MCO 7400 Module 8 Final Project: Communication Audit Report Example

Strong Teams, Silent Feedback: A Communication Audit of a Two-Plant Manufacturer

Student Name

Master of Business Administration, Thomas Edison State University

MCO-7400: Management Communications

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

Strong Teams, Silent Feedback: A Communication Audit of a Two-Plant Manufacturer

Executive Summary

Brightwater Packaging, a composite maker of corrugated boxes with 520 employees at plants in Macon and Savannah, Georgia, asked for an assessment of its internal communication after a year of rising turnover and two costly quality failures traced to information that did not reach the second shift. This audit combined a survey of all employees, 24 interviews and a review of communication channels. Employees rated communication with coworkers well and personal feedback poorly. Information about company direction rarely reaches the plant floor, and the second shift is consistently less informed. Five recommendations and an annual maintenance cycle follow.

Purpose and Method

Clampitt (2016) treats an organization's communication as a system that managers must assess and maintain, not a series of separate messages. A communication audit is the systematic way to do that. This audit used three methods. First, an anonymous survey based on the communication satisfaction dimensions identified by Downs and Hazen (1977), whose factor analysis found eight distinct aspects of satisfaction with organizational communication, was completed by 368 employees, a 71 percent response rate. Second, 24 semi-structured interviews with employees across both plants, all shifts and three levels explored the survey results. Third, a review of channels covered the intranet, bulletin boards, shift handoff logs, the monthly newsletter and meeting schedules.

Survey Findings

Scores on a seven-point scale, where 7 indicates high satisfaction, show a clear pattern.

Three patterns stand out. Employees are satisfied with communication among coworkers and moderately satisfied with their supervisors, but dissatisfied with feedback about their own performance and with information about the company's direction. Savannah scores lower than Macon on every dimension. And the second shift scores lowest on nearly every dimension, most sharply on organizational perspective, information about where the company is going.

Interview Findings

The interviews explain the numbers. Employees described supervisors as approachable but too busy to give feedback; several said the only feedback they receive is when something goes wrong. Plant-floor employees learn about company plans from rumors or customers' trucks rather than from management. Second-shift employees said meetings and announcements happen during the day shift and reach them, if at all, through a handoff log that is often incomplete. Both quality failures last year involved specification changes that were recorded in day-shift meetings but not entered in the log. In Savannah, a change of plant manager eighteen months ago left many employees unsure whom to ask about decisions.

Channel Review

The monthly newsletter is written at the corporate office and focuses on customers and awards; few floor employees read it. Bulletin boards are cluttered with outdated notices. The intranet is accessible only from office computers, which most production workers do not use. The handoff log is a paper binder with no required fields. Supervisors hold daily start-of-shift huddles in Macon but not consistently in Savannah.

Research Context

The findings matter for performance, not only morale. Clampitt and Downs (1993), studying employees in two organizations, found that employees perceived communication to affect their productivity and that personal feedback was among the dimensions they linked most strongly to it. The eight dimensions also show that satisfaction with communication is not one thing: an organization can do well on coworker communication while failing on feedback, as Brightwater does.

Recommendations

Five recommendations are ranked by expected impact. First, institute brief monthly feedback conversations between supervisors and each employee, with a simple three-question format, and reduce supervisors' administrative load to make time for them. Second, standardize start-of-shift huddles at both plants and all shifts, using a one-page huddle sheet that includes any specification changes, safety notes and one item about company direction. Third, replace the paper handoff log with a tablet-based log at each line with required fields for specification changes, acknowledged by the incoming supervisor. Fourth, hold a quarterly plant meeting on each shift, including second shift, at which the plant manager explains company plans and answers questions. Fifth, replace the corporate newsletter with a short plant-level update posted on digital screens in break rooms.

These changes require supervisor time, an investment of about $35,000 in tablets and screens, and the plant managers' presence on second shift. The trade-off is less supervisor time for production tasks in the short run, which the company should offset by reassigning some reporting duties.

Maintaining the System

An audit is useful only if repeated. Brightwater should repeat the survey annually, track the personal feedback and organizational perspective scores and the second-shift gap as key indicators, and review handoff log completeness monthly. A target for next year is personal feedback above 4.5, organizational perspective above 4.3 and a second-shift gap of no more than 0.3 points on any dimension. Quality incidents traced to communication should fall to zero.

Presentation Outline

The required PowerPoint presentation will summarize the report in eight slides, each with a headline stating its point: the purpose and method; the survey's strongest and weakest dimensions; the second-shift gap; what interviews revealed about feedback and direction; the handoff failures behind last year's quality problems; the five recommendations; costs and trade-offs; and the maintenance cycle with targets. Charts will use sorted bars for dimension scores and a dot plot for the shift comparison.

Limitations of the Audit

The audit has limits that the presentation should state. Survey answers capture how people felt during a two-week window, and the 29 percent who did not respond may differ from those who did, especially if second-shift workers were less likely to answer. Interviews were confidential but conducted by an outside consultant, which may have encouraged candor or caution. The channel review captured how channels are supposed to work, not every informal route by which news travels. The three methods point the same way, so the main findings stand, but they argue for repeating the survey with a higher second-shift response rate, for example by offering it during shift huddles, before next year's comparison.

Conclusion

Brightwater's employees communicate well with each other but hear too little from management about their own performance and the company's direction, and the second shift hears least of all. Feedback routines, consistent huddles, a reliable handoff system and leadership presence on every shift address the gaps, and an annual audit cycle keeps the system healthy.

References

Clampitt, P. G. (2016). Communicating for managerial effectiveness: Challenges, strategies, solutions (6th ed.). SAGE.

Clampitt, P. G., & Downs, C. W. (1993). Employee perceptions of the relationship between communication and productivity: A field study. Journal of Business Communication, 30(1), 5-28. https://doi.org/10.1177/002194369303000101

Downs, C. W., & Hazen, M. D. (1977). A factor analytic study of communication satisfaction. Journal of Business Communication, 14(3), 63-73. https://doi.org/10.1177/002194367701400306