Addressing Communication Gaps in Multi-Center Organizations

The research paper delves into the importance of mitigating communication gaps within business centers. It outlines a methodological approach involving surveys for effective data collection. Through this process, it identifies key communication barriers that hinder organizational efficiency. The study emphasizes managerial roles in streamlining internal communication and suggests implementing new systems to enhance connectivity across functional units. By addressing these issues, the paper aims to improve overall organizational performance and achieve business goals.

Running head: COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Communication and Information Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Part 1
The organization is facing the problem of communication gap among all the business
centers. To address the problem, data need to be collected and research should be performed on
that. In this scenario, the best method for data collection would be to conduct a survey on the
employees. For conducting a research, two types of data are used, primary and secondary. The
data which is collected from the field of research is called the primary data and the one which is
gathered from authentic sources, such as, journals, books, online publications, official websites
etc. While addressing the communication gap issue in this particular organization, primary data
would be most helpful. This is because, the information about the problem cannot be found in
any publication. It must be collected directly from the employees and the best method would be
conducting a survey (Heide & Simonsson, 2014).
A questionnaire would be designed with 10-15 close ended questions that would focus on
the problems of communication gap among the centers due to distance, collaboration issue in the
functional areas and mismanagement in sending the right information to the right person. The
survey should be sent via emails and have to be submitted within 36 hours.
The advantage of this method of data collection is that it is easy and quick and the
respondents do not have to spend much time on it (Roshan, Owen & Brooks, 2014). They will
just have to check the right answer. The answers are easier to code and analyze also. On the other
hand, the employee might skip the survey mail and forget about it unless they are reminded of,
and they might not have the right information to fill up the survey. In that case, they might check
the wrong answer due to lack of proper option.

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The data gathering errors can be avoided by marking the survey as mandatory and remind
the employees on a regular interval to fill up the survey. Secondly, the answers for the options
must be wide and cover all the possibilities, so that the employees get the desired option. Lastly,
there should be open ended questions also to give them the scope for providing their feedbacks
and suggestions (Sebastião, Zulato & Trindade, 2017).

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Part 2
Communication is one of the most significant issues in the operation of the business.
Because there are many operational units in the organisation it is important to maintain a good
communication process in order to avoid errors that are caused due to a communication gap.
Communication gap due to distance
The scale of the business is large and but there are not many people in the managerial position
which is an issue with the staff. They said that when the people face any problem or have some
kind of grievances, most of the time they are confused who to approach as they are firstly unclear
of the hierarchy and the secondly the people in the management have to travel between the cities.
Because of the distance the managers are present only of particular days at one unit. At one of
the operational unit the staff pointed out that there was also a behavioral issue with one of the
managers and the people doesn’t even know who to talk to in this case. Because of the distance
among the operational units most of the new recruits doesn’t even know the CEO or the people
of authority of the organisation this also creates a gap in the communication process and hinders
smooth operation of the business (Poutanen, Siira & Aula, 2016).
Collaboration issue in the functional areas
It has been found that the people have issues and internal conflict among the units and hence
there is a problem in collaboration of the tasks. There is a particular manager whose behavior has
been an issue with many and this is the person who is responsible for collaborating from one
operational area to another. Therefore this has to be immediately solved, the problem area is
mostly in the packaging and transportation department and hence the people of these two sectors

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have a lot of grievances as they complained that due to lack of communication there have been
times when they had to perform a task twice. This kind of issue in the long run will impact the
profitability of the organisation as well (Shockley-Zalabak, 2014).

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Part 3
To,
The Employees,
XYZ Organization.
Dear all,
This is being notified to you that XYZ organization has been facing some communication
issues lately, despite being a successful company in this industry. We regret to announce that,
due to the issues in the communication among the business units, lack of collaboration in the
functional areas and mismanagement in the message delivery system, the organization faced
many problems. The revenue of the company fell sharply and the profit level declined in the last
few years.
The supply and distribution chain of the organization was hampered most in the different
cities. Lack of communication and inefficiency in delivering the right message to the right
person created a lot of problems in the supply of products. The management faced problems
regarding falling sales and profit margin. Due to that, the company had to introduce policies for
cost cutting and reduced the size of the workforce.
We conducted a survey to know the extent of the problems and found that, the internal
communication system of the company needs to be improved. It has been found that the people
who are responsible for managing the internal communication system are not doing their job

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efficiently. There is miscommunication among the employees and at the same time, all important
information is not reaching the concerned person. This is creating problem in the organizational
activities and performances. Along with that, it has not been reported to the higher management
that some of the tools for communication are not working properly and those need to be
replaced.
Thus, we are informing to all the employees in this public notice that, we are designing a
new mechanism for the internal communication in the organization and we will inform you all
about how to use the system once it is introduced. Till then, we expect a cooperation from you in
reducing any type of miscommunication or communication gap in the company and work
towards achieving the organizational goals.
Thank you,
Operation Manager,
XYZ Organization.
Date: 18.01.2018

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Part 4
Recommendation to the CEO
The organisation has a clear lack of leaders and managers to keep the functional units
organisation and running in a smooth way. Therefore the CEO of the company should first
appoint floor managers and operational managers in the functional units. There is just one
manager in the unit who is always available and is also not approachable by many hence there is
a need to increase the managerial unit of the functional area. The position and the hierarchy of
the management should be clear to the staff members so that they do not have any confusion who
to report and who to take their grievances to, the staff members should also be made aware that
their issues and grievances are being recognized and changes are being imitated by the
management. The management of the organisation should also make sure that there is no
communication gap due to technical reasons, during the working hours the connectivity with the
different functional units should be in sync so that there is no repetitive tasks as this means that
there is a loss of effort and loss of time as well.

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Reference List:
Heide, M., & Simonsson, C. (2014). Developing internal crisis communication.Corporate
Communications, 19(2), 128-146. Doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-09-2012-0063
Poutanen, P., Siira, K., & Aula, P. (2016). Complexity and Organizational Communication: A
Quest for Common Ground. Human Resource Development Review, 15(2), 182-207. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484316639713
Roshan, B. B., Owen, C., & Brooks, B. (2014). Organisational features and their effect on the
perceived performance of emergency management organisations.Disaster Prevention and
Management, 23(3), 222-242. Doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/DPM-06-2013-0101
Sebastião, S. P., Zulato, G., & Trindade, A. D. (2017). Internal communication and
organisational culture: The management interplay in the view of the Portuguese
communication consultant. Public Relations Review, 43(4), 863-871. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.05.006
Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2014). Fundamentals of organizational communication. Pearson.