Communication Problem In Baerlocher Company And Its Impact On Operations Management

Literature Review

Communication is the driving factor for all operations which take place in the operations management. It is what unites a community (Wrench, 2013).Through communication, meaning is constructed. It entails the study of symbols, interactions, networks, relationships, and messages. Without it, then every process will come to a standstill. Currently, the Baerlocher Company is facing a major communication problem.  This is due to several factors like for instance; the company has employees from Spain, France, Germany, US, and Australia. They do not all understand a common language (Rouse and Rouse, 2015).Another cause lies on the management which is dormant in communicating strategies on time. There is need to address the issue so that the best strategies are formulated to solve the problem. A problem not solved is a risk postponed which might lead to the downfall of the organization. The Baerlocher Company is a multinational company which was started in 1823 (Oliver, 2017). The firm supplies hydrophobic agents for pasty plasters, minerals, facade paints, and several others. It is among the leading suppliers of metal stearates and PVC additives (Kara, 2015). I decided to select this topic since it can help in identifying the key issues leading to communication breakdown in the company. This can help the organization to fill in the communication challenge gap in order to attain its set goals and objectives by improving performance.

In the production department, more especially during work breaks like lunch hours, one is likely to find employees divided according to their languages chatting different topics to pass the time. When the others who do not understand their language pass next to them and find them laughing, they usually think that they are laughing at them. This has caused several chaoses in the work environment thereby leading to poor performance. Management has not been able to solve the problem, and that counts for the need of strategies to solve the problem.

Communication is not a new concept in the environment. Starting from the early man: according to the evolution theory by Charles Darwin which gives the stages of human development from Aegyptopithecus, Dryopithecus, Kenyapithecus, Australopithecus Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens to Homo sapiens sapiens, man has been developing his speech. Speech is affected by the geographical positions of people, and it starts developing from a tender age. The memory of a child is like a blank slate and can be taught any language and learn it, but for the mature people, it is another story. Once affected by the initial language, changing it becomes a problem. Now that you work with people who do not use a language you understand, how do you communicate? How will you make sure you get what they are telling you or what you say to them? With diversity and globalization, people work in foreign cultures in foreign nations.  Failure to develop a strategy to solve difference in language might lead to the failure of a company. This can be related to the biblical knowledge which the Christian community believe that during the tower of Babel, construction of the tower did not continue due misunderstandings which resulted from people speaking different languages. There is need to accommodate all employees in an organization despite their social, religion or ethical backgrounds. But how do we ensure that operation management is supporting a better performance and strategies implemented work out well? The Baerlocher Company is facing this problem currently. To increase the work output, customer service and operations, the problem needs to be addressed.

Problem-solving Process

Performance and organizational strategies have always been linked to the organizational communication. Several definitions of communication have been formed over a period. Despite the different definitions, communication remains to have two main objectives in an organization, which are:

• Informing workers about their tasks
• Implementing policies in the workplace

Organizational culture is built from communication. For the operations strategies and performance to be effective in Baerlocher Company, the need to address communication problem is of great significance. According to the Queuing theory by Agner Krarup, decision making is a process which takes place in specific periods with a single entity at a go. The queuing theory refers to a mathematical study where events or people have to wait in lines to create order. The communication process can also be analyzed using this theory. There are several communication levels in the Baerlocher cooperation which include vertical communication, horizontal communication and downward communication. Horizontal communication is the communication which takes place between or among people who share a common rank or position in the organization. Downward communication takes place between people of the high rank and low rank. For instance supervisors talking to the employees. For the upward communication, employees pass information to their seniors. Upward communication is limited in this company and mainly happens when employees are raising arguments regarding payments and motivation. The most dominant communication form in Baerlocher is horizontal communication. Despite it being dominant, it is also the most affected due to cultural differences and lack of a common language understanding. How can this issue be solved? According to the theory of problem-solving behavior, solving a problem first begins by identifying the attributes which led to the challenge. According to statistics, organizational culture is directly proportional to the success in the performance of the organization. This means that a high performance will only be obtained if the organization will value organizational culture. The question among many people remains, can a good corporate culture be built if there is communication breakdown? It cannot. The only way forward which has proved to work in organizations is by first doing away with the obstacles present.  

