Asia Pacific University College of Technology and Innovation

Learning Outcomes:
Business Communication
Research Audit
BM006-3-M

Chapter 4
Auditing Communication to
Maximise Performance

To compare the contrast and similarities in goals of

audit in various area such as finance, accounting and
communication.
To highlight the key objectives of implementing audit
by Institute of Communication Audit (ICA).
To identify the stages of audit processes before and
while implementing the audit process.

To highlight main concerns of audit process such as

confidentiality and how to overcome this issue
between auditors, selected respondents and the
organisation.
To identify the main assessment steps for
organisations communication audit

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Auditing Communication to Maximise

Performance
A focused communication strategy helps to prevent issues,
chaos and crisis from happens
A focused communication strategy also helps the company to
see opportunity to sustain in a marketplace.
Key questions must be addressed by managers such as:
Is the right message getting through?
Do people feel informed, or merely patronised?
Has the communication programme really addresses the issues
which most concern people, or has it missed the moving target
of public opinion?
Organisation must have an accurate information of the above
questions from both internal & external publics = rationales for
auditing communication

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Auditing Communication to Maximise

Performance
It assists managers by providing an objective picture of what is
happening compare with what seniors executive think (or have
been told) is happening (Hurst, 1991).
The term first emerge in 1950s among general academic
literature and later frequent in business, HR and PR practitioners.
CA share a number of characteristics in the area finance,
medicine and accounting such as accumulation of information; in
finance, the objective is to check the efficacy of financial
accounting procedures by sampling representative cross section
of transaction within the organisation.
While in communication terms, is similar goal to assess a sample
of communication episodes, in order to determine the key trends
(the diagnostic phase of auditing process).
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Auditing Communication to Maximise

Performance
Historically, the practice of auditing is most commonly
associated with scrutiny's of an organisations financial health
and the principles is clearly derived from this area.
Even in food industry auditing the burger- meet the
standard of freshness and taste or not: Simply an evaluation
of a designated process.
Frank and Brownell (1989) defined comm. audit as an
objective report of an organisations internal communication.
Or, a comprehensive and thorough study of communication
philosophy, concepts, structure, flow and practice within an
organisation (Emmannuel, 1989).
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Auditing Communication to Maximise

Performance
Secondly is the creation of the management system systems are
developed to control the flow of information and resources over a
given period (this is the prescriptive phase of the audit process).
Thirdly is the comparison of communication practices with publicly
declared standards. A finance audits ensure that funds are
appropriately managed and that efficient methods of financial
management are being applied.
Clinical audits monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of medical
activity, and contrast both with national and international
benchmarks.
While comm.audits provide similar performance benchmarks,
generating a much enhanced ability to measure both performance
and the impact of specific measures designed to improve it (the
accountability phase in the audit process)
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Asia Pacific University College of Technology and Innovation

Auditing Communication to Maximise

Performance
Managers need to know to whom they are
communicating with, through what channels with what
effects.
If the vital info does not getting through its key publics,
with blockage in the channels of communication?
Haywood (1991) argues that audits should cover these
points; this is how organisation is perceived, this is how
we would like to be seen, this is the activity that we
would like to undertake to change this attitude and,
finally this is how we will assess our success in achieving
this objective.
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Auditing Communication to Maximise

Performance
Determine potential bottlenecks and gatekeepers, of
information by comparing actual communication roles of key
personnel with expected roles.
Identify categories and examples of commonly occurring
positive and negative communication experiences and
incidents.
Describe individual, group and organisational patterns of
actual communication behaviours related to sources,
channels, topics, length and quality of interactions.
Provide general recommendations derived from the Audit,
which call for changes or improvement in attitudes,
behaviors, practices and skills.
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Implementing Communication Audits

Even each and every organisation has a unique needs, culture
and problems in a marketplace.
However, the process of audit implementation should
generally encompass the following stages:
Involves/ engage with senior management and their
commitment; auditor conducted a workshop between the
senior management. Auditor should clarify in-depth the value
of the audits, identify the top half dozen issues, but restricting
the number of issues to be explored, the more focus and valid
data it will be. Example, if the audit is concerned with
external communication, what are the most important issues
which company want the customers to be aware of?
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Auditing Communication to Maximise

