologies will be an advantage for information management, mainly acquiring, organizing, strong and appropriate retrieval of information. The need of manual and mechanized system is required in managing data. The invention of an information system was a solution to the same. It is a manual or automated system which comprises of people; machines and methods set up to collect process and distribute data. In today's competitive world, if one needs to measure the worth of an organisation, one needs to identify and weigh the intangible assets more than its materialistic wealth. The experience and the know-how of these assets drive the organisation into achieving great heights expertise and competence. Task- 2 BUSINESS REPORT Please fill up the blanks To From Reference Date REPORT ON MANAGING ATTRITION BY THE HUMAN RESOURCE DEPARTMENT OF WIPRO BPO. 1.0 Introduction Wipro BPO is uniquely positioned to service customer requirements by leveraging its tenets of quality and innovation, the best people talent, self sustaining process framework and domain knowledge. They offer customized service offerings; translating into the most flexible and cost effective services of the highest quality for our customers. Wipro BPO is about delivering long-term benefits & measurable value to our customers through: Business process re-engineering Integrating technology with BPO Knowledge services 2.0 Wipro believes that the HR processes and systems and the policies and procedures which support them are an integral part of HR strategies and are vital to the success of any organization. Wipro infrastructure provide Infrastructure Consolidation, Standardization and Virtualization Services by leveraging on going Transformation and Innovation. Wipro BPO aims to provide a delightful employee experience by applying cutting edge know-how of HR, communication practices and technology. 3.0 Let us now look at the sound model prepared using the information system tool to track Attrition by HR. The concept of this tool is very simple: The 'Value to company - probability of leaving' matrix Figure [1] Identify the individuals in each service delivery 'team'. Plot the positions of each of these agents (by the first level reporting Manager & the Business HR) in this matrix on the given parameters. Prepare & implement specific action plans (by the first & second level Reporting Managers & the Business HR) for enhancing retention for each individual based on their position in this matrix. Create this matrix for each 'Service Delivery Team' in the organization & add up the numbers for each quadrant to understand what are the most appropriate HR initiative / intervention that is required. Monitor & Review these matrixes periodically for any changes & to obtain decision - making data for discontinuing, modifying, continuing or initiating new interventions. Probability of Leaving: Every individual in each service delivery team to be rated as high / medium / low on the probability of leaving based on the following 16 parameters. A 'high' rating in even one parameter would result in a 'high probability of leaving' individual. Also please note the correlations & dependencies within these factors, some of which have been pointed out. This evaluation assumes that the business HR person & the 1st Level reporting manager possess a tacit understanding of each individual's 'Value System' (the person's predisposition to act in a certain way in a specific situation according to the highest operating value that the person holds). The distribution of the population in the various quadrants (Q1 to Q9) of the Matrix is an indication of the effectiveness of your Organization's HR & Training Processes. The matrix therefore gives a clear picture of the current health as well as the necessary interventions & initiatives required in the team. Instead of trying to force fit interventions & initiatives designed by someone high up, the matrix data flows up & create a much better "mass - customized" approach for focusing clearly on the relevant issues & actions. Let us consider a distribution for a team of 13 agents, 6 male and 7 female. Value to Company High Medium Low Name Performance Criticality Future Need PF1 H L L PM2 M H L PM3 M L H PM4 H L M PM5 H H M PF6 H L L PF7 H L L PF8 M L L PF9 M L L PM10 M L L PM11 M L L PF12 M L L PF13 M L L . 4.0 Conclusion The matrix therefore gives a clear picture of the current health as well as the necessary interventions & initiatives required in the team. Instead of trying to force fit interventions & initiatives designed by someone high up, the matrix data flows up & create a much better "mass - customized" approach for focusing clearly on the relevant issues & actions. 5.0 References http://www.wipro.com/bpo/hr/hr.htm Attrition project by a Wipro BPO employee Works Cited list Chun Wei Choo Faculty of Information Studies University of Toronto Sensemaking, Knowledge Creation, and Decision Making: Organizational Knowing as Emergent Strategy "Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital and Organizational Knowledge" Colleen Guray, Director, Barker Guray Pty Ltd P 39 http://www.nceta.flinders.edu.au/pdf/proceedings2001/guray.pdf Katherine Miller, Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes, 4th ed., p. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_communication#cite_note-0 (National Joint Committee for the Communicative Needs of Persons with Severe Disabilities, 1992, p. 2) http://www.unm.edu/devalenz/handouts/defcomm.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_theory Read More