Study on Organisational Communication

1.Introduction

1.1 About the organisation

Air Mauritius Limited is the national airline of Mauritius, based in Port Louis, the

island's capital. It operates regional and international services to over 30 destinations

with 80 flights per week. Its main base is Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International

Airport, Mauritius.

Air Mauritius was incorporated in June 1967 and it started its operations modestly.

The first flights to the Sister-island of La Reunion favored the taking off of a regional

identity.

Today, 40 years later, the national carrier of Mauritius flies direct to several

European, Asian, African and Regional destinations – more than 25.

Air Mauritius operates in many countries and faces country risks. These can take many different forms including:

The devaluation of a currency that the Company receives as part of its proceeds from normal operations;

Exchange controls or other actions taken by the governments, restricting the Company's ability to repatriate its funds as a result of adverse economic conditions

Outbreaks of diseases or epidemics forcing the Company to stop operations temporarily.

1

2

Chief Executive OfficerINTERNAL AUDITEVP Internal Audit

Co Secretary/ General Counsel

Medcor, MK properties & Spl Project

Programme office

Security

Finance

Flight Safety

Ground Operations Quality

Flight Operations Quality

Maintenance Quality

Sales & DistributionHR & Organisational DevelopmentStrategic PlanningCommunicat-ion & corporate AffairsFlight Operations Information Systems & CargoTechnical Services

Ground Operations Cabin Operations

1.2 Organizational Structure of Air Mauritius

The organizational structure of Air Mauritius as shown above is arranged in a

functional structure, has many level of hierarchy and narrow span of control. In other

words it is a tall organizational structure and thus implies that communication is slow

because there is a big gap between the CEO and the employees, tight control

exercised by the CEO and difficulties to locate source of error when needed.

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The arrangement of the organizational structure where the CEO has control over all

the different part of the organization is a clear case where centralization is applied.

Centralisation is the extent to which power and authority are retained at the top

organisational levels. It can be good in the sense that it allows for easier co-ordination

for management and allow CEO of Air Mauritius to maintain full control on decision-

making. However it can be de-motivating for employees, as they do not participate in

decision-making and also the fact that CEO needs to take most of the decision implies

that he will have little time to concentrate on other more important tasks.

1.3 Statement of problems

Air Mauritius faces a lot of communication problems. For instance:

1. Organizational structure is tall and the facts that centralization is adopted tend

to make communication slow, encourage distortion and filtering of

information. The organizational structure also lead to some employees had

more that one immediate supervisor leading to conflict when information was

to be received or send.

2. Communication overload that leads to employees overlooking important

information.

3. Too many face to face meetings, leads to waste of time and difficulties for

employees with weak listening ability to understand the message that is being

conveyed.

4. Feedback from employee to superior is rarely considered and employees are

rarely provided information. This has being on of the main factors that lead to

a spread of informal communication inside the organization. The Main method

for passing information to the employee is the newsletter. However it contain

too much information that discourage employees to read them

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1.4 Purpose of Study

1. Find out what are the communication problems Air Mauritius currently face?

2. Analyze and find a strategy to overcome the present and future

Communication problems?

1.5 Research Question

What communication strategies should be adopted by Air Mauritius in order to

solve its current communication problems and allow for effective flow of

information?

1.6 Assumption and limitations

As survey will be directed to only some employees of Air Mauritius, the

outcome results would not be very reliable in the sense that it would not reflect

the point of view of all the whole number of customers.

When proposing the communication strategies that Air Mauritius should

adopt, we would not take into account the financial situation of the

organisation.

The Manager maybe biased and therefore give wrong data that can change the

outcome of the research.

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1.7 Method of communication between Manager and Employee at Air Mauritius

Face to Face meeting

E mail

Letters

Memos

Newsletter

Telephone

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Managing Director

Quality Manager

Personnel Manager

Financial Manager

Production Manager

Marketing Maanger

Financial Supervisor

Quality Officer

Marketing Officer

Production Supervisor


Foreman Foreman Foreman Foreman

2.Review of literature

2.1 Organisational structure 1

It is the way in which an organisation’s activities are divided, organised, and co-

ordinated.

