Digital Channels in Internal Communication

Question: Discuss about the Digital Channels in Internal Communication. Answer: Introduction: The reflective journal provides me an opportunity to explore the topic motivation and the literature revolving around it. Motivation is often described as the force which encourages people to behave in certain ways which leads to achievement of goals. Motivation is very important in todays business scenario as it is target driven. The journal allows me to explore the topic as a manager and pen down my experiences of leading and motivating my team of subordinates. The theories of motivation by authors like Herzberg and Maslow do not only apply to individuals alone. Motivation drives the human forces of the nations forward towards working together towards global integration. I have read several books, journals and articles which I can reflect on while expressing my feelings about the subject. I will also describe how I apply the theories and learning as a manager and relate real life situations from my managerial career. Motivation encourages and pushes individuals forward towards goals and helps them to accept challenges. It is the driving force behind leadership, innovations and entrepreneurship. The role of motivation has become so crucial to goal attainment today that it has established itself as a full-fledged topic of study. There are several theories to motivation which I will reflect upon in my writing and relate them to other areas like communication and leadership as well. Fredrick Irving Herzberg, an American psychologist proposed the two factor theory of motivation. He proposed that there are two factors which lead to motivation, the motivator factors and the hygiene factors. The motivator factors consist of factors which motivates employees like job satisfaction and recognitions. The hygiene factors comprises of things like employee good salary, company policies and benefits (Lin et al., 2015). Herzbergs two factor theory is closely related to Maslows Hierarchy of Needs which recognises five needs of individuals. The need for food, water and cloth consist of physiological needs while financial and personal security make up the safety needs. The other three needs are the need for love, the need for self esteem and the need of self actualisation through recognition for performances. The research conducted in Australia and China showed that the extrinsic factors of Herzbergs theory like high salary packages and benefits actually motivate the employees. These extrinsic factors correspond to the self esteem and the self actualisation needs stated in the Maslows theory. The studies prove that these two theories are so very applicable in the real life workplaces which prove their metal (Yusoff, Kian Idris, 2013). I am encouraged to think how these theories apply in the organisation where I work as a manager. The rise of demand for new housing projects motivated the owner to start a construction venture a few years back (Germak Robinson, 2014). The team of experts I manage are motivated by the salary and the benefits which they receive to perform better. Whenever a problem arises I motivate the team members to approach it rationally and help each other in finding a solution. This also helps me to maintain coordination among the employees in my team and avoid conflict (Moore, 2014). I have learnt that motivation encourages people to working together towards achievement of a common goal rather than blaming each other. Hawthorne effect proposed by Landsberger says that some employees work harder and perform better when they are under observation. It can be implied that observation stimulates the self actualisation needs in some employees. They do so to gain recognition in the eyes of their supervisors which help them to earn promotions and other benefits (McCambridge, Witton Elbourne, 2014). This again refers to the hygiene factors of the Hygiene theory by Herzberg. I as the manager work closely with the assistant manager and direct him on day to day basis. His performance has improved dramatically and he has received recognition for his performance. I always ensure that there exists a free and transparent flow of communication between my team members, including the assistant manager and myself. They are aware about the targets of the team and work together towards meeting them within the deadlines (Damij et al., 2015). As a manager I feel it is very important to motivate my team and guide them through problems. The previous manager was an autocrat who commanded the team and expected to do everything on its own. When I took charge I introduced the system f transformation of leadership by involving all the team members in making decisions on matters concerning them. Transformation leadership encourages managers and leaders to gain participation of all the team members and motivate them in doing so. I have succeeded in bringing about improvement in the team work culture and uplifted the spirits of my team (Dong et al., 2017). The management too encourages transformational leadership and managerial styles to motivate the employees and ensure that they perform better. This kind of leadership improves the performance of the companies as well. I can give a strong example to this from my present organisation. The organisation started its journey as an entrepreneurial venture and has grown into a public com pany which is backed by a team of motivated and target oriented workforce (Schaubroeck, Lam Peng, 2016). Communication is the basis for transformational management and motivation without which no department or organisation can stand. The previous manager was so autocratic that he only ordered the employees under him and did not communicate any plan or suggestion to the team. This led to lack of unity and conflict which eventually resulted in poor performance and deadline miss (Puni, Agyemang Asamoah, 2016). When I took the charge of the team, I encouraged the employees to communicate their problems they were encountering to me. I than prepared strategies to overcome those problems and shared them with my team members to decide on an action plan. I, with the help of the assistant manager then breakdown the action plan among the team members as per their competencies. This enables strategic management of the vast number of actions which integrate into the final output. The