From the SWOT and PESTLE analysis of the company, the environment is impacting a lot on the decisions which have to be made in the organization. For instance, the use of technology is an added advantage for the company in improving performance. Can this technology be used to solve the communication problem in the organization? According to the New World information order, the social media we taking over other communication channels at a very alarming rate. Currently, people do not rely on television, radio or the print media for communication. Technology in the ICT sector is improving very fast. Most organizations have adapted to the new technologies which have in turn facilitated the communication speed rate. From these statistics, it is our expectation that communication problems should be minimal in organizations which have adopted the new communication channels. Does Baerlocher Company has such communication strategies? If it has, then why is communication affecting the production rate in the company? Baerlocher has a well-established website which is easily navigable. With the information on the web, we do not expect the internal communication to be a problem. What is the problem then? The problem begins with the implementation process. A company can have the best policies, but if they are not put into action, they are of no value. This can just be compared to a person with a business idea. Having a business idea does not make you an entrepreneur, but implementing those ideas into a successful project does make one an entrepreneur. For a long time, companies have been able to solve problems by following the following criteria of the problem-solving process:

1. Identifying the problem
   one should have a clear understanding of the issue at stake.
2. Understanding the interests of every person
   The Baerlocher management should conduct research to know what the employees want for the problem to be solved
3. List down all the possible solutions.
   All the possible solutions have to be put down for comparisons and conclusions to be made. The best solution can be achieved when several ideas are put together to come up with one sound decision.
4. Evaluation of the options.
   Evaluating the possible results of the solutions from the list is a guideline to the beat option.
5. Selection
   The best solution/solutions are made.
6. Documentation of the agreement.
   Once reaching consensus, it is good to write the agreement down for future references in case such a problem will prevail again.
7. Monitoring and evaluating the solutions.
   The evaluation of the implemented solution is a step taken to find out whether the outcome is positive for the organization to perform better than before.

Before the social media came into much use in the 1990s, organizations had a problem in the communication of strategies to their employees who worked in other nations if they had were operating at an international scale. In fact, to inform them a person had to be sent to deliver the message. This was time wasting, expensive and slow in decision making. But when the social media came into wide use, most people make use of the existing platforms like twitter, Instagram and Facebook to communicate. Will using these technologies help in solving the problem in Baerlocher? All these questions lead to the following questions (Torres, Preskill and Piontek, 2015). 

The management of Baerlocher is well aware of the existence of people from different nationalities who do not understand English Fluently to use it as a common language of communication, what has it done to solve the problem?

1. What are the effects of the communication breakdown in relation to the operation management in the cooperation’s strategies and performance?
2. Which implementations might serve best if introduced?
3. Can any improvements be made to the Human Resource department so that when recruiting staff only those who can use the company’s official language are selected? What will be the implication of this?
4. What actions are the employees taking to manage the crisis?

I used several methods in collecting, analyzing and presenting the information from the Baerlocher Company. In determining the methods, I had to put several factors under consideration

I preferred to work with observation and questionnaire methods for data collection since they do not require big budgets.  For data recording, I employed tabulation and recording since they are fast and affordable. For the presentation, the use of graphs, tables and charts was efficient. It is easy for the audience to draw conclusions from those data presentation methods.

Since I work in the organization, observation served to be the best method for my research.  I like relying on the first-hand information. I walked through the various department of Baerlocher to observe what was taking place during work hours as well as when off-duty for lunch breaks. In one of the rooms, I found two groups each on different tables. Why two groups yet there are enough seats to accommodate all the people in one table? What aroused my interest most is that I knew these people worked in the same department.  I found out that their nationality divided them. One group was French, and the other one consisted of American.

Throughout the organization, this was the system. I conducted extended my research to the administration (Denton, 2014). Through observation, several information was revealed (Burns, 2013).

The use of open ended questionnaire proved to work well. It provided employees with room for personal opinions and suggestions. The people questioned included some staff members, the management as well as some potential clients of the organization. Word of mouth, as well as print methods, were employed (Fowler, 2013). For the print area, I had prepared several pieces of paper with questions to fill. Some people have fear when asked questions verbally, to eliminate this, providing them with an alternative, which is writing was a necessity. Haven’t you known people who cannot talk face to face but when you go to the social media they are bullies? 

The use of the existing sources of information was helpful in relating the different theories to the real work communication situation. From the literature review, I was able to come up with the best methods to conduct the research (Lauer, 2017). Based on the knowledge gained from class and the one from extensive readings, the relationship between the real world and the literature sources was able to come out.

• The limitations of this methods are that some respondents were afraid to give out many details.
• Some forms were returned without answers and others never returned.

Upon employing the observation and questionnaire data collection techniques, several points came out regarding the Baerlocher Company operation management.

The communication gap between the top management and the employees were very low. A very small percentage of people reported their problems to the management. This is a contributing factor to the low-performance levels of the organization. Nevertheless, the managers did not make follow ups to ensure that organizational culture was well practiced. From observations made, the number of people who visited the managers for consultation was very few, even on some days, there was none. 

Few people were positive regarding the organization’s conflict solving procedure (Lin and Carley, 2013). Most respondents complained of conflicts in the work environment each day (Mwendwa, 2014). This made it difficult for people to work.  For instance, in filling the form below, this is what was observed.

