Discuss about the Communication Activity In Business.
Communication is an important activity in the daily lives of people. In case of business organisations, communication plays at equally essential role. Starting from the communication of organisational goals and objectives to the employees, to ensuring the effective performance of the employees all the activities have to be carried out with the help of effective communication. The business organisation may be operational in any sector; irrespective of that, communication is an integral part of business (Austin & Pinkleton, 2015). In this assignment a multinational company has been highlighted which manufactures agricultural equipments and distribute it to its international as well as local clients. However, of late, the business organisation has been experiencing major communication issues with the employees as well as the clients. The organisation operates in 5 countries namely Australia, India, Nigeria, Oman and Vietnam. It has over 8000 employees and over a billion of customers. Being a big organisation, communication issues is a major drawback. In this assignment the various communication issues and the ways to mitigate these have been discussed (Booth, 2009). Moreover the best practices that are carried out in various other organisations have also been discussed in this assignment. Recommendations and strategies that this organisation could possibly take, in order to ensure that the communication issues are mitigated, is also highlighted. Finally of conclusion and the implication of effective communication is given.
It is important that the multinational organisation, as given in the case study, learn from the other organisations that effective communication is implemented. An in-depth analysis of those organisations highlights some of the good practices that make organisation implement effective communication with its employees as well as its clients (Yule, 2013). One of the best practices that are implemented in the business organisations with effective communication is the strict adherence to the seven C’s of communication. Each of the “c” and its impact has been described below.
Completeness- The completeness of a communication in any business organisation is desirable. Completeness highlights that all the relevant facts are communicated to the intended recipient (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Partial communication of the information will result in lack of clarity and thus with trigger confusion. Be it the communication with the employees or with the client, no relevant information should be kept secret (Booth, 2009). Incomplete communication will result in misinterpretation and thus will reduce the effectiveness of the work that is intended to be done (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016).
Conciseness- Communication needs to be concise. Business communication necessary has to be conducted in the most concise way (Brownell, 2015). This highlights the completion of communication without any redundancy (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Sharing information that is unnecessary for the intended recipient it increase the burden of the person as well as figure confusion in them (Eisenberg, 2014). In order to ensure that the communication is concise, only the essential information should be communicated.
Consideration- Consideration in communication is an essential element. Be it business communication or personal communication all the parties in the communication need to be considerate towards each other (Beamer & Varner, 2011). Consideration includes understanding the situation of the other and respecting the difference of opinion, that each has with the other (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Being inconsiderate will result in an ineffective communication (Cenere et al., 2015). Moreover, lack of consideration triggers negative emotions in the people, communicating with each other. Thus, control over emotions and being considerate has to be ensured (Eisenberg, 2014).
Clarity- Clarity means being specific regarding the information that is being shared (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Emphasizing on authenticity and accuracy of the information being communicated also ensures that clarity in communication is implemented (Halawah, 2015). Lack of clarity increases confusion of thoughts thus causing delay in achievement of organisational goals (Beamer & Varner, 2011).
Concreteness- Concrete communication means sharing the message with clarity without any redundant information (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 1969). Integrity of the information has to be maintained which helps in reducing the fuzziness of information and thus reduces lack of clarity (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). The employees and the clients are able to understand what is being communicated, thus ensuring effective communication (Ulmer, Sellnow & Seeger, 2013).
Correctness- All communications main has to be correct. Transmission of incorrect information will have a major adverse impact on the business organisation (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). This might result in confusion among the employees and a major reliability issues among the clients (Eisenberg, 2014). The authenticity of the information has to be ensured, before communicating it to the clients or employees (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016).
Courtesy- Being courteous and showing respect to everyone with whom we communicate is an essential criterion of communication (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). In business organisation it is important that information communicated is polite and in a respectful manner (Austin & Pinkleton, 2015). The top-level employees have to be courteous towards the lower level staff as well as the clients (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Respecting each other as well as respecting the difference of opinion among the party communicating with each other, being empathetic towards the feeling of the others is some of the components of being courteous in communication (Grunig & Dozier, 2013).
It is important that the business organisations initiate formal communication with the client as well as a staff (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). This includes both verbal and nonverbal communication. Moreover, exchange of mails and letters are also a part of a formal communication (Townsend, DeMarie & Hendrickson, 2013). Formal communications and meetings using video conferencing is done in order to connect the client and employees located in different geographical locations (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Thus, with the help of technology formal communication is carried out effectively.
It is important that adequate significance should be given to the body language. This reveals the actual tone of communication as well as understanding the psychology of the communicator is also facilitated (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Giving importance to the body language and gestures is essential in effective business communication (Austin & Pinkleton, 2015). A firm handshake or constant eye contact while communicating shows confidence (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). However, the opposite of this highlight the lack of confidence and hesitation (Robbins, 2009). Hence, by observing the body languages significance conclusions about the effectiveness of the communication should be made.
While communication is made it is important that documentation of the communication is maintained. This is important, so that none of the parties engage in the communication can ever deny (Beamer & Varner, 2011). Moreover, in absence of any one of the communicators, the other is able to recall the information that has been exchanged (Grunig & Dozier, 2013). Hence, in business communication documentation has a key role to play (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016).
Though it is important to maintain hierarchy and follow the organisational structure, it is important to ensure open and clear communication in the various hierarchy levels (Grunig & Dozier, 2013). The people of the top management should be open to communicate with that of the lower level employees (Suter et al., 2009). This will reduce the chances of confusion and will enhance the business of the organisation. The organisational culture it also enriched with this kind of open communication (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016).
One of the major challenges that the company faces is the timely communication with the clients as well as the employees as mentioned in the case study (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). In order to ensure that such issues could be curbed down, the organisational structure and the culture needs to be modified (Leonard, Graham & Bonacum, 2014). The top-level employees have to engage themselves in open conversation with the employees on a regular basis. Even if the employees are facing no issues, the top-level management should initiate regular meeting (Brownell, 2015). However, it is important to ensure timely communication with the client. If this is not done then the clients might be offended and look out for some other service provider (Fielding, 2006). A team of customer service executive should be formed who will ensure a regular communication with the clients (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). This will increase the reliability of the business organisation as well as satisfy the clients resulting in client retention (Austin & Pinkleton, 2015). The issues and problems that are faced by the clients should be highlighted and rectified as soon as possible. This will mitigate the issue of timely communication with the employees and the clients (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016).
The other issue that has been highlighted in the case study is the communication breakdown from the top-level managers to the lower level employees and vice versa (Moscardo, 2009). In order to ensure that this issue is not faced by the organisation anymore, the lower level employees should be asked to approach the higher level employees with their problems (Beamer & Varner, 2011). Moreover, the top-level employees should also engage themselves in time-to-time communication with employees, thus understanding the situation that they are going through (Grunig & Dozier, 2013). This will ensure effective communication and will reduce the gap between the management level and the employees.
Feedback helps in improvement. The issue faced by the organisation in collecting the feedback from the client has to be mitigated (Shockley, 2014). In order to ensure that a regular feedback form should be shared with the client, and their feedback should be analysed critically, the customer service team should take care (Austin & Pinkleton, 2015). They need to ensure that the actual feedback from the clients are collected and produced for further improvement of the products (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Moreover, the local and the international clients should be given regular feedback regarding the importance of their opinion and the enhancements that are being made according to the requirements (Fielding, 2006). This will ensure that the relationships with the clients are enhanced (Dolan, 2017).
The other issue that is faced by the business organization is the adoption to the local languages. The business organization operates in 5 different counties