participa tion of all the members ensures that they are aware about the whole task and their individual responsibilities. It also helps them to coordinate their responsibilities and complete the task within time with minimum errors. My personal taught me that motivation is also very important in personal life too (Rothaermel, 2015). My wife was very nervous when she suddenly lost her job and was left without any source of income. I motivated her to start searching for jobs and confidently take interviews. I must say that my motivation worked and toady she is working in an MNC. Thus, motivation is so very important even in personal life and help people to get out of tough situations. Today when I sit back and contemplate about the managerial competencies I have achieved, I feel that I need to improve my communication skills. I dream of becoming a senior manager in a years time and chief manager in five years. When I reflect about my professional heights I want in achieve in the coming years, I feel that my communication skills and style need to evolve even more. I have learnt from my experiences that transparent communication is very importance for a team to perform. I have realised that motivation and communication are irreplaceable for total quality management (Sallis, 2014). There should be several ways in which employees in teams communicate with each other. I feel there should be a common platform where the team members and the managers can communicate their feelings and suggestions regarding tasks. There should be a second platform which will allow the interdependent departments to communicate with each other. The directors and the top managers should be ab le to share their views, instructions and so on with the entire organisation on a third platform. The main aims of these platforms should be ensuring transparency and coordination among the employees and the departments (Gladysheva, Verboom Arora, 2014). The communication channels should digital and not encourage use of paper which will allow the organisation to establish an environment friendly communication channel (Sisko Maarit Lipiinen, Ensio Karjaluoto, Nevalainen, 2014). The same applies to me and I have created a platform where all the team members communicate with each other. I have understood that this communication helps in creating team spirit on one hand and helps the team to preserve the secrecy of its strategies on the other hand. This understanding has made me see the fault in me as a manager and I wish to improve in the area within the coming year. As a manager, I am not well acquainted with some of my new team members and need to improve my knowledge on them. This realisation has made me understand that I may be good at motivating the team to participate in planning and execution of strategies but I need to improve my communication styles to be efficient enough to lead an expanding team. I am sure this will help me to manage teams under me when I will be a senior manager in a years time and a chief manager in five years. I must point out that an article I have found recently has helped me to realise the need to sharpen my communication skills to be better manager even more (Smet et al., 2016). As a manager I feel I am capable of managing a team and motivate my team members to participate actively in achievement of target. The new communication portal which allowed the team members to communicate with each other enhanced their level of coordination in the team. This sustainable approach of mine has brought about results and the customers were very satisfied with the high quality of products we delivered. The total quality management approach which I took was appreciated by the other teams and the management. Our team received the stakeholders satisfaction award because the TQM led to benefit of the stakeholders like management, society and the customers (Gimenez-Espin, Jimnez-Jimnez Martnez-Costa, 2013). This shows that I am a capable manager but I feel that I need to better my communication styles to be able to manage larger groups of people. I should interact with the new team members personally and introduce them to the rules of the team. I will train them on the working pattern of my team and then add them to the sustainable digital portals. As a manager I will monitor the performance of the new members to understand their style of work, background, approach and so on. Then I will allocate job responsibilities to them according to their areas of expertise and competencies. I will encourage the senior members to interact regularly with the juniors. This will allow the juniors to learn from the seniors and encourage innovative ideas in the team. Innovation is a powerful tool which helps teams to adapt to the changing situations and make appropriate strategies. I will encourage communication and innovation in the team to ensure healthy human relationship and conductive job environment (Victor et al., 2013). Motivation plays a very significant in achievement of goals and overcoming difficulties. It is so important in todays world that there are theories and researches revolving around it. I feel that motivation is not an isolated theory and has a role to play in several other theories and areas. For example, I motivated my employees to communicate with each other while planning their work and this resulted in reduction of errors. It helped in total control of the quality of production which benefitted the stakeholders like the management and the customers. Thus it can be pointed out that motivation has strong relation with two other theories, the stakeholders theory and the TQM. While reflecting on my managerial skills to motivate my team, I realised that communication plays a very important role. I need to improve my communication skills to be able to handle larger team of members. I also feel that motivation and communication go a long way in creating positive human relationship and work environment with teams and in the organisations as a whole. I wish to improve my communication skills to evolve into a better manager in my managerial career. References: Damij, N., Levnaji?, Z., Skrt, V. R., Suklan, J. (2015). What motivates us for work? Intricate web of factors beyond money and prestige.PloS one,10(7), e0132641. Dong, Y., Bartol, K. M., Zhang, Z. X., Li, C. (2017). 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