Dear Debi

The attached report defines five indicators for measuring organizational communication

Indicator 1: Communication costs as a percentage of organizational running costs

Indicator 2: Communication staff as a percentage of total staff

‘Communication staff’ are people who work in a central communication function in communication and support roles

Indicator 3: Professional communication staff as a percentage of communication staff

Professional communicators are defined as those who either:

(a) were recruited against professional communication competencies (defined as Government Communication Network core skills for communicators) or

(b) hold a professional communication qualification offered by communication industry bodies or equivalents at all levels,

Indicator 4: Internal client and stakeholder satisfaction index

A composite indicator compiled from the responses to a set of statements by clients and stakeholders)

Indicator 5: Management practice indicator

Number of practices that have been adopted by the central communication function, with score out of 10

Dear Debi

The attached report defines five indicators for measuring organizational communication

Indicator 1: Communication costs as a percentage of organizational running costs

Indicator 2: Communication staff as a percentage of total staff

‘Communication staff’ are people who work in a central communication function in communication and support roles

Indicator 3: Professional communication staff as a percentage of communication staff

Professional communicators are defined as those who either:

(a) were recruited against professional communication competencies (defined as Government Communication Network core skills for communicators) or

(b) hold a professional communication qualification offered by communication industry bodies or equivalents at all levels,

Indicator 4: Internal client and stakeholder satisfaction index

A composite indicator compiled from the responses to a set of statements by clients and stakeholders)

Indicator 5: Management practice indicator

Number of practices that have been adopted by the central communication function, with score out of 10

The literature on "effectiveness" is extensive. A number of definitions and, thus, indicators differ. I would do a search of journals in public administration, non-profit, and information systems because indicators for public sector, non-profit, and private sector organizations differ.  

People at work communicate on daily basis, and not all of their communications are effective. . The up-down, down-up, or peers communications are very important in business. The management of organization can measure the communication effectiveness through a survey.

Dear Alice Robbin - I suggest that you or Debi to post a separate query for public sector organization and we may keep this query as it is and to cover mainly for private sector organizations, where profit is the main objective.

Best wishes,

Sundar

I agree with dear Sundar. In case a specific reference to public sector is not given then we can always presume that the question is not intended for the public sector. Indeed, there are a lot of systemic issues involved when we deal with any question related to public systems. Sunder, profit motive can be there, and is mostly there, even in public systems, but what is different is the organization structure, accountability issues, bureaucracy, public audits, high sense of entitlements, sense of over-security, et al. 

Very recently, in India, a team of foreigners visited a University and dropped by Departments one by one. After their visit to Department M, they dropped by Department N and had an interaction. In this, they shared the activities of Department M (without giving faculty names) and Department N got very interested. "Oh really! Where is this Department" asked some faculty from Department N, and the visiting team answered - "Your own University! We visited this Department just an hour ago, and attended their powerpoint presentation". Also, the Departments M and N are located in the same campus and a foreign team was needed to appraise each department the activities of the other. This is a great example of "communication ineffectiveness".

To measure the communication effectiveness, organizations may try some of these:

Best wishes

Sundar

Thanks dear  Mahfuz for your answer to the question. Indeed, survey is one of the main instruments to measure the effectiveness of the communication system. But sometimes, people do not know what they do, and how they themselves perceive, or even do not not want to speak their mind for various reasons, perhaps other indicators could also be looked into. I was just wondering what they all could be!

Communication effectiveness -The content and Intend transaction between a Sender and Receiver should be within the expected range.

In an Organization, the measures are ultimately summed up towards the deliverable of the Organization commitment. To achieve these various tools of Oral / Written is Transmitted for vetting or clearances and alignment feedback, which establish the effectiveness.

• Organization Expectation - Goal accomplishment, Effective Resource Utilization within planned costs / expenditures.
• Organization -Head, Expectation- Roles are clear and Process adherence
• Superior Expectation - Activity Completion
• Subordinate Expectation - Clarity on Deliverable and Support
• Peer Expectation- Aligned role linkage (or) No Overlap roles and responsibilities.

I thank Debi & Krishnan for great answers. Take my answer as ways of improving communication effectiveness for academic institutions / universities, which are also organizations.

Best wishes

Sundar

If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.

Lord Kelvin

A few points that could be considered while developing the metrics are:

Choose metrics that are

• Actionable
• Accessible
• Auditable

http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/y5794e/Y5794E07.htm#4.2.2

Dear @Debi, thanks for sharing the question. Baseline communication measurement and Functional communication measurement are two types for measuring internal communications.

Some of indicators are: Change in behaviour, Impact on business goals / outcomes,...etc. Very fine article about is attached that includes:"When should we measure internal communications,Types of measurement,Measuring impact,

How to measure communication effectiveness,Qualitative internal communication measurement.Avoiding survey bias, Encouraging survey participation..."

http://www.snapcomms.com/solutions/measuring-internal-communications-effectiveness.aspx

http://idahobusinessreview.com/2011/07/29/measuring-communication-effectiveness-within-an-organization/

Dear @Debi, the following book entitled:" Excellent public relations and effective organizations: A study of communication management in three countries" by JE Grunig and DM Dozier discusses the effective of organizations ‏and measuring Communication effectiveness in an organization, see the link:

http://books.google.jo/books?hl=ar&lr=&id=RwXBKUUwzIwC&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&dq=measuring+Communication+effectiveness+in+an+organization%3F&ots=-XxfYiTJOZ&sig=UOZTunOUQzRcsDxH3hdTk81ATWc&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=measuring%20Communication%20effectiveness%20in%20an%20organization%3F&f=false

.