2.1.1 Departmentalisation

Some major ways of departmentalising are :

Functional Structure2

Divisional Structure

1 (Organisation and Management Support Material). Refer to appendix 1- Definition of terms for chapter 2 ( 2.1 Organisational structure)2

7

2.1.2 Factors that determine the shape of an organisational structure 3

Level of Hierarchy

Span of control

Tall organisational Structure

Flat Organisational Structure

3 (Vincent Gabriel, (2003), “Management third edition”, Pearson Education Asia Singapore Pte ltd: 23/25, First Lok Yang Road, Singapore) Refer to appendix 1- Definition of terms for chapter 2 ( 2.1 Organisational structure)

8

2.1.3 Difference between tall and flat organisation

Tall organisational structure:

Slow communication because of big gap between manager and employee

Administrative expenses

Difficult to locate source of error

Tight Control

Flat organisational structure:

Faster and easier communication from manager to bottom employees

Easier to locate source of error

Delegation of work

Less control

2.1.5 Centralisation v/s Decentralisation 4

Decentralisation is the extent to which power and authority are delegated to lower

levels.


organisational levels.

Factors influencing degree of centralisation and decentralisation

Cost.

Size and Character of organisation

Availability of control techniques

Quality of Middle and Junior Management

4 (Organisation and Management Support Material) Refer to appendix 1- Definition of terms for chapter 2 ( 2.1 Organisational structure)

9

Encode Transmit Channel Receive Decode

Destination

Feedback

Source

2.2 Communication in the organisation may take the form of:a) giving instructions;

b) giving or receiving information;

c) exchanging ideas;

d) announcing plans and strategies;

e) comparing actual results against a plan;

f) laying down rules or procedures;

job descriptions, organisation charts or manuals

2.3 Expectation of employees regarding communication 5:

a) Information

b) Upward communication

c) Face to Face communication

d) Good line Management

.

2.4 The classic Telecommunication model 6

2.4.1 Possible reasons for poor communication5 (Organisation and Management Support Material) Refer to appendix 1- Definition of terms for chapter 2 ( 2.3 Expectation of employees regarding communication)

6 (Organisation and Management Support Material)

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1. Encoding problem:

2. Transmission problems:

3. Decoding problems:

2.4.2 How to improve communication channel

1. Plan message to improve encoding

2. Select the appropriate channel

3. Ensure that the recipient is receptive

2.5 Flow Patterns 7

The structure of an organisation should provide for formal communication in 4

directions: Downward, upwards, horizontal and diagonal.

2.5.1 Downwards communication

2.5.2 Upward communication

2.5.3 Horizontal communication

2.5.4 Diagonal Communication

7 (Organisation and Management Support Material) Refer to appendix 1- Definition of terms for chapter 2 ( 2.5 Flow patterns)

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2.6 Different method of communication

Written communication:

Letter

Memo

Newsletter

E-mail

Bulletins and report

Oral communication:

Face to face meeting

Video conferencing

Telephone

2.7 Informal Communication Channels 8

The danger with informal communication is that it might be malicious, contain

inaccurate rumour or half-truths, or simply be wild speculation. This type of gossip

can be unsettling to people in an organisation

3.Methodology

8 Refer to appendix 1- Definition of terms for chapter 2 ( 2.7 Informal Communication channels)

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3.1 Introduction

To get the required information in order answer the research question I will have to

consider both field research 9 (primary data) and desk research 10 (secondary data).

3.2 Procedures used

3.2.1 Primary data

Primary data will be collected in the following ways:

1. A questionnaire 11will be design and directed to the employees of Air

Mauritius in order to collect information about the communication method

used and the communication problems that occurs. Only a sample of 15

employees will be given the questionnaire.

2. An interview with 2 employees will be conducted so as to get more details of

the communication problems from the employee’s point of view. We would

use the same questions as in the questionnaire for the interview.

3. An interview12 will be held with the Procurement Department Officer Mr

Dario Mariole to get more precise information.

3.2.2 Secondary data

Secondary data will be collected through the newsletter of Air Mauritius.