Performance
As highlighted by International Communication Association (ICA),
the key objectives to be achieved by implementing a comm audit
are:
Determine the amount of information overload, or underload
associated with the major topics, sources, and channels of
communication.
Evaluate the quality of communication communicated from and/or
to these sources.
Evaluate the quality of communication relationships, specifically
measuring the extent of interpersonal trust, supportiveness
sociability and overall job satisfaction.
Identify the operational communication networks (for rumors,
social and job related messages) comparing them with planned or
formal networks (prescribed in the companys organisational chart).
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Implementing Communication
Audits
The following FiVE stages that audit need to go through:
The selection of topic;
The specification of desired performance in terms of criteria
and standards; (sometimes it occur afterwards; after gather all
the data, then the specification/ standard of performance is
then established)
The collection of objectives data to determine whether the
standards are met;
The implementation of appropriate changes to improve
performance;
The collection of data for a second time, to check whether any
changes introduced have affected performance.
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Implementing Communication
Audits
Managers must have realistic expectation and discuss what audit
can do and cannot do, especially to the beginner/ novice audit.
Example, it is difficult to obtain a statistical benchmarks when you
implement a focus group.
Discuss the communication standards the management team
believes they should adopt and live up to. Example by National
Health Service Management Executive published standards for
communication in 1995 such as board level discussions, regular
audits, upward appraisals, training for effective communication.
Thus, having established this standards, answers must be then
formulated to a number of key questions; What do they mean in
practice? How will every organisational unit be transformed if they
are implemented? What has stopped the implementation in the
past? How quickly can change begin? What training needs arise?
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Asia Pacific University College of Technology and Innovation

Implementing Communication
Audits
The identification of a senior person or persons prepared to
act as a link between the organisation and the external audit
team.
Prepare the Organisation for the Audit
Prepare a letter to inform staff of the nature of the audit
process
Establish/ revealing timescale
(Normally it be issued by the Chief Executive of the company)
In the case of external audits, the sample of customers or
supply businesses can be addressed, a videos, internal or
external newsletters, or a team briefing mechanisms can be
employed.
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Prepare the Organisation for the

Audit
Audit instruments should be administered well away from the
gaze of managers. Managers do not enter/ do a visit during
the interview sessions between the staff and the auditors as it
will interrupt and effected the quality and the confidentiality
of the people concerned.
Do not use internal auditors such as top manager of an
organisation to conduct the interview, because it will
contributed to low credibility of quality assurances, especially
if the people concerned (respondents) are close to the top
manager.

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Prepare the Organisation for the

Audit
Issues like confidentiality among audit respondents; example,
afraid of being so honest during the survey, should be avoided.
Perhaps the following rules helps:
Participants should be assured, orally and in writing, that their
responses will be treated confidentially.
Whenever possible, participants should be selected randomly. This
will reduce the hazards, not to single people out with the view to
imposing sanctions. So, perhaps intense persuasion is required to
convince the respondents.
Only the audit teams will have assess to the questionnaires,
recording materials that might identify individual respondents.
Care should be taken in writing the report so that it does not
enables reader to identify particular respondents.
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Data Gathering
Pilot test is vital in order to detect the shortcomings in the
design and implementation of questionnaires; to check the
viability of the approach chosen.
Feedback should be obtained to help to design the final
interview
A number of typical issues at this stage such as how decisions
are made; communication channels; communication
relationships; communication obstacles; organisational
structure; responsiveness; (the quality of information flow
during a crisis).
Results obtained should be presented both orally and in writing
to the top management.
Any bad news from the result of the audit should be
communicated openly, clearly.
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Assessment
A typical assessment involves a series of steps that begin by broadly
identifying the major areas of communications within the company.
We then identify communications successes and weaknesses in
order to focus communications planning on the most actionable
areas with the highest potential rewards for the organization and
its audiences.
The overall approach for an assessment usually involves four to five
steps, although each assessment is customised to meet client
needs (for example, it is not always necessary to conduct a survey):
1. Analyse existing communications vehicles
2. Conduct executive interviews
3. Facilitate employee and management focus groups or
interviews
4. Coordinate a communications survey (as appropriate)
5. Develop a needs-based communications plan
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Q&A

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