Communication is signification. This refers to the function of communication as a tool to signify one’s ideas using verbal and non-verbal signifiers to others. This makes communication a two-part process, first of the speaker conveying information and second of the listener absorbing information. However, it is important that in communication, especially corporate communication, one places greater burden on the speaker than the listener.
Corporate relations can be complex because while they are often initiated through binding contracts and agreements, they are driven by motivations and emotions which range from personal growth to day-to-day survival. Internally, this refers to workplace relations across members and externally, to the trust a third-party places in the organisation by either availing their services, buying their products, or purchasing shares. This makes the significance of communication in this setting unique and crucial for longevity.
Take for example employer-employee relations. Miscommunication is visible in frustrations among employees who tend to perceive policies as arbitrary, additional tasks as burdensome, and their position in the organisation as irrelevant or overlooked. The inability of an employer to signify their purpose prevents the understanding of an alternate perspective where policies are aimed at efficiencies and monetary benefits, additional tasks could facilitate professional growth, and an employee’s significance is unique and unparalleled.
Externally, a shareholder who reads negative news about the company, or an out of context tweet from the company’s leadership, would usually react almost instantaneously due to a complete or partial lack of understanding. Herein, leadership transitions, planned expansions, and strategic mergers and acquisitions could end up seeming like instability at the top, loss of direction, and bold moves by the company where the company may seem like it is out of its depth.
The responsibility, in both cases, is undeniably of the speaker, the corporate leader, who has the duty of incorporating internal and external stakeholders in the company’s ecosystem. This includes internalising communication skills where the speaker needs to consider the other side, the listener. It is not nearly enough to put out information with the assumption that it will be understood. It is key to consider existing knowledge, how certain information can be perceived, what certain words may signify to different audiences, and the magnitude of its relevance to the third-party.
An employee’s or a shareholder’s increased understanding of the “what”, “why”, and “how” of decisions and thought processes increases confidence, strengthens the collective and makes the two-sided engagement productive. Therefore, as a two-part process, communication must always be conducted with the objective of accurate signification and increasing understanding, where the focus is on the listener and not just the subject of the information.
Professional perception is the projection of an individual’s characteristics and tends to indicate current and potential capacities. For completeness, perception has to be practiced in the everyday in all professional interactions, from those with the internal team to those with external stakeholders. In fact, one cannot build their perception externally until they don’t practice it internally.
Projection only turns into perception through consistency. This is visible in verbal and non-verbal cues, desk cleanliness, the font used in documents, the grammar in spoken language, the creases in one’s attire, the time you wake up, as well as the food you eat. Each of these factors communicate messages about you which are unintended. Yet, these are the messages that create lasting impressions.
Strategically, building perception is first, an internal process and then, an external process. The internal process is twofold. First, where one questions their own current and desired perception and matches it with one’s personality traits. Second, where one practices this with the internal stakeholders in the organisation to assume and begin the process of uniformly projecting oneself externally.
External perception is supported by this internal process i.e., how comfortable you are with your projection and how familiar your team is with this perception. The focus is on the uniformity in projection before external stakeholders such as existing clients, potential clients, your peers in the industry, as well as observers and commentators in your field.
Take an instance where internally, your desk is cluttered, the feedback mechanism to your team is unstructured, and you are always complaining about lack of sleep due to other commitments. While you may clean up in front of your client, your team is oftentimes the point of contact with them. The practices you set, will in turn reflect in the messages your team sends, the way they provide feedback to clients, and the importance they place on them.
Most importantly, however, when team members leave the company for another position, or interact with their peers who work at other companies, or speak about you in public places, they will inevitably first speak of the impression they have developed of you and then of the work that you do.
Your perception adds to you as a professional and is not different than the importance you place on your work output.
This is not to suggest that your work output is irrelevant, but that your output is enhanced and supported by your complete perception. Your work will not be able to add the value it can without your perception and your perception will not be complete without quality work.
To optimally utilise your perception externally, you must begin internally.
The process of onboarding includes incorporating new hires into an organisation’s formal and informal ecosystem, making it a crucial process for their trajectory in the organisation. The goal, at the end of the day, is to ensure that these individuals are able to understand, add and gain value from their work. With this in mind, onboarding new hires needs to be a concerted and concentrated effort that takes into account the volume of new hires, their job role, as well as their individual personalities.
Several considerations are important when setting out an onboarding system such as the organisation’s size, hierarchical structures, systems and processes, the immediate team’s group dynamics, job role, and their familiarity with their city of work, amongst other similar factors. While it is important to complete formalities such as email ID creation, documentation, providing company handbooks, etc., it is even more important to provide new hires with an experience dedicated to their socialisation in the organisation.
Socialisation as a process would focus on both the formal and informal structures of the organisation. Where formal structures include, reporting systems and workflow, the informal structures include, the organisation’s culture, feedback mechanisms, social groups, cross designation relations, etc. Both these aspects contribute to the new recruit’s familiarity, understanding of their position and the expectations that the organisation has from their employees.