4 .ANALYSIS

9 Involves the collection of primary data. These are information, which no one has yet collected. Primary data is collected through direct investigation, usually through questionnaire and survey.10 This involves collection of secondary data. These data, already exist within or outside an organisation.11 Refer to appendix 2 for sample of Questionnaire.12 Refer to appendix 2 for interview question for Manager.

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4.1 Analysis of data gathered from employees.

Question 1: What method of communication is most commonly used?

As shown in the above chart, the majority that is 40% of the employees interviewed

thinks that face to face meeting is the most commonly used method of communication

at Air Mauritius. 25 % of them refer to e-mails as the most common communication

method.

Question 2: According to you is it the most appropriate method to use?

Face to face communication

40%

Emails20%

Letter10%

Memos15%

Telephone15%

Pie Chart showing the most common method of communication used at Air Mauritius

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As shown in the pie chart above, 58% of the employees interviewed consider that the

most common method of communication used at Air Mauritius is inappropriate. The

remaining considers that it is the right method of communication.

Question 3: What is the most frequent problem you have encountered when receiving

information?

Yes42%

No58%

Pie Chart Showing whether the commonly used method of communication is ap-propriate for Air Mauritius

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As shown in the diagram above, the big majority of the employees that is 54%

interviewed state information overload as the main problem when receiving

information at Air Mauritius. 26% of them state that noise is the main problem when

receiving information. It is understand that the employees usually are faced with noisy

environment when receiving information.

Question 4: What is the most frequent problem you have encountered when passing

on information?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

0.26

0%

15%

0.05

0.54

Chart showing the most frequent problem encountered when receiving an infromation at Air Mauritius

Noise Different interpretation of word Distraction Information overload

%

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As shown in the diagram above, 48% of the employees at Air Mauritius replied

‘Distortion of information’ as the most frequent problem encountered when

communicating. It means that information when passing from employees to manager

and vice versa is changed as people understand differently and tend to remove or add

words.

Question 5: Does managers allow/considers feedback from employees?

16%

48%

12%

24%

Chart showing the most frequent problem encountered when passing on information at Air Mauritius

Noise Distoration of information Failure to speak clearly Innapropriate Channel of communication

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As shown in the diagram above, 46 % of the employees say that Managers at Air

Mauritius only consider their feedback sometimes. This can be very disturbing at time

because managers ignore employees even when they are right about something.

Question 6: Does the Manager provide feedback to employees?

0%5%10%15%20%25%30%35%40%45%50%

0.3

0 0 00%

46%

0% 0%0 0

0.24

0

Chart showing whether the managers at Air Mauritius considers the feedback from employees

Always Sometimes Never

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As shown above, 55% of the employee interviewed recognise that managers at Air

Mauritius always provide feedback to employee when required. This is a good thing

because it allows manager to advice employees on their performance and ways to

improve them.

Question 7: Does Manager withhold information from you?

55%25%

20%

Chart showing whether Managers at Air Mauritius Provide feedback to employees

Always Sometimes Never

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As shown above, the 54% of employees interviewed acknowledge that their managers

do restraint information that important for them. This can help to worsen relationship

between managers and employees and also keep employees uninformed about what’s

going on it the company.

Question 8: What is the speed of communication between the CEO and employees.

42%44%46%48%50%52%54%

0.46

54%

Chart showing whether manager withhold information from employee

YES NO

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As shown above, 85 % of the employees interviewed at Air Mauritius, say that

communication between CEO and employees are slow. That is if the CEO pass a

message, which is intended, for a particular employees, it takes a lot of time before

reaching them.

4.2 Manager’s Interview.

15%

85%

Chart showing the speed of communication at Air Mau-ritius

Fast Slow

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What are the types of communication do you use to communicate to your employees? Why?

Normally when communicating at Air Mauritius, it is a policy that immediately after sending an email or a fax, the sender phones the receiver to confirm whether the latter receives the information. Also we use face-to-face meeting whether important information has to be communicated.

Do you think the communication method you are using appropriately fits the needs of the organisation?

Yes I think that it perfectly suit our operation specially where we manager have to communicate everyday about crucial issues to large number of employees. Therefore E-mail and Face to Face meeting are two very well chosen method of communication.

