Background of the Company:
1. Company History:
1. When was the company formed and by whom?
2. What does the company do?
3. How has the company evolved since it was first established?
2.
Location:
1. Where is the company headquartered?
2. Do you feel the company is advantageously situated? Elaborate?
3.
4.
Products and Services provided:
1. What products and services does the company provide?
Purpose of the company:
1. What is your company’s vision and mission?
2. What are your goals for the future of the company?
Internal Communication:
1. Top-down communication:
1. What platforms do managers use to communicate with employees? What are
the advantages and disadvantages of this communication method?
2. Is new information conveyed to all employees directly or do some employees
receive information second-hand?
3. Do you often review employee performance? If so, how? Do you meet with
them face to face to discuss their performance? Do you write a report? Etc….
2.
Crisis situation communication:
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3.
How often does your company face a crisis?
What sort of crisis has your company faced?
How well are your employees trained to handle a crisis?
What does the company improve on after the crisis has struck?
When crisis situations arise, what kind of communication platform do you use
to inform the employees as soon as possible? Do you use multiple channels or
just one?
Bottom-up communication:
1. What platforms do employees use to communicate with managers?
2. Do you make use of employee feedback forms? If so, what kind of
information do you get from them, and how seriously do you take them?
3. If not, what methods do you use to garner employee feedback?
4. How seriously do you take employee feedback?
4.
Peer-to-peer communication:
1. How important is peer-to-peer communication for the growth of employees in
your company?
2. Do employees have social interactions outside the workplace, do they go out
for drinks etc…?
3. Are managers often part of these social outings?
4. Do you feel that employee social gatherings are important for morale and team
building?
5.
Face-to-face communication:
1. How important is face-to-face communication especially now (in a
pandemic)?
2. How often are face-to-face meetings held?
6.
Corporate intranet platform:
1. Does your company have its own portal?
2. What sort of information is posted on the portal?
7.
E-mail correspondence:
1. Does every employee have a company email address?
2. Do company emails usually have a specific structure?
3. What kind of information is conveyed using emails and how often are they
sent?
8.
Videos:
1. Do you use videos for staff training?
2. Are the videos you used in staff training effective?
3. Do you use videos to convey company news to employees? If so, what
platform do you use to distribute these videos?
9.
Company notice board:
1. Do you have a company noticeboard? And if you do, what kind of information
do you put on the noticeboard?
2. Who usually posts things on the noticeboard? Managers or is everyone
allowed to post?
10.
Business memos:
1. Do you use memos, or have they been replaced by email?
11.
Business reports:
1. What types of reports are used mostly?
2. How often do you issue reports?
12.
Texting:
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Brainstorming sessions:
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14.
How does texting help in communicating with your employees?
What platforms do you use for texting?
Do you think texting is a need?
Do you think texting is a faster communication method?
Is there a company text group?
How often do you have brainstorming sessions?
How effective are they?
Are all your employees included in the sessions, or just the managers?
How vocal are employees in brainstorming sessions? Do they feel comfortable
enough to contribute? Do you take their contributions seriously?
Staff meetings:
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How often do you have staff meetings? Do they recur on a set date?
How do you announce staff meetings? What platforms do you use?
In your opinion how effective are the meetings?
What kind of information is usually provided in staff meeting announcements
(dates, locations, meeting purpose and agenda…)?
Is a meeting agenda usually created in advance, and if so what does a typical
meeting agenda contain?
Are employees invited to all staff meetings or just the employees that are
relevant to the meeting purpose?
Do you often acknowledge accomplishments and team members’ hard work
during staff meetings?
Are notes usually taken during staff meetings? If so, are they shared with the
invitees afterwards?
9. Do you ask staff members for feedback on the success of staff meetings? If so,
how?
15.
Posters:
1. Do you use posters to convey information to employees? If so, what kind of
information is usually conveyed in poster form?
2. Do you believe workplace posters are effective in reminding employees of
how they must conduct themselves in the workplace?
16.
Telephone calls:
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Do you use telephone calls often in your business?
Do you think there is a need to communicate with telephone calls?
What kind of information do you usually convey through the telephone?
In matters of condolences, disciplinary issues, sensitive and confidential
issues, do you use telephone, texting or email as a communication tool?
5. How do you conduct yourself during a business call? Are conversations
formal in tone? Or are they more laid back?
17. Staff training:
1. Does every new employee undergo staff training?
2. Describe your staff training process? What subjects are covered in staff training?
3. Do you ever retrain staff?
4. How important do you think staff training is in your line of work? Why?
5. Who usually conducts staff training?
6.
How do you know the training is complete? Do you test the trainees? Ask for their
feedback?
7.
Do you ever update your training program? If so, why?
External Communication:
1. Website:
1. Do you have a website for the company?
2. If you don’t have a website, do you use any third-party websites to promote your
company online?
2.
Social Media:
1. Do you use social media such as Facebook and Instagram for the company?
2. How frequently do you post updates on these platforms? What kind of information
is posted on these platforms?
3. Do employees use their personal social media to promote the company?
4. If so, what kind of information do they share (is it a photograph, company news, a
well-known industry article or just their thoughts on the way their workplace
operates)?
5. Do you engage directly with customers through social media, do you respond to
customer inquiries regularly? When responding to customer inquiries what kind of
language do you use, casual or formal?
3.
Live events:
1. has your company held or taken part in any live events? If so, what kind of events?
2. Were they promotional events or team building events?
4.
Email and newsletters:
1. Do you have a company newsletter?
2. How has the newsletter helped in customer feedback?
3. Do you ask customers for their email information? Do you use email for
promotion?
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Posters:
1. Do you use posters for promotion? If so, are they physical ones or online posters?
2. If you use both, which one is more cost effective?
Feedback:
1. Do you collect customer feedback, if so, how?
2. How seriously do you take customer feedback?
Telephone:
1. Do you communicate with customers through telephone?
2. If so, are there certain etiquette rules set in place on how to communicate with
customers on the phone?
3. Is phone etiquette covered in staff training?
4. Have you ever received negative feedback on your phone etiquette? If so, what
were the complaints?
Supplier communication:
1. How often do you communicate with your suppliers?
2. Do you keep suppliers up to date on recent developments in your business?
3. What communication methods do you use to interact with your suppliers? Face-to
face? Emails? Telephone calls?
4. When issues arise, do you discuss them immediately?
5. Do you regularly review the performance of your suppliers? If so, have you ever
identified any areas for improvement?
6. Do you give feedback to suppliers? And ask for their feedback in return?
Challenges Faced in the Communication Process:
1. Do any language barriers exist within the company, or between employees and
customers?