Dear Ljubomir Jacić - Thank you for the nice & useful links. We shall read them.

Science has made available many tools of communication. The use of these tools effectively can add many gains to the organization in many aspects. Of course, there is internal communication within the staff & there is communication with customers or the public at large.

High quality production stands as an important indication of effective communication since in many cases, the management is at the top of the "pyramid" & from this top there are successive functions that lead to the end line of production. In other cases, the management may opt for isolating itself from communicating with most of the staff & it will just allow few persons an access for contact. When this closed-door policy is followed, the result will be an unhealthy division between the staff: those with the boss, those against the boss, and those who are in between. Divisions are bound to hit the production process.

Communication with the customers or the public will be effective when the organization is honest with those it deals with, when its services function smoothly, and when trust in the organization is built. Reasonable advertisement is needed to let the people know the organization & what does it offer. Afterwards, the very products will give the best image for the organization if they are of high quality.

I would also look at turnover. Large turnover would mean a very poor communication inside the firm--granted the smaller the firm the easier this is to decipher since in larger firms there maybe higher turnover for more pay, etc. But it is a general trend in my experience that firms of high communication where everyone understands his or her role is a firm with little turnover. Hence this would indicate a great communication. 

Understanding communication effectiveness in an organization requires a communication audit. The communication audit is a technical process where data is gathered and analyzed in order for management to understand the communication that is actually taking place within the organization--rather than what they think is happening during communications.

We cover this in our book, Managerial Communication (2014), in chapter 12, titled "Communication Audits." Thus, communication audits are formulaic and can be extremely detailed. Nevertheless, the normal way for managers to learn about communication effectiveness in their organization is to conduct a communication audit. For obvious reasons, communication audits are normally outsourced by management to an independent consultancy group.

It is the communication process which make the effectiveness in the organization. I appreciate previous comments.

Dear Nages, you put it so nicely. I fully support what you say. Often, HR managers are reluctant to have the effect their interventions measured. But the best  international companies are supporting great transparency and debate on their support work.  We must be willing to accept the hardest of our criticism. I think that is a gift. It gives us opportunity to learn.

Debi from your own land of Hyderabad, where I came to JNTU as a Guest of honour in an international conference. 

Dear Reginald, your communication audit example is just great. It is one of the best ways to measure communication effectiveness. Fully agree. Yes, our biases can be kept at bay if we allow an impartial outsider agency to audit our communication system. Certainly, as Angela says, turnover is also a result of unsatisfactory communication.

Dr Nizar's indicator of the trust quotient and customer satisfaction is also very important indicators. Thanks. @Dear Abedallah and @Ljubomir, thanks for the attachment and the indicators suggested. 

Very valuable suggestions of dear Krishnan and Behrouz. Though I was wondering if the communication cost can be an indicator of communication effectiveness. But internal client and shareholder satisfaction index do reflect effective communication within. I wish to add that communication ability has been found by research to be  the most important indicator of managerial success, which supports Behrouz's 5th indicator. 

Dear Debi - "Soft skills" is considered a very important virtue & many Academic Institutes and companies are providing special training on this, but the trainers need to have good soft skills for the training to be very effective. In Washington University, special course "Technical Communication" is taught for students at all levels. As a DSc student, I did not study this, but I mastered using the same books adopted for the junior students in my Department!

Technical Communication - Mike Markel (10th edition, 2012) - Great book!

With best wishes

Sundar

http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Communication-Mike-Markel/dp/0312679483/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408626574&sr=8-1&keywords=Technical+communication

This is very true Sundar that soft skills are far more critical for business success today than ever before. And, the ability to effectively communicate comes on the top of all the soft skills. Also, as an organization, the organization must ensure than the communication channels in the organization are effective and lead to a higher incidence of employee engagement. And, if you can not measure the effectiveness of this, then surely we can not manage it.

Dear Debi, communicativeness is very important and is able to increase the work effectiveness of the organization.Communication with micro-and macro-environment, with the people of different professions, cultures, ages, statuses is important. It's very bad when the heads see a recourse in a human being, or appreciate only his/her key competence, or aptitude. Every human being is a person, and motivational aspect, situational adaptability, being in home with verbal and nonverbal means of communication are very important as well as the skill to perceive adequately other people.Avtsinova T.V. and Penina S.N. offer to differentiate communicativeness from communicability. We can increase it if  we

-understand that it's a special feature of a person,

-aware sense and value of every communicant,

-create favorable conditions,

-use new technologies.

 They offer the tests (indicators of measuring) by Liri, Wasserman, Zhuravlev-Rubakhin. http://www.scienceforum.ru/2013/21/3980       

Test T.Liri "View from the outside" with interpretationhttp://azps.ru/tests/stest/liri.html

Wasserman's test "diagnostics of the level of social frustration"with interpretationhttp://azps.ru/tests/2/tt12.html

Test "The style of leadership"by Zhuravlev with interpretation. You can download it and translate - all is free.https://docs.google.com/document/d/12GlFLQq11sREMSxV31_dlG6EXbK_AMo7PFRCydsJaNI/edit

Maybe I am not directly contributing to this issue, but I believe that a poor communication may indicate a poor interest of its employees. Then communication could be improved also from this concern.