How far do you respond to your employees?

We most of the time respond to any of our employees queries, or anything else that employee request. However there is a limit to what information is to be provided to the employee. Not all information that the employees request can be granted.

What are your view concerning the evolution of communication over the past few years?

With the ever-challenging world that we are faced with, communication has become a great part of an organisation. With competition hosting the market of air Mauritius, it has become imperative to communicate faster and more accurately.

Why do you feel communication is important in your organisation?It helps to pass on information, maintain a positive relationship and to solve problem related to functioning of organisation.

What is the problem that you encounter when retrieving information from employees?

There has being a lot of filtering specially to cover the negative aspect of the information being communicated.

What are your views on the informal network of communication?

At Air Mauritius this is our greatest weakness that we have not being able to counter till now. Some of the employees have so much time that they gossip and creates unnecessary tension within the organisation and among the employees that affect our effective operation.

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How do you view the organisational structure?

I agree that our organisational structure is tall and limits fast communication from top to bottom, but I had to maintain that because on many occasion there was mistake being committed and maintained by the employees. Therefore that structure really helped us to control the employee and limits the probability of error occurring.

5. Identification of communication problems at Air Mauritius

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5.1 Problem 1:

The arrangement of the organizational structure of Air Mauritius does good for the

functioning but also bears the title of causing of problem. It is a tall organizational

structure and thus implies that communication is slow because there is a big gap

between the CEO and the employees. For instance if the CEO needs to communicate

with an employee in the communication and corporate affair department, he will need

to pass through a complex path before reaching the latter.

It also can lead to information getting distorted as it moves from on person to

another. If an employee needs to provide a piece of information to the CEO, he will

need to pass through the supervisor and managers. In that case it will bear some

limitations as the supervisor and manager can understand the message differently thus

will pass on the information in the way they understood it. As a result, when the

information reaches the CEO the outcome of the latter would have change thus can

lead to problem dealing with a certain issue.

Also the structure encourages filtering as another form of distortion of information.

The fact that the structure is tall and information has to pass through many people,

encourage employee to change information to maintain a positive image of

themselves because they know that it will be difficult for managers to trace the one

responsible.

Also at some point employees had two immediate supervisors, which they had to

report to that is there was no unity of command. This usually created some conflict,

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Supervisor 2Supervisor 1

Employee 2

Employee 1

Employee 4

Employee 3


Destination

Feedback

Source

as both supervisors understood information differently. Furthermore when

communicating to employees each one of them formulated the message differently

thus making it hard for the employees to understand the message and who to listen to.

5.2 Problem 2:

As use of email has taken off within the business world, a number of problem like

communication overload have come along with the immense benefits. At Air

Mauritius E-mail are used extensively and it usually leads to unnecessary messages

being sent. This can be really bad because employee or manager can overlook

important information, as they cannot decode all the messages. There are 2 ways in

which communication overload can arise at Air Mauritius. Firstly with Manager

encoding to many information at one time some of which is irrelevant or when

employees sent tons of emails to their supervisor and managers. Therefore we see that

2 major factor leads to communication overload, firstly is how much information we

encode and secondly is how we transmit the information.

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The good thing about Air Mauritius when manager or employee send an e-mail is that

they most of the time seek feedback on whether it is well received. They do that by

phoning the receiver of the message to confirm whether they have received the e-mail.

In doing so they limit the chances of important information from being overlooked

and also keep proof that message has being received so that employee or manager do

not say that they never received the e-mail.

5.3 Problem 3:

Face to face meeting form part of oral communication and it is widely used at Air

Mauritius. The employees complain that they hold too much of face-to-face meeting

even for small issues. According to management face-to-face meeting is very

advantageous for effectively communicating to employees as firstly it allow for

immediate feedback and also help manager to reinforce their message with

appropriate gesture and visual aid. However the point of view of employee is totally

different because face-to-face meeting can be inappropriate for people with weak

listening ability to understand the message that is being conveyed and is also time

consuming in the sense that the time lost could have being used in more productive

activities.

Air Mauritius uses a lot of Visual aid when carrying face-to-face meeting. It is very

helpful to presenter in order to capture the attention of the receiver of the message.

