Communication Audit

What is Communication Audit?

Communication Audit, as the name itself suggest, is a systematic and dynamic process that the business undergoes to examine, observe and evaluate the quality and effectiveness of the information flow, as well as to give recommendations and improvements, which are important for the organizational communication, as a whole.

Further, the quality and effectiveness of communication rely on the following:

1. Organization Structure: It includes channels and means of communication in terms of the length of the transmission path.
2. Organizational Culture: It encompasses the procedure followed, standard behaviour and language or tone used during communication.
3. Communication Assets: It entails the quality and quantity of the transferred message in terms of validity, suitability, completeness and relevance.
4. Members involved: It covers the stakeholders involved in the process of communication, be it employees, managers, or other outside parties such as suppliers, creditors, etc., to know their communication skills.

The nature of the communication audit to be conducted will solely depend on the type of the organization, along with its needs and problems.

Table of Contents

1. Objectives
2. Need
3. Techniques
4. Wrap Up

Objectives of Communication Audit

The objectives of the communication audit are:

• To diagnose the current communication practices
• To test the consistency in communication.
• To acknowledge the communication barriers and gaps.
• To check the effectiveness of vertical (upward and downward), horizontal and diagonal communication.
• To measure the satisfaction of employees with internal communication.
• To identify the employee’s role in the process of communication.

In finer terms, it is a comprehensive analysis of the internal and external communication that takes place in an organization to ascertain the communication needs, policies, methods and practices.

Must Read: Continuous Audit

Need for Communication Audit

We all know that communication takes place internally or externally in an organization. Internal communication involves communication between/employees, managers, executives, etc. External communication is with the clients, customers, suppliers, shareholders, government, media houses, etc.

If internal communication is faulty, it may result in errors, mistakes, wastages, discouraged staff, and high employee turnover. In the same way, if external communication is weak, it can badly ruin the reputation and sales of the company.

That is why a communication audit is important, as it is not just informative and descriptive, but it is also remedial because it highlights the snags and gaps in the communication flow and the channels of communication.

It determines the strengths and weaknesses of internal and external communication. It carefully analyses the communication and flow of messages both within and outside the organization. Also, it analyses the way the members or the outside parties interpret them.

Must Read: Human Resource Audit

Techniques used in the Communication Audit

The seven techniques or methods used to conduct a communication audit are:

1. Observations: In this method, the auditor monitors the communication flow and process in an organization by sitting on the team meetings, interviews, and discussions, along with informal gatherings such as tea breaks, lunches, etc., so as to analyse the communication climate deeply.
2. Interviews: In this method, in-depth one-to-one interviews with random employees are conducted, which provides accurate and valuable data. However, this method is a bit expensive and consumes a lot of time.
3. Questionnaires: One of the most efficient methods of conducting a communication audit with respect to time. It covers all the employees of the concern. A questionnaire contains a number of questions written or printed with various alternative answers, provided to the respondents who need to mark the answers and submit the same to the audit team.
4. Critical Incidents: Its aim is to concentrate on the real behaviour of the employees while handling a particular situation or event, often a non-recurring one. The auditor can also use critical incident questions in interviews and questionnaires to make it more effective.
5. Network Analysis: Network analysis determines when, how, where, from whom, and to whom information flows in the organization. It also checks if there is any distortion in the information while on the way. By doing so, disclosure of disparities in the process takes place.
6. Content Analysis: A comprehensive and thorough analysis of the content will help in ascertaining the categories of satisfactory and unsatisfactory communication in the organization.
7. Communication Diaries: First of all, if the auditor chooses this method, there is a need for commitment from all the participants prior to the audit. The participants need to note down every message sent or received, after which the messages are identified as per pre-determined characteristics, which provides rich and valuable data.

Must Read: Written Communication

Wrap Up