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Report

orderly and objectivecommunication of

factual information that

serves some business

purpose

5

Report Writing: Content &

Structure

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Typical Business ReportsPeriodic Operating Reports: To monitor and

control production, sales, shipping, service etc.

Situational Reports: To describe one time events

such as trips, conferences and seminars

Investigative/ Informational Reports: To examine

problems and supply facts with little analysis

Compliance Reports: To respond to government

agencies and laws, such as the Equal Employment

Opportunities Commission

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Justification / Recommendation Reports: To

make recommendations to management and

become tools to solve problems and make decisions

Yardstick Reports: To establish and evaluate

alternatives by measuring against the yardstick criteria

Feasibility Reports: To analyze problems andpredict whether alternatives will be practical or

advisable

Proposals: To offer to solve problems, investigate

ideas, or sell products and services

Typical Business Reports

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FORMAL REPORT

COMPONENTS/STRUCTURE

1. Preliminaries

2. Main Body

3. Conclusions & Recommendations

4. Appendix

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Title Page

Balance the following lines:

y Name of the report

y Receivers name, title, and organization

y Authors name, title, and organizationy Date submitted

Preliminaries

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On January 10, 2005, Sipra Sahdev,

Professor, OB, IIM Lucknow , submitted

a report entitled Analysis of motivationin todays workforce, to the Head, HR

Department, Tata Automobile, Lucknow,

Dr. Anuj Khandelwal

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ANALYSIS OF MOTIVATIONIN TODAYS

WORKFORCE

Submitted to

Dr. Anuj Khandelwal

Head of HR DepartmentTataAutomobile

Lucknow

Prepared by

Sipra Sahdev

Professor

Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow

January 10, 2005

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Letter or Memo of TransmittalCover Letter

Announce the topic and explain who

authorized it.

Briefly describe the project and preview the

conclusions - if the reader is supportive.

Close by expressing appreciation for theassignment, suggesting follow-up actions,

acknowledging the help of others, and

offering to answer questions.

Preliminaries

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TO: Dr .Anuj Khandelwal, Head of HR Department, Tata Automobile, Lucknow

FROM: Sipra Sahdev, Professor, IIML

DATE: January 10, 2005

SUBJECT: MOTIVATING EMPLOYEES ATTATAAUTOMOBILE, LUCKNOW

Here is the report that you requested about motivation in todays workplace, along with

recommendations on how to implement strategies in our bank to motivate employees.The report

included both secondary research using professional and scholarly journals and primary

research using personal interviews with Arpit Parnerkar, Rajiv Vidyarthi, and Meenakshi Muhania.

Based on the findings in this report, I have concluded that money alone is not enoughto motivate employees in todays workforce. Having unmotivated employees is detrimental to an

organization.Managers or supervisors can motivate their employees by effectively

communicating with them, recognizing and praising effective performances, and implementing

effective incentive programs. Having motivated employees increases productivity, sales rates,

and morale. Recommendations for motivating employees at Tata Autmobile, Lucknow include

meeting with employees frequently, letting them know how they are doing, and offering rewards

that are valuable to employees.

I am grateful to Arpit Parnerkar, Rajiv Vidyarthi, and Meenakshi Muhania for taking

time out of their busy schedules to talk with me about motivation in todays workforce.Their

opinions contributed greatly to my success in completing this report.

Kindly contact me if you need additional information or if you have questions . I would

be happy to assist you in any way when implementing some of the recommendations presented

in this report.

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Table of Contents

Show the beginning page numberwhere each report heading appears

in the report.

Connect page numbers and headingswith dots.

Preliminaries

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TRANSMITTAL MEMO ii

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..iv

INTRODUCTION .1

SECONDARY RESEARCH USING PROFESSIONAL AND

SCHOLARLYJOURNALS ..2

Reasons for Lack ofMotivation .2

Consequences 3Techniques or Strategies to Motivate Employees .3

Benefits ofMotivating Employees 5

PRIMARY RESEARCH USING INTERVIEWS 6

Conducting the Interviews .6

Reporting the Results of the Personal Interviews 6

CONCLUSIONS 7

RECOMMENDATIONS .8

REFERENCES .9

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List of Illustrations

Include a list of tables, abbreviations,

illustrations, glossary, or figures.