Without visual aids, the meeting will be very boring and the receiver will not

concentrate on the message being convoyed. However the other way round, too much

visual aid can also lead to distraction of the receiver because at a point they will tend

to concentrate more on the visual part than on the meeting itself. The different visual

aids used at Air Mauritius during meeting are folder, binder, handouts, Wall board,

videos and computer display projection.

5.4 Problem 4:

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Communication and human resources professionals have long recognized the key role

that immediate managers play in keeping their employees informed. The better the

managers' communication, the more satisfied the employees were with all aspects of

their work life. Normally employees like to give feedback where possible to

management thus providing them with a sense of belonging and participation but also

like to receive information from managers about what is going on in the organization.

However at Air Mauritius, feedback from employees are rarely considered that is

there is very little upward communication that takes place. There is an impression that

has long being framed in the manager’s mind that subordinates cannot take part in

decision making because they are not skilled for it. In so thinking they do not take

into consideration any or very little feedback provided by the employees even if they

are right.

All employee where those of Air Mauritius or any other organization, wish to be

aware of what’s going on in the organization specially about issue that has direct

impact on their job. But at Air Mauritius it seems that this very vital prerequisite is

not totally respected and is one of the major factors that lead to the spread of informal

communication inside the organization. As employees of Air Mauritius are not given

information, they try to get some by themselves and use this to start the process of

gossiping. With a small amount of information at hand, they start customizing it and

passing it to the other employees till it is totally spread around. The problem, is that it

contain inaccurate rumor and it get to ear of people rather quickly that can be

unsettling to people in the organization and for the organization itself.

Even though Air Mauritius issue Newsletter to their employee, it is not sufficient. The

newsletter do provide information to employees about what is happening but it is not

sufficient to cater for their need and on top of that it is very different from that when

the information is provided by the manager itself. Also the Newsletter’s content is

quite bulky that can be discouraging and boring for employees to read. In that case

even if the manager are providing information to employee through the mean of

newsletter, it may be overlooked and they may assume that they did not get the

information.

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6. The Challenges face by organization in today’s business world

The business world is changing very rapidly through and adding new challenges for

organization to overcome. There is for instance Outsourcing, Talent shortages, New

labour laws, Globalizations, Shifting demographics, an ageing workforce. Therefore it

has become very important for organization to attract, motivate, and retaining

employees. Communication is one of the bright solutions to achieve these.

The Company faces increasing competition as the Government continues to review its

air access policy to gradually liberalize selected routes on a bilateral basis.

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7. Recommendation to the communication problems identified.

7.1 Solution to Problem 1:

Air Mauritius should modify its organizational structure and make it flatter. In that

case it will be able to make communication between managers and employees faster

thus will allow Air Mauritius to become face the ever-challenging international

environment where fast communication and decision-making is the major factors of

reaping high profits. Nowadays all organization like Air Mauritius employs

specialized employees who are responsible for its functioning. Therefore knowing

how to communicate to them has become imperative because if you ineffectively

communicate with them they won’t feel valued thus may decide to leave the

organization. This will dramatically affect the sustainability of the organization. With

a flatter organization structure, there would be a higher degree of delegation thus will

provide employee lower in the hierarchy to participate in decision making thus will

motivate them.

A flatter organizational structure would also help to solve the problem of distortion of

information, as the message sent from manager to a particular employee will pass

through less people. In that the degree of distortion would still be here but would be

less consequent.

A flatter organisational structure would also help to identify and solve the problem of

filtering of information, which is very common at Air Mauritius. With such a

structure it would be easier to identify the one filtering the information as it passes

through few people.

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However when deciding to adopt a flatter organisational structure, Air Mauritius

should also make sure that every single employee have not more than one immediate

supervisor that is there should be unity of command because when there are more than

one, there tend to be situation where they understand information differently.

Furthermore there are great chances that employee are given different instructions

thus can get confusing and lead to inefficiency at work.


In order to solve the problem of communication overload at Air Mauritius, both

managers and employees should make sure that the content of their e-mail is brief and

relevant. This will increase the probability of the email being read by the person

concerned and important information not being overlooked.

