Op Weg Naar een Nederlandse Communicatieaudit?

Abstract

A communication audit is a way to explore the communicative health of an organization. Following the audit of the International Communication Association (ICA) objectives and characteristics are expounded in this article. The emphasis falls on the description of a project involving the Dutch Telephone Company (PTT-Telecommunicatie). The research described in this article addresses two subjects: a. information needs of employees By means of interviews bottlenecks in the information supply will be examined. During the interview a specially developed question chart was used. The questions were among others: to what extent do you get sufficient information; to what extent do you get your information in time; to what extent does the information reach you via the appropriate channels. b. the subject directness and object directness of written communication This was a pilot study. During one week all in and outward letters of three department heads were collected and analysed. During that week the three men had to fill in a communication diary, marking how much time each writing/reading act took; to what extent the incoming texts were immediately clear, etc. An interview was held in order to clarify obscurities in the analyses and the diary notes. The results show that there is a lack of information on many subjects, while - on the other hand - there is also an information overload. The pilot study suggests that an explanation may be found in certain characteristics of the written texts.