Interdepartemental Communication

 

1.	Vital need of communication. In any large organization there is a fine subdivision of functions, requiring constant communication between the members. Orders must be transmitted to subordinates, who must confirm receipt of the orders and report upon their execution. Subordinates and officials must frequently consult with one another. Men in one room find it necessary to consult files, books or catalogs in another room. Stenographers are constantly needing new supplies. There is a constant inflow of mail to the different departments of the business, and a corresponding outflow of answering mail. Interdepartmental communications are therefore of the greatest importance. Communication facilities in the office must provide for the transmission of various sorts of things: (a) verbal messages ; (b) written messages ; (c) material, such as typewriting paper, pencils, etc.; (d) correspondence files, catalogs, library books; (e) business documents such as orders and requisitions which in their normal course must pass thru many hands.
2.	Unproductive time. Unless there is efficient means of communication there is danger that workers will waste much time moving about the office to consult with one another, to examine records or correspondence or to get supplies. The time which an employe spends away from his desk is generally unproductive. Interdepartmental communications aim to overcome the disadvantages of the spacial separation and enable employes to carry on their intercourse with the same ease as if they were seated side by side. In many offices the working force is constantly beset by interruptions which lower the efficiency of the work. The time needed to perform specific lines of office work is governed not so much by the actual volume of work as by the intervals between the performance of the various steps into which the work is divided. If those intervals can be cut down, there will be a large saving in time and consequent increase in output.
3.	Reducing waste motion. Good facilities for intercommunication in an office benefit every member of the force. It has an important effect upon the discipline of the workers. Efficient discipline cannot be maintained if employes needlessly leave their desks and spend their time upon interdepartmental visits. Business is normally conducted under pressure. Therefore, whatever hinders the rapid flow of work thru an office will prove a source of irritation to the management. It cannot be expected that the executive himself should desert more important functions in order to attend to routine work. Yet close attention to this routine work is what is demanded of him if there is congestion in the system, because of a faulty circulation of information, messages or documents thru the office. He has to find the point of congestion and remove it. Betterment of office communications can be madean important part of the work of the planning department.

4.

Surveys for communication systems. It is usually possible to determine by means of a survey the adequacy or insufficiency of a firm's intercommunication facilities. An insurance company was recently confronted with the problem of remodeling its home office building in order to adjust the available floor space to the growing needs of its business. Before deciding upon the location of different departments, the company found it necessary to study the flow of the business thru the office and determine what departments could most advantageously be grouped together. The first thing done was to secure a record of the interviews occurring between the employes of different branches of the office organization. A chart was made in a department containing about twenty five employes, each of whom was provided with a form ruled to report incoming communications on the upper half and outgoing communications on the lower. The business day was divided into halfhourly periods, from 8.30 a. m. to 4 p. m., these halfhour designations heading the vertical columns;. The horizontal columns represented the days of the week. On the back of the blank there appeared in alphabetical order the names of all the employes involved. To each name a number was assigned. The object of the blank was to record the names of all persons from other departments who visited this department during one week's time. On the lower half of the blank (outgoing communications) the employe was asked to record the names of those persons in other departments whom he was obliged to see. During a certain specified week this record was kept by each employe, and at the end of the week the results were turned over to a central department for analysis. At the same time a summary sheet was made out, on which all the incoming and outgoing communications of each employe were grouped in such a manner as to show the total nmnber of communications with any other employe during the week. Employes were also required to state, as accurately as possible, the reasons for such communications, and were instructed, in cases where communications occurred for different reasons, to summarize them separately and as accurately as possible. A comparison of the summary sheets made it possible to study the causes for conmfiunications, and much valuable information was in that manner obtained. A third form was employed for listing all such absences from the department as were for the purpose of consulting records, securing correspondence or documents from the files and for doing work that did not require interviews with others. It was the company's plan to use this information for ascertaining the most convenient location of various files thru out the office, and to discover the extent to which the individual clerks were performing work for different departments which might be centralized into a general service department, a mailing department or a filing department. The information secured by this means enabled the insurance company to reach definite conclusions regarding the layout and assignment of office space. In addition, it was possible with this information to demonstrate the need for several service departments. The chief form used by the insurance company is reproduced on the following page. It may be adapted to the needs of almost any business organization. It affords a practical means of studying interdepartmental service.

5.

Other modes of survey. Other methods of making a survey of the present systems of communication within the office, will suggest themselves. By the use of telephone counters (a simple numbering device operated by a lever) on the telephone switchboard, the operator can record all calls of interdepartmental and outside business, and the results will help to indicate whether or not a "house telephone" should be installed. Similarly the elevator operator can be instructed to keep a list of the employes using the elevator to visit other departments. The purpose of information thus obtained is to minimize the extent of visits either by rearranging the location of desks or by providing efficient means of communication, such as office boys or telephones, to make the visits unnecessary.