In addition, if manager or employee needs to communicate different issues, they

should send them separately that is one e-mail should comprise of one issue. In that

case it would be easier for employee to understand and will reduce the chances of him

overlooking some important notes. The numbers of employees are much more than

that of manager. Therefore if every single employees sends an email to the manager,

at the end of the day he would have to read hundred of email that can be very boring

and also lead to important information being ignored. To overcome that problem,

employees should send e-mail collectively with their colleagues where appropriate.

For Instance if all employees have to talk to manager about the same issue. It is

preferable for them to put all their points on a single e-mail so that manager does not

get bored and information does not repeat itself. In doing so, there is less risk that

information is overlooked.

Also Air Mauritius should get hold of the technological system that is used by many

organisation nowadays that inform the sender that the receiver has received and

opened the e-mail. This will save time of having to phone the person and will also

allow manager to keep records in case the person assume that he /she did not get the

mail.

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When doing Face-to-Face meeting, there is no assurance everyone assimilates that

message being conveyed. There may be people who don’t have good listening skills.

In that case the meeting may have no effect on them.

Therefore a solution would be to send a report that engulfs every issue that has being

discussed in the meeting to each employee by mail. This will cater for those who did

not manage to assimilate the information and could be kept as record for reference in

future.

Moreover Face to face meetings must be organized only for important issues

especially where the needs for feedback of employees are needed. Unnecessary

meetings should be avoided to reduce boredom of employees and allow them more

time to dedicate to their work.


Employee help in the functioning of an organization, however recently with the

various problems like Talent shortages, New labour laws, Shifting demographics, and

ageing workforce at horizon, Organization should pay more attention to how they

treat their employees and take measures to attract, motivate, and retaining employees.

At Air Mauritius it has become imperative to start taking measure to attract, motivate

and retain employees, because in case they fail, or ignore it, the consequences will be

very sever for Air Mauritius in future as its employees may start leaving.

In order to achieve that, Air Mauritius should encourage and consider feedback from

employees. This will give them a sense of belonging to the organization, as they

would be participating in improving things and in decision-making. It can be further

strengthen with the open door policy. An open door policy provides employee access

to any manager or supervisor including the CEO. It encourages feedback about any

matter of importance to an employee. However it should be modified, because open

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door policy means that employees are free to talk with any manager at any time but at

Air Mauritius the Managers won’t be reachable at any time and day. Therefore it

should be communicated when and at what time the manager would be free to meet

the employees.

Also, information about what is happening in the organization should be

communicated to employees by mail or the newsletter. However the newsletter should

be modified because as it is now, it is viewed as being too bulky for employee to read.

By providing information to employees the spread of informal communication is

diminished, as employee would have sufficient information thus gossip will have a

very minim effect on them.

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8. Conclusion

One of Air Mauritius main aim is to improve its image with all stakeholders. But what

it should take into consideration is that employees too form part of stakeholders.

Therefore by ignoring their needs and wrongly communicating with them, is putting

their aim at peril.

The organizational structure of Air Mauritius is a tall one thus encourages slow

communication, as there is a big gap between the CEO and the employees. With the

government of Mauritius liberalizing the economy, Air Mauritius would be face with

even more competition than before. In that case it need to act faster than his

competitors in order to make profit. However in order to act fast, it will need to fasten

its decision making process thus will have to bring changes in its organizational

structure.

In the assignment, while researching the solutions to improve the various

communication problems, we totally forgot to acknowledge the importance of

upgrading the communication skills of both managers and employees. Because it is

imperative to firstly teach them to communicate before actually making changes to

organizational structure or adopting the best way in which to communicate.

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Managing Director

Quality Manager

Personnel Manager

Financial Manager

Production Manager

Marketing Maanger

Financial Supervisor

Quality Officer

Marketing Officer



Foreman Foreman Foreman Foreman

APPENDIX 12.1 Organisational structure 13

It is the way in which an organisation’s activities are divided, organised, and co-

ordinated.