For instance, in cases where employees are unclear about their role, or who in their team to approach for assistance, they are bound to try and solve the issue themselves, which could be inefficient. From their perspective, they want to prevent a negative first impression. In acknowledgement of this, the organisation must take additional steps to ensure that the new hire is given more time and attention to help them adapt, and most importantly, utilise their skills and knowledge productively.
Onboarding is not solely the function of the HR, but equally, the function of the immediate supervisor, co-workers, support staff and all those who would be part of the daily interactions with the new hire. Along with a standard onboarding process, the new hire’s traits and characteristics should also play a role in how onboarding is conducted. To achieve efficiencies and productivity, onboarding must be conducted holistically over a longer time frame.
Therefore, onboarding is a much longer process than just the new hire’s first two days. It should be a concentrated induction program for the first week and an even longer informal induction process post that. With the understanding that personalities differ, the informal induction should be customised to the individual and their reactions. In both cases, onboarding should be aimed at developing an understanding of the work profile and the organisation’s systems, as well as inducting the new hire into organisational cultures and values.
Management professionals have the privilege of playing a pivotal role in the lives of individuals. Given their managerial role, they have access to one of the most scarce resources available to all of us, time. When individuals choose to dedicate their time to a particular organisation, management becomes responsible for both, their professional and personal trajectories.
Organisations are a prominent social structure as they gather individuals to achieve common goals and objectives. However, in gathering individuals, it is not just the responsibility of individuals to contribute to the achievement of goals, but also of the organisation to aid the individuals who have placed their trust in them.
When we limit the returns from an organisation to their employees to only economic considerations, we limit the potential of senior management, as well as their team members. While management loses the opportunity to advise and aid individuals to grow, individuals limit their potential to grow professionally and personally. As an outcome of this, organisations tend to face attrition, inefficiencies and they lose the ability to maximise the potential of their employees.
While economic returns are crucial for survival and play an important role, dedicating time to a specific organisation is also a non-economic decision. Each one’s profession and place of work ends up being a part of their identity. It is one of the most common sets of initial questions that people ask each other, “what do you do?” and “where do you work?”
Professionals are constantly looking at an organisation beyond just money, and with the help of online feedback mechanisms, are looking at factors such as their potential to learn, grow, develop, and be satisfied with their work. When they choose to work with a particular organisation, they are also, in part, placing their trust in the people in that organisation.
Senior management and supervisors who recognise these factors are more likely to not just retain talent, but also help them perform and achieve better. They help create a conducive organisational culture which in helping its people achieve their potential, also helps the organisation perform better. It helps an organisation become an institution.
Effective management is better facilitated when individuals are recognised as more than just resources. Acting on this helps bind an organisation together and work as a fine-tuned machine. It is, therefore, important to recognise that senior management is not just responsible for external deliverables such as products and services, but also to all those individuals who work with them every day.
Exits are an important form of data collection which provide crucial insights into the organisation’s perception, management, work output, and people. It being one of those rare instances where employees can be honest without the fear of repercussions, exit processes should systematically collect and analyse information.
Employees choose to leave their organisation for various reasons which range from positive to negative factors. While some of these factors relate to the organisation, others relate to personal reasons which are not related to work, and most are an overlap between the two. In all cases, it is crucial for an organisation to identify the reason behind exits to better understand employees and improve one’s work and management outcomes in the future.
Given that employees are in the process of leaving, this is the time when they would be more open to being honest and reflective of their time at the organisation. While they may not immediately be willing to admit to all the setbacks they have faced, the team supervisors should take proactive steps to explore their reasons behind leaving. This should be done via conversations, a close observation of the transfer process, an assessment of how they react to work during the notice period, as well as conducting a review of their already produced work.
To better facilitate this, organisations should ask neutral individuals from either their HR or, if required, even hire external parties, to conduct exit interviews. It is crucial that these interviews remain confidential whereby the summaries of such interviews are only shared with senior management. The interviewer should urge applicants to be as critical as possible and encourage them to suggest changes and improvements to the structure.
It is important to remember that all current and past employees inevitably act as ambassadors to the organisation. Whether that is at a job interview, in conversations with friends, at conferences, and even through CVs, employees who have once been part of an organisation will invariably contribute to the organisation’s brand and image. This can act as an asset to the company, if utilised properly. It is now a widespread practice for organisations to even have alumni groups to increase their network.
Exits can add value to both an organisation’s internal functioning, as well as its external network. As individuals who have once engaged with organisations, past employees will always be connected to their previous companies. Effective exit processes help ensure that such engagements are productive and positive.
An organisation needs a vision to work towards. A vision binds all members of the organisation together to work towards a common goal. Therefore, a vision, is usually long-term, and broad, with multiple ways to achieve it. While an organisation needs a vision to begin with, this vision is often forgotten amongst all members who constitute the organisation. This can lead to members working without a purpose, preventing each one from realising the importance and relevance of their work to not just the organisation, but the broader economic landscape as well.
The vision of an organisation is usually crafted by the Founders and/or the leadership at a time when either the organisation is starting out or restructuring. Commonly, visions contribute to beyond just the deliverables of the organisation, whether that is a service, product, or any other offering. Visions also comprise the broad contributions being made to society, the profession, and the economic landscape.