The results above was obtained from thirty employees. According to the table, many people are not satisfied with the communication processes in the company. They feel that the main cause of poor performance in the management operations is the communication breakdown. From analyzing the interpersonal communication among employees approximately thirteen employees out of the thirty subjects disagree that communication is poor in Baerlocher Company. This is approximately forty-three point three percent (43.33%). This is a very large percentage which should be reduced at all costs.

The problem-solving ability of the managers is fair. There is still room for improvement.

From observation and questionnaires, most hours were spent on conflict solving rather than creativity.

                                                Pie Chart showing time division of the Baerlocher Company.

Creativity is what brings about high performance in an organization. Nevertheless, implementing new strategies in an organization relies heavily on how productive employees are. When employees spend most of their time in disputes, then the production rate of the company is likely to go down.

Another finding is that the human resource management does not put into consideration other factors like communication language when recruiting staff. It is only interested in skills and productivity. When employees report to work on their fast day, they are never taken for orientation. This makes them not to be aware of the organizational culture. This is the reason why division is existing in the company.  In an interview, this is what one of the employees had to say when she was asked about how she thinks the problem lies, “I got employed with this firm in 7^th March 2016, and unlike in my previous company I was told to report to work the following day. I was only shown my office, and that was all, no being introduced to other team members, no orientation of any kind. I have managed to make friendship with people from the UK because I can understand them, we share our problems, and that’s it. ”

This was not the only respondent with such experience, approximately seventy percent of the employees were recruited and started working immediately. What happens in other organizations? Employees are introduced to the company, shown the people they will work under and those above them, shown how the organization wants its roles to be performed and provide them with pamphlets of organizational culture and code of ethics. 

Most employees of the company have adopted the culture of staying only with people from their nationality. The behavior is not favoring the implementation of strategies in the company. People are gifted differently, and they also possess unique skills, when working, high performance is achieved through blending skills from the different individuals. The gap between the employees has killed the development process. For instance, last month an implementation on change was made. The main aim of the change was to introduce the employees to the new technologies which were introduced. This took a long time to arrive at a consensus, even to present the problem is not yet sought out.

From the literature review, language is not a thing which can be taught to a person and learn it instantly. It is a process which might take even years for the slow learners. From the opinions of many of the respondents, English should be made the official language in the company and reinforcements made to ensure that every person follows the rules governing its use. From observations:

• At least ninety percent of the employees had a few knowledge of the English language.
• A large percentage of the crew is made up people from English speaking nations.
• Most clients visiting Baerlocher Company use English as their communication language.
• All managers of the company speak English despite being from different nationalities.

From these findings, it is evident that English is dominant. In any case, the organization needs to change the communication language, then English will be the solution.

The data collection methods used were effective enough, though at some point I had to introduce interviewing. I came across respondents who never had time go through the papers. Interviewing them was a fast way of obtaining information.  Through interviewing, several factors came out. Vivid explanations were obtained as respondents were not restricted to saying anything as long as they remained within the question context. From the sixteen interviews conducted, twelve were successful. Of the five which were unsuccessful, three were managers, and two were customers. The managers did not want any interview.  I tried to find out why they were afraid because they were aware of the situation at the place.

The social media has taken over other communication channels. So many people use Facebook, Twitter or YouTube for transfer of messages. Managers can ensure that they keep in touch with employees all the time. It is not a must for them to be present throughout. For instance, through creating a Twitter Account, they can post their messages, share ideas and interact with employees all the time. This kind of communication usually builds trust among the company’s employees, therefore, promoting unity.

Form strong organizational culture which every person must abide by. Organizational culture entails the rules and ethical practices which every person has to follow in the company towards achieving its goals and objectives.

Forming a single communication language will also help to reduce disagreements due to the language barrier. The language barrier has proved to be a major problem to communication in the organization according to the findings. 

Conclusion

For success, communication is mandatory. Every process on earth involving human beings begin with communication which can be derived from several forms which include symbols from visuals, sounds, written messages, and conversations. Operation management relies on information for several functions which include:

• Recruiting of employees
• Making decisions
• Controlling and Organizing organizational functions
• Building the organization’s image.

Through the study of the significance of information, communication roles can easily be identified. The main objective of this research was to identify the communication problem which exists in the Baerlocher Company which affect the performance of the industrial activities. Performance, in turn, has a direct impact on the final consumers of the products. Most of the findings in the research were through observation and questionnaire. By solving the communication crisis, strategic management will fair to all. Concentrating on productivity is good for the company, however the environmental factors affecting the organization are very important in decision making. Through the SWOT analysis, Baerlocher Company will be able to identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  Communication breakdown is a weakness which might lead to the downfall of a company. Identifying problems in an organization is the work of both the management board and the employees. To bring the two together, a conducive environment for communication must be set up.  All the forms of communication are crucial to the success of the company. From upward communication, downward and horizontal communication.

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