MGT502 Business Communication: Digital Communication Strategy

Learning Outcomes

This assessment addresses the following subject learning outcomes:

1. Demonstrate academic skills appropriate to the level ofstudy
2. Demonstrate research skills and referencing appropriate to the level ofstudy Critically analyse texts and/or multi-modal material in both a business and academic context

Context:

Answer:

“Implementing a digital communication strategy within an organisation”

As per Bennett, Owers, Pitt & Tucker (2010), application of digital communication strategy is considered as both innovative trend as well as an effective tool to cope up with the business environment nowadays. Implementation of digital communication strategy within the organization is crucial in terms of development of coordination amongst the employees along with the objective of accomplishing tasks so that positive outcomes could be accomplished. There are numerous tools available in terms of implementing digital communication strategy within the workplace and every tool has its own significance. Thus, it is necessary for the organization to analyse their requirement and on that basis, appropriate tools such as social media, innovative communication tools, instant messaging application, chatrooms, podcasts, internal blogs, internal intranet, etc. could be selected for the successful implementation of digital communication strategy within the organization.

While according to White (2012), latest business trends, it is necessary to adopt innovative and advanced measures to stay updated in order to compete with other companies. Internet and technology have brought various changes in almost every area and with respect to this; various opportunities have been originated for business entities in relation with the growth and expansion in the domestic as well as in the international markets. In addition to this, internet and technology has generated various options for the organizations to enhance their performance. Amongst these options, one of the primary options is implementation of digital communication strategy and it is essential for all types of organizations whether it is a non-profit, government agency, Private Corporation or any other type of enterprise, a well-structured digital communication strategy leads the organization towards success (Karanges, Johnston, Beatson & Lings, 2015). With the help of effective digital communication strategy, organization could easily demonstrate its work to its employees, promotes vision and mission, engaging target audience, and all these factors help organization in attainment of desired goals and objectives.

According to Mackenzie (2010), in relation with creating and implementing an effective digital communication strategy, it is required for the organization to devote time and resources to determine the requirements and needs of target audience so that relevant tools could be picked up in the digital communication strategy. Social media is one of the effective platforms which could be included in the digital communication strategy as one of the primary tools. This is because social media is one of the fastest growing and most engaging tool, although, this is distracting too but at  the same time, there are various advantages linked with the usage of social media platforms. Social media platforms are known for crafting rich content through which employee engagement could easily be established (White, 2012). It has been analysed that for targeting millennials and tech-savvy audiences, social media is one of the best platform to target them.

Fieseler, Meckel & Ranzini (2014) says that most of the companies have adopted social media platforms and mobile channels irrelevance to their nature for the objective of making their digital communication strategy effective as well as efficient (Mackenzie, 2010). Apart from this, companies are also using online community engagement, podcasts, and blogs, internal chat system and instant messaging systems within the workplace for developing as well as maintaining coordination amongst the employees. Social media and all other tools of digital communication strategy are considered as the fast paced communication platforms through which top level management could easily share any type of information to its employees and vice-versa. Along with staying connected with the employees, social media and other communication tools are used for the purpose of enhancing engaging with the target audience along with updating them in relation to the latest discount offers, and other schemes which are introduced for the objective of retaining customers’ interest within the organization (Fieseler, Meckel & Ranzini, 2014). Top level management could use social media platforms and other tools in the digital communication strategy for the objective of communicating with the employees individually and as a whole as well.

As per Nasah, DaCosta, Kinsell & Seok (2010), using digital communication strategy in the workplace helps the organization to retain its employees’ interest in the organization along with aligning their vision and mission of the organization (Robinson, et. al, 2015). Apart from this, there are various other benefits linked with the usage of digital communication strategy at workplace. Communication at workplace was a simple task few decades back but with the introduction of technology and internet, numerous tech-based options have been originated and organizations are required to adopt an appropriate tech-based option through which coordination amongst the employees could easily be developed. Amongst the plethora of communication tools, organization could choose relevant mediums as per their functionalities and the size of their enterprise in order to move towards sustainable growth and overall development. Primary objective behind adaptation of communication tools is to build appropriate connection amongst the employees and the top level management (Burston, Dyer-Witheford & Hearn, 2010). This helps the organization to uplift their employees’ productivity along with developing interest of the employees within the organization and its functionalities.

Email, instant messaging, desk phones, mobile phones, video conferencing, dial in conference calls, LinkedIn, Twitter, messages, etc. is a very big list and numerous options are rapidly originating due to revolution in the technology. It is necessary for the organization to choose the most relative communication tool through which the motive behind adaptation of communication tools could be fulfilled along with enhancing employees’ productivity (Nasah, DaCosta, Kinsell & Seok, 2010). Communication tools help the organization to boost up their employees’ confidence along with motivating them. Nowadays communication tools are so effective through which information could be shared amongst the employees and the top level management in the group as well as on the basis of individual.