6.	Study of route of orders. The actual layout of an office is, however, most frequently effected by a study of another kind of office intercommunication, namely the routing of orders thru the office. Orders are the documents that most frequently pass from hand to hand. It often happens that delay in one department nullifies the good work of other departments concerned in handling the orders, and when a delay occurs in the shipment of goods, the disappointed customer does not level his criticism at any one department but at the concern as a whole. The chain is no stronger than its weakest link. Accordingly, the control of the passage of orders thru the office should be centralized in the hands of responsible authorityeither the office manager or a standing committee working under him. The office manager, in order to make an intelligent study of the existing methods of handling orders, should provide himself with plans that show the relation of each department to the others. These plans should show not only the layout of each subdivision but also the location of all desks and filing equipment. On these diagrams the route which the order takes in passing thru the office may be charted, so that a study can be made of possible improvements. In such a study, the following points, among others, w^ould have to be taken into consideration
	1).	Are the workers so arranged that the work passes from one desk to the other in the shortest possible line, and without the necessity of doubling back?
	2).	Are the files located near the desks of those who are obliged to use them most frequently ?
	3).	Can any steps in the present handling of orders be eliminated
	One company, as a result of a scientific study of the principles of dispatching, brought about the result that its principal unit of work, which formerly required an average of three days, was reduced to a standard schedule of three hours. Orders received in the first morning's mail are disposed of by noon of the same day.

       

7.

Transmitting messages mail. The written messages to be transmitted within an office organization are of two sorts: outside messages (mail) and inside messages (interdepartmental. The handling of the mail is in large offices the function of a special mailing department. The distribution of the mail is attended to by an office service department which also attends to the transmission of messages, materials, supplies and documents between the members of the organization. In so far as the use of mechanical message carriers have not relieved employes of the necessity of moving about, the office service department the office boys aiford them this relief.

8.

Incoming mail. There is perhaps no branch of office work more important than the opening, sorting and distribution of the incoming mail. An hour gained in the morning may add several to the business day. Office work usually moves along according to a fixed schedule, and if the mail misses the beginning of the schedule, it usually lies over until a later hour. The chief consideration in the handling of incoming mail is that it shall be placed in the hands of the proper persons at the earliest possible moment. In one business house a correspondence manager examines all incoming mail and marks the letters for the departments to which they are to be sent. The departments are designated by number. Some letters go successively to various departments, the manager indicating the order which such a letter is to follow. If it is necessary that the letter make the rounds within a certain time, the correspondence manager lists the departments to which it is to go, and indicates the time within which the letter must be returned. All mail except such as is marked "personal" is opened by the correspondence manager. When a letter must be referred to several departments especially if it is an important letter it is sometimes copied and a copy sent to each department interested. The general mail-distributing clerk or the departmental mail distributing clerk should see that there is noted on every letter or attached to it, all information and every record which tlie correspondent needs in proceeding to answer that letter.

9.

Outgoing mail. The handling of the outgoing mail embraces the collection, putting up, sealing and dispatching of mail from all departments. The office service department does the collecting of the mail, in accordance with the collecting schedule fixed by the mailing department and observed by the departments which create outgoing mail. Frequently some departments dispose of their mail promptly at or before the end of the business day, while others do not. As a result, delays occur from which the entire mail system suffers. This condition is sometimes due to the fact that certain department heads instead of signing their mail at intervals during the business day, permit it to lie on their desks unattended until after office hours. An effort should be made to dispatch outgoing mail in conformity with the mail-train schedules for different parts of the country. A little care in that direction sometimes will save an entire day in the delivery of important mail. In most large concerns the folding, inserting and sealing of letters is done by the mailing dej^artment. In this work there is an opportunity for standardization which is not without influence upon the effect which the letters produce. For example, the rule book of a certain manufacturing concern in the East gives the following instructions with respect to the folding of letters : In folding a letter for an ordinary envelop, do not place the bottom of the sheet even with the top before folding crosswise, but place the bottom of the sheet an eighth or a quarter of an inch below the top, then fold in the usual way. by folding in this manner, the party receiving and opening letter will find that there is room to grasp the top without taking hold of the bottom of the sheet at the same time, and the letter may be unfolded or shaken open with a quick jerk. Since expenditures for postage, even in a concern of only moderate size, amount to a large item during the course of a year, an effort should be made wherever possible, to group all letters intended for any one correspondent, such as a branch office, so that they may be mailed in one envelop at the close of the day's business and thus reduce postage to a minimum. This can be done by providing a rack with a series of compartments for the mail of those with whom correspondence is regularly carried on by several departments. In these compartments the outgoing letters are assembled during the course of the day and mailed at night in a single envelop. Various mechanical devices are found valuable in the handling of outgoing mail ; among these, envelop sealing and stamping machines, weighing scales, addressing machines, etc. These are described in Chapter V, "Office Appliances."