Organisational structure takes into account the following:

Who has overall responsibility for decision making

Formal relationship between different people and department

Formal channel of communication

Way in which accountability and authority maybe delegated

Departmentalisation

Departmentalisation is the grouping of employees and tasks into areas of work

activities that are similar and logically connected. Some major ways of

departmentalising are :

Functional Structure14

It is the grouping of people having similar working skills and expertise and who

are engaged in the same activities. Example of a Functional Structure is shown

below.

13 (Organisation and Management Support Material14

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Divisional Structure

Divisional structure groups similar products, services or market thus creating

departments, which look like small separate businesses within the organisation itself.

Those departments are commonly known as Divisions, which are again categorised as

Product Divisions, Geographic divisions, and Customer Divisions.

Factors that determine the shape of an organisational structure 15

Level of Hierarchy- The number of layers from top of business to bottom.

The number of layers determines whether the organisational structure is tall or

flat.

Span of control – The number of subordinates reporting directly to a specific

manager.

The number of levels of hierarchy affects the size of the span of control. For instance

a tall structure has a narrow span of control and many hierarchical levels whereas a

flat structure has a wide span of control and few hierarchical levels.

Tall organisational Structure

15 (Vincent Gabriel, (2003), “Management third edition”, Pearson Education Asia Singapore Pte ltd: 23/25, First Lok Yang Road, Singapore)

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Flat Organisational Structure

Difference between tall and flat organisation

Tall organisational structure:

Slow communication because of big gap between manager and employee

Administrative expenses

Difficult to locate source of error

Tight Control

Flat organisational structure:

Faster and easier communication from manager to bottom employees

Easier to locate source of error

Delegation of work

Less control

2.1.5 Centralisation v/s Decentralisation 16

Decentralisation is the extent to which power and authority are delegated to lower

levels. In a decentralised organisation, employees at lower levels are able to

participate in decision-making.


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organisational levels.

Advantages of Centralisation:

Co-ordination of activities is easier when top management takes decision.

Full control on activities thus preventing bad decision to be taken.

Disadvantage of Centralisation

De-motivation- as lower level workers do not participate

Less time for senior manager to concentrate on more important matters.

Advantages of decentralisation

More time for manager to concentrate on more important matters.

Motivating for the employees as they have the chance to participate

Disadvantages of decentralisation

Loss of control from managers

Higher quality managers have to be employed so that they can be delegated

work thus leads to higher cost.

Factors influencing degree of centralisation and decentralisation

Cost: the more costly the action to be decided the more probable is that the

decision would be taken at the top levels of management.

Size and Character of organisation: In very large organisations, especially

those producing wide range of product, it is desirable to decentralise decision

making.

Availability of control techniques: Development of computers and

availability of statistical and accounting data has facilitated process of

decentralisation.

Quality of Middle and Junior Management: A shortage of talented middle

managers will limit the decentralisation process.

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2.2 Communication in the organisation may take the form of:g) giving instructions;

h) giving or receiving information;

i) exchanging ideas;

j) announcing plans and strategies;

k) comparing actual results against a plan;

l) laying down rules or procedures;

job descriptions, organisation charts or manuals

2.3 Expectation of employees regarding communication 17:

e) Information :

Employees wish to be aware of what is going on and don’t want incomplete or

distorted information, both about central concerns of the organisation and about

questions of direct bearing on their jobs.`

f) Upward communication

Employees want to be able to make suggestions for improvement of work processes,

they want their initiatives recognised and they want to feel valued by the attention

given to their views.

g) Face to Face communication

Inspite of established reports that employees prefer face-to-face interactions with their

bosses, most organisations appear to rely more and more on formal, technology-

driven written communication.

h) Good line Management

It has been established that line managers (managers of functional areas directly

involved in the production of goods and services) who are good at communicating

directly with staff are a great contribution to the success of the organisation. A poor

relationship between supervisor and employee has been shown to have a high impact

on the intention to quit the job.

The expectations of employees from their supervisors are that she or he:


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Destination

Feedback

Source

Takes a personal interest in their lives

Seems to care for them as individuals

Listens to their concerns and responds to them quickly and appropriately

Gives regular and fair feedback on performance

Holds efficient and regular meetings in which information is freely shared

Explains what is going on in the organisation

.

