Communication Strategies for Improved Employee Performance. “…intangible assets are the knowledge, expertise, effort and innovation of the people who do the work and the thinking.” (Dr R Varey)

Editor: I read an article in the May 1999 edition of "FINANCIAL WORLD". It includes the following observations:

"We should re-look at business from a different standpoint to capture the gap between the balance sheet and market valuation of an enterprise. The intangible assets are the real value of the knowledge, expertise, effort and innovation of the people who do the work and the thinking.

Product innovation, customer loyalty, employee morale and intellectual property rights are critical to the success of co-operative enterprise, yet are hardly valued by traditional accounting procedures. Intellectual capital is perhaps the greatest opportunity for (the) professional renewal and development of accountancy.

While organisations have been viewed as collections of tasks, products, employees, profit-centres and processes, today there is increasing interest in regarding them as knowledge-creating systems."

and

"We have yet to realise, most of us, that the traditional conception of communication as a transportation mechanism for moving ideas between us is outmoded. Today knowledge has far more value than physical goods, but only when shared and deployed in value creation for stakeholders."

and

"Computer-mediated communication can provide increased flexibility for worker and corporation but it is not without costs. Teleworkers are robbed of their primary, rich and emotionally-charged communication experiences and are subject to the cold and unsociable domain of working at a distance."

This article is only two pages in length. FINANCIAL WORLD is published by the Chartered Institute of Bankers (incorporating the Institute of Financial Services). Write to editor@ifslearning.com  or view http://www.ifslearning.com.

Author: Dr Richard Varey, Director of the Corporate Communication Research Unit of the Graduate School of Management at the University of Salford, U.K.

Editor: Ron Wells