Following are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using digital communication strategies at workplace described by Perkins (2010):

Advantages

• Desk phones, mobile and relative platforms are useful for sharing ideas for the employees amongst them and as this platform could be used as a personal communication tool as well as it could also be used for communicating with a group through conference calls. Employees could clearly express themselves with these options in comparison to the other mediums of communication.
• Email is considered as one of the most secured and confidential platform and it is capable enough to document and track conversations accordingly. Along with this, this tool is also efficient in terms of sending files to each other (Perkins, 2010). At one time, files and information could also be shared with more than one person. In business, this platform is considered as the mostly and widely used.
• Instant messaging is another crucial tool of digital communication strategy and with the help of this platform; employees as well as top level management could determine each other’s presence (Wang, 2011). This platform is mainly used for getting quick and immediate response.

Disadvantages

• Wang (2011) has described that desk phones and mobile phones are not considered as the platform for obtaining quick and immediate resolutions. No evidence is available for the conversation on phone calls until and unless those calls are not recorded.
• Unnecessary conversations also held on emails and due to this, mail boxes of employees gets full, thus, they are not able to receive important emails (Wang, 2011). It is not considered as the appropriate medium for immediate responses and real-time communication tool.
• With regards to the increased volume of emails, sundry automatic filters have been introduced with the objective of segregating substantial and irrelevant mails.
• Instant messaging applications are meant for quick and immediate responses but it has been found that when people are working on urgent tasks and suddenly ping comes, it distracts them which ultimately affect their productivity.

Apart from these advantages and disadvantages, there are so many benefits of using digital communication strategy at workplace which is directly linked with the productivity of the whole organization (Turner, Qvarfordt, Biehl,  Golovchinsky & Back, 2010). With the help of digital communication strategy, employees could communicate with each other without any barrier and they could also share their views, ideas, suggestions and feedbacks to the top level management without facing any issue.

Openness in Communication

According to Kapoor & Solomon (2011), this is the primary benefit of implementing digital communication strategy at workplace due to which not only organizational performance increases, but performances at individual level also increases. Open communication act as an important factor for successful personal relationships as well as for the workplace relationships. Employee satisfaction and their engagement are also based on the open communication. The more employees will be satisfied, the more opportunities will be originated for the organization for sustainable growth and overall development of both employees and organization as well. According to research, it has been observed that openness in communication is the primary factor for employee retention for a longer period of time and it is also useful for making employees comfortable at the workplace. It also leads to create transparency between the organizational policies and the employees’ requirements. This is very necessary because if employees are not involved in the decision making processes or in any other business practices, it leads to create differences between the employees and the top level management which ultimately results in conflicts and high labour turnover. Thus, it is necessary for the organizations to regularly update their digital communication strategy with the objective of maintaining coordination amongst the top level management and employees for the purpose of attaining positive outcomes (Kapoor & Solomon, 2011).

References

Bennett, J., Owers, M., Pitt, M., & Tucker, M. (2010). Workplace impact of social networking. Property Management, 28(3), 138-148.

Burston, J., Dyer-Witheford, N., & Hearn, A. (2010). Digital labour: Workers, authors, citizens. Special issue, ephemera: theory and politics in organization, 10(3/4), 214-221.

Fieseler, C., Meckel, M., & Ranzini, G. (2014). Professional personae-How organizational identification shapes online identity in the workplace. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(2), 153-170.

Kapoor, C., & Solomon, N. (2011). Understanding and managing generational differences in the workplace. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 3(4), 308-318.

Karanges, E., Johnston, K., Beatson, A., & Lings, I. (2015). The influence of internal communication on employee engagement: A pilot study. Public Relations Review, 41(1), 129-131.

Mackenzie, M. L. (2010). Manager communication and workplace trust: Understanding manager and employee perceptions in the e-world. International Journal of Information Management, 30(6), 529-541.

Nasah, A., DaCosta, B., Kinsell, C., & Seok, S. (2010). The digital literacy debate: an investigation of digital propensity and information and communication technology. Educational Technology Research and Development, 58(5), 531-555.

Perkins, P. S. (2010). The art and science of communication: Tools for effective communication in the workplace. John Wiley & Sons.

Robinson, L., Cotten, S. R., Ono, H., Quan-Haase, A., Mesch, G., Chen, W. & Stern, M. J. (2015). Digital inequalities and why they matter. Information, communication & society, 18(5), 569-582.

Turner, T., Qvarfordt, P., Biehl, J. T., Golovchinsky, G., & Back, M. (2010). Exploring the workplace communication ecology. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 841-850). ACM.

Wang, M. (2011). Integrating organizational, social, and individual perspectives in Web 2.0-based workplace e-learning. Information Systems Frontiers, 13(2), 191-205.

White, M. (2012). Digital workplaces: Vision and reality. Business information review, 29(4), 205-214.