2.4 The classic Telecommunication model 18

2.4.1 Possible reasons for poor communication

4. Encoding problem:

Lack of planning

Deficiencies in use of language

Use of obsolete words

5. Transmission problems:


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Inappropriate channel used

Failure to speak clearly

Noise

Distortion

6. Decoding problems:

Failure to take message

Distraction

Different interpretation of words

Information overload

2.4.2 How to improve communication channel

4. Plan message to improve encoding:

Give training to improve skills

5. Select the appropriate channel

Make sure information does not pass through too many people

6. Ensure that the recipient is receptive

It is important to make sure that the message is received in an environment

that lends itself to concentration.

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2.5 Flow Patterns 19

The structure of an organisation should provide for formal communication in 4

directions: Downward, upward, horizontal and diagonal.

2.5.1 Downwards communication

Flow of information from individuals in higher hierarchical levels to those lower

down.

2.5.2 Upward communication

Flow of information from individuals in lower hierarchical levels to higher up.

2.5.3 Horizontal communication

It is necessary for co-ordination and integration of various parts of the organisation

2.5.4 Diagonal Communication

It is important in situations where members cannot communicate effectively and

swiftly through other channel.

2.6 Different method of communication

Written communication:

Letter

Memo

Newsletter

E-mail

Bulletins and report

Oral communication:


Video conferencing

Telephone


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2.7 Informal Communication Channels 20

The formal pattern of communication in an organisation is always supplemented by an informal one, which is sometimes referred to as the ‘grapevine’ or ‘bush telegraph’. People like to gossip, and talk about rumours and events, on the telephone, over a cup of tea in the office, on the way to home from work, in the corridor, at lunch, and so on. The danger with informal communication is that it might be malicious, contain inaccurate rumour or half-truths, or simply be wild speculation. This type of gossip can be unsettling to people in an organisation, and make colleagues mistrust one another or act cautiously. For example, suppose that you work for a company in London, and your friend from another department telephones to say that he has heard from someone else in the personnel department that your office is going to be moved to Cardiff, and anyone refusing to go will be given the sack. This sort of news would be certain to upset you for a while, even if it turns out eventually to be wrong.

The grapevineThe grapevine is one aspect of informal communication. A well-known study into how the grapevine works was carried out by K Davis using his ‘echo-analysis’ technique: the recipient of some information, A, was asked to name the source of his information, B was then asked to name his source, C etc until the information was traced back to its originator. His research findings were that:

a) the grapevine acts fast;b) the working of the grapevine is selective: information is not divulged randomly;c) the grapevine usually operates at the place of work and not outside it;d) perhaps surprisingly, the grapevine is only active when the information

communication network is active: the grapevine does not fill a gap created by an ineffective formal communication system;

e) it was also surprising to discover that higher level executives were better communicators and better informed than their subordinates;

f) more staff executives were in the know about events than line managers (because staff executives are more mobile and get involved with more different functions in their work).

APPENDIX 2

20

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Questionnaire for Employees

1. What method of communication is most commonly used?


Emails

Letters

Memos

Telephone

2. According to you is it the most appropriate method to use?

Yes

No

3. What is the most frequent problem you have encountered when receiving Information?

Noise

Different interpretation of words

Distraction

Information overload

4. What is the most frequent problem you have encountered when passing on information?

Noise

Distortion of information

Failure to speak clearly

Inappropriate Channel of communication

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5. Does manager allow/considers feedback from employees?

Always

Sometimes

Never

6. Does the Manager provide feedback to employees?

Always

Sometimes

Never

7. Does Manager withhold information from you?

Yes

No

8. What is the speed of communication between the CEO and employees.

Fast

Slow

Interview Question for Manager

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1. What are the types of communication do you use to communicate to your employees? Why?

2. Do you think the communication method you are using appropriately fits the needs of the organisation?

3. How far do you respond to your employees?

4. What are your view concerning the evolution of communication over the past few years?

5. What is the problem that you encounter when retrieving information from employees?

6. What are your views on the informal network of communication?

7. How do you view the organisational structure?

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Documents

Study on Organisational Communication