Place the list on the same page as the table

of contents if possible.

Preliminaries

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Acknowledgement

Not to be overdone, thank the tea

man only if he was reallyinstrumental in writing the report.

Typically thank the one or two

people who facilitated your work

Preliminaries

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Executive Summary, Summary

or Abstract Background, the methodology, problems, &recommendations Summarize the report purpose, findings,

conclusions, and recommendations.

Gauge the length of the summary by the

length of the report and by the

organizations practices.

One or two pages generally

Self contained (non-technical) making

sense of its own. Use 4-5 keywords

Preliminaries

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Organizational plan for an executive summary

Begin with the purpose and the scope of the report

Relate your purpose to a key problem

Identify in non-technical language the criteria used to

solve the problem

Condense the findings of your reportStress conclusions and possible solutions

Provide recommendations

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Summaries and abstracts are simply shorterversions of longer documents. These longerdocuments can be letters, memos, reports,

journal articles, manuals, even books.

Summaries &

Abstracts

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A summary (sometimes called an informativeabstract) is a specific, detailed overview of alonger document. A summary includesinformation about the contents of the longerdocument and specifics about any conclusions orrecommendations the longer document contains.

An abstract (sometimes called a descriptiveabstract) is a general, short overview of a longerdocument. An abstract simply describes what alonger document discusses. It is concerned withcontent, not with conclusions or

recommendations contained in the originaldocument. An abstract simply expands brieflyupon the table of contents of the longerdocument.

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In writing a summary, you can leave out:background discussions

personal commentsdigressionsintroductionsexplanationsexamples, especially lengthy ones

visualsdefinitions, especially long or complicated onesdata supported by assertions rather than evidence.

But you can not leave outpurposeessential specificsconclusions or resultsrecommendations or implications

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With some practice, summaries are easy to write. Here is an easy-to followprocedure for writing summaries.

Read the entire document to develop a sense of both what it says and how it

says it. (As the writer of the longer document, you may have become soinvolved with the writing that you can no longer remain objective.

Read the document a second time, underlining the main points or eliminatingthe secondary and supporting points. (In a well-written document, these mainpoints may simply be topic or thesis sentences.) Concentrate on basic ideas only.

Eliminate supporting facts, examples, or data. Eliminate illustrations and bibliographic references. Combine similar ideas into more direct single statements.Avoid technical terminology. Condense information as concisely as possible.

Rewrite whats left from the original, whether or not you authored the originaldocument. Begin with a clear statement of the longer documents main idea. Supply any necessary transition between the points in your abstract. when necessary, break your abstract up into logical paragraphs that parallelthe organizational pattern of the longer documents.

Dont hesitate to use any of the formatting tricks we introduced earlier in

this textbook.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Purpose of the Report

The purposes of this report are to (1) explain why employees become unmotivated, (2) identify

the consequences a company endures with unmotivated employees, (3) discuss strategies or techniques

organizations can use to motivate their employees, and (4) show the positive consequences a companyenjoys with motivated employees.

Secondary research was conducted using the American Business Index. Nine professional and

scholarly journals were used for the report. Primary research consisted of personal interviews with Lonny

Cooper, Jon Wenzel, and Reza Rich. Secondary and primary research contributed equally to the success of

this report.

Motivation in Todays Workforce

Findings from professional and scholarly journals and personal interviews revealed that

employees become unmotivated when communication breaks down between management and subordinates.

Lack of motivation in employees tends to increase carelessness, absenteeism, resource waste, and turnover

rates in an organization. Because employees possess different values, they are motivated by different things.

Communicating information, praising employees, and recognizing effective performance are key strategies a

manager or supervisor can use to motivate employees. Production, sales rates, and morale all increase when

employees become motivated.