While this vision is written and visible publicly on the organisation’s website, social media pages and employee handbooks, conversations around the vision often die down. The focus shifts to working, without developing an understanding of the value being added. This leads to individuals within the organisation to deliver work in a transactional manner, without taking into consideration the goals that the organisation aims to work towards.
Therefore, while a vision is usually set, an organisation should periodically take steps to discuss and revisit the vision. This can happen once a year, or once in two years, but the important part is that this happens with all members of the organisation, from senior management to support staff.
As the leadership, you can communicate this to the organisation with the purpose of revisiting the vision or amending it, and while it is very likely that there will be no revisions, the activity will help everyone understand the value of their work without just taking it at face value.
Vision exercises don’t need to be long, costly, or elaborate. They can be done via conversations, short written assignments, group discussions, over coffee sessions, or even creative visual exercises. The manner in which such exercises can be conducted should be customised and suited to the organisation’s context and members. However, it is important that they take place.
Providing members of an organisation a purpose to work towards and involving them in manners in which it can be achieved is beneficial both to the employee and the organisation. Even just conversations, and not elaborate exercises, are enough. What stays relevant is that each member is involved, included, and incorporated in the objective that the organisation wants to achieve.
Conversations around exits are often spoken about in hushed tones and are usually accompanied by a tense environment. This leads the focus of exits to be more on the negative aspects of separation, as opposed to the potentially positive aspects of career growth. This is not to imply that all terminations are beneficial, but that terminations can be beneficial and such aspects of it should also be recognised to ensure productive outcomes.
Employees within an organisation vary with respect to their skills, strengths, and performances. While it is difficult to identify the ‘best employee’ due to several nuances, it is usually possible to identify the broad categories within which employees can be placed. Such categories range from those who effectively engage with the organisation to those who don’t.
Since an organisation works collaboratively towards achieving goals, it is important for them to cater to both, the individual and the collective. For individuals, one needs to identify the right setting to facilitate engagement. For the collective, one needs to identify means through which the collective can work effectively and productively together. All of this contributes to the trajectories of these two entities and is detrimental to their growth.
An individual’s lack of effectiveness could stem from diverse reasons which range from a mismatch of expectations, adaptability, work ethos, and personal objectives, amongst other similar factors. Usually, when management decides to terminate such employees, it is from the perspective of the overall mismatch with the employee as opposed to a value judgement of what is right or wrong.
From the management’s perspective, they need to cater to the lowest common denominator. This means that while management designs structures keeping in consideration the non-engaged employees to ensure fairness, this could negatively impact the rate at which the engaged employees could grow. In doing so, the organisation is doing a disservice to all its employees, the potential that the organisation could reach, as well as to third parties who are on the receiving end of deliverables.
While there are checks and balances to facilitate unengaged employees, oftentimes, the decision to terminate an employee is the only mutually beneficial way out. Such benefits are felt by the terminated individual, who is encouraged to find the right path for themselves, and the organisation, who can better serve its employees and third parties.
It is important to recognise that exit decisions are based on multiple factors and that they have the potential to impact the company’s, its employees’, as well as the exiting employee’s growth in a positive manner.
As a business grows and expands, so does its geographic reach and the number of people employed. Keeping strategic and operative considerations in mind, companies open offices in different locations, starting from multiple locations within the same country to sometimes expanding internationally as well. While such expansions are often viewed as beneficial to a company’s growth, having one’s office spread across locations can also cause a crisis in management.
Opening multiple offices can be both strategic and operative. While strategic considerations include access to more people, resources, and a wider company presence, operative considerations include cost, capacity, and optimisation. In most cases, opening offices across locations can add immense value to a company as it displays growth and strength, provides access to new markets and resources, gives access to cost-effective alternatives, and allows one to expand the range of business being conducted.
While all of these considerations are relevant, it is equally important to consider the management function when opening offices across locations. Management can become a concern as competitiveness between the branches increases and the singular identity of the company starts diverging. As the senior management’s attention is diverted, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of resources and finances. Although such pros and cons do exist, it is important to not get daunted by the volume of such considerations.
For an organisation, the priority should be to ensure consistency across its offices. Such consistencies serve an important function as they help unify individuals across locations and increases familiarity. It bands resources together to work towards common goals and objectives and increases coordination.
Consistency increases in several ways, starting from the interiors of the office to the policies being implemented. Employees need to visually and operationally realise that they are part of the same organisation. This has to be reflected in the values of the management, goals and visions to be achieved, consistency across payment and progression structures, leave systems, as well as the chain of command, amongst many other similar factors.
Most importantly though, the organisation must ensure that there is consistency in the value they attribute to each office. Each office should feel seen and heard, and at no point should they box themselves as the “back office”, “head office” or “sub-office”. Senior management has to attribute importance to each office and ensure that no office feels that they exist in only a supporting capacity.
An organisation with multiple offices is still one organisation. Messaging of this fact is important to increase collaboration and derive maximum value from having established one’s presence across multiple locations. The end objective is to ensure that in taking this step, the significance of the organisation increases and does not in turn, implode.