    

From Mr. Mise. 36 10. "Put it in writing." It is recognized as an important rule of modern business practice that all instruction must be in writing, and this applies also to information sent from one division to another. It is found that oral messages waste time, that they often cause annoying interruptions and that they are frequently misunderstood or forgotten. The function of collecting and distributing such interoffice messages is one of the main functions of the office service department. Forms used for recording various kinds of office communications offer a good field for standardization. Memorandum forms usually have the initials of the sender and the person addressed, as well as the subject matter and the date of sending recorded at the top of the blank in spaces indicated for that purpose. A form, long used by a certain office and found to answer all ordinary requirements, is reproduced on the opposite page.   11. Saving writing. A somewhat different form, used by the Federal Reserve Bank of Xew York City, is also reproduced. Under the heading "Deliver to" appear the names of various officials and departments, the person addressed being indicated by a check mark. Under a second heading, "Instructions," are a number of brief instructions of a typical character, and at the foot of the blank is a space for the name of the sender. One edge of the blank is gummed to facilitate attaching it to correspondence. The Federal Reserve Bank form illustrates the growing tendency to reduce writing to a minimum and substitute the checking of printed paragraphs wherever possible. In the case of a document that must be inspected by a number of men, a gummed label, like the one just described, can be attached, and each man can put a check mark opposite his name when he has completed his inspection, thus releasing the document to be forwarded to the next name on the list. When the sender of an interdepartmental message wishes to keep a record of the fact that the message was sent, there is no substitute for a carbon of the message. Even in such cases, however, it is possible to reduce the amount of typewriting by diminishing the use of titles, salutations and other formality, and substituting It is a good practice to use colored forms and envelops for interdepartmental messages. It is then impossible to confuse such communications with outgoing mail. 12. The office boys. So far as possible, locomotion in the office should be performed by the office service department. 'The quality of the messenger service depends upon the work of young and relatively inexperienced junior clerks and boys whose understanding and appreciation of the work must be developed before they can be expected to render good service.   13. Regular schedule. It is essential to a satisfactory messenger service that the trips made by messengers thru the various departments in the office be both frequent and regular. Just how often these trips must be made depends, of course, upon the size and requirements of the organization. In one large manufacturing business where a great deal of ground must be covered and where many letters as well as small packages must be transferred from one department to another, a messenger starts out every ten minutes, and this rate is kept up thruout the day. In a large banking institution it is the practice to have messengers make the rounds every fifteen minutes. In institutions where the need for prompt exchange of information between dei)artments is not so urgent, halfhourly and even hourly intervals may do. For distributing and collecting purposes, messengers are usually provided with leather receptacles containing separate departements for the different divisions of the organization. When the interdepartemental messages collected are brought back to the central station of the office service departement, the messages are sorted as to destination and sent out for desk distribution on the next trip. The same, of course applies to packages, files, etc. 14. Collection baskets To facilitate the collection and distribution of interdepartmental mail messages, some concerns have regular collection baskets on rubber wheels which the boys use in making the rounds of the office. These baskets, as a rule, consist of three compartments. One of the baskets is intended for incoming papers, the second for the collection of outgoing papers, and the third for holding correspondence which is to be returned to the files. At the central distributing station for departmental messages a rack of pigeon holes facilitates distribution of the collected matter.   15. Checking up the office boy To prevent delays and errors due to carelessness of messengers, and to enable the person in charge of the office service department to trace delays to the boy responsible for them, a checking system has been devised. Mail and messages for distribution are placed in a basket or tray marked "Outgoing," and are collected when the messenger boy distributes mail or messages to an adjoining basket or tray marked "Incoming." The baskets or receptacles are emptied at regular intervals on the route. Each card must be marked with the time of collection as, for example, "This tray was emptied at 8;30 A. M." Each messenger has a certain number of trays or baskets on his route and is held responsible for all collections and deliveries. In each receptacle there is a card showing the time of the last delivery,   16. Speeding up communication The officers of a well known banking company found it necessary, in order to expedite the delivery of messages and letters from one department to another, to provide the office boys with some means of rapid locomotion. The ordinary steel-wheeled roller skates being too noisy, a specially constructed wheel was made of rubber, and the boys now glide swiftly and noiselessly from desk to desk.  Review Why is it necessary to have well-planned methods for intercommunication between departments? Describe the various factors that should be taken into consideration in making a survey for intercommunication systems.   Why is a well-planned mailing system absolutely essential in a large office?   How may a delay of ten minutes inside mean a delay of twenty-four hours in outside delivery?   Why are oral messages apt to cause misunderstandings ?   May mechanical "office boys" be substituted entirely for office boys themselves?   If not, to what extent?