The results of this research revealed a surprising concept: money alone is not enough to

motivate employees today.

Recommendations forMotivating Employees

Recommendations for motivating employees at TATAAUTOMOBILE, LUCKNOW include (1)

offering bank tellers valued rewards for balancing their cash drawers perfectly every day for one month and

for each consecutive month, (2) meeting with each branch monthly to recognize, praise, and congratulate

employees for successful performance, (3) sending memos to each employee showing how much profit each

branch has made on a monthly basis and showing how that branch earned the profit, and (4) giving

employees a choice as to whether they want extra pay or time off from work when extra hours are put in each

week.

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Introduction: TOR

Founding text of the Report Explain the problem motivating the report.

Describe the problems background and

significance.

Clarify the scope and limitations of the report.

Consider reviewing relevant literature.

Consider describing data sources, methods,

and key terms.

Close by previewing the reports organization.

MAIN BODY

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Body

Discuss, analyze, and interpret the

research findings or proposed solution to

the problem.

Arrange the findings in logical segments

that follow your outline.

Use clear, descriptive headings.

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Conclusions and

Recommendations Reminder of general framework of the

assignment. Summary of findings.

Explain what the findings mean in relation

to the problem.

Make enumerated recommendations, ifrequested.

Suggest actions for solving the problem.

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Recommendation

Explore the possibility of satellite parking

lots with frequent shuttle buses to campus.

Conclusion

Our investments are losing value because the stock

market has declined. The bond market shows strength.

Recommendation

Withdraw at least half of our investment

in stocks, and invest it in bonds.

Conclusion

The cost of constructing multilevel parking structures

for student on-campus parking is prohibitive.

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Appendix

Include items of interest to some, but notall, readers, such as data-gathering tools

like questionnaires.

Organizational chart

Documents written for client

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References and Bibliography

If footnotes are not provided, list all

references in a section called Notes,Works Cited, or References.

Optionally, include a bibliography

showing all the works cited (and perhaps consulted) arranged

alphabetically.

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Components in Formal and

Informal ReportsGenerally appear in both

formal and informal proposals:

Optional in informal Proposals:

Bibliography

Notes

Appendix

Recommendations

Conclusions

Body

Introduction

Letter of transmittal

Title Page

Cover

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Executive summary or abstract

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Overall considerations

Not to cram too much information in one

sentence, too many words on one page

Wasting some space on margin does not

waste your point

Do not forget to leave some space on left

for binding

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Go for simplicity

Quote liberally, if you will but use

All pages to be numbered

PLEASE : use correction, reread,

submit to outside criticism.

Overall considerations

Style, Unity, Coherence, Power, Precision, Clarity, Courtesy, Appearance

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Journal Article

Taylor, W. A. (1996). Sectoral investigation ofmanagement mind-sets and managementbehaviour. Total Quality Management 7(4),385-400.

Author (last

name, forename

initials)Year

Title of the

Article

Title of theJournal

Volume Issue

Pages

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Web Download

Joshi, V.T. and Chawla, A. (1999).Selection of candidates and democracy.Retrieved January 24, 2003 from.

Author (last

name, forename

initials) Year

Title of the

Article

Website

Address

RetrievalDate

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Bibliography

References

Barrons, E. (1998). A comparison of domestic and

international consumption of legumes. Journal of

Economic Agriculture 23 (3), 45-49.

Meadows, M. (1997 September 30). Peanut crop is anything

but peanuts at home and overseas. Business Monthly, 14,

31-34.

Peanut Advisory Board( No date). History of Peanut Butter.

Retrieved January 17, 1999 from

.

Illustration: APA Style (Bibliography)

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Dedicated Programs like

Biblioscape (http://www.biblioscape.com/)

Citation (http://www.oberon-res.com/)

Endnote (http://ww.endnote.com/)

Nota Bene (http://www.notabene.com/)

Can format citations in various styles like:

MLA, Chicago Manual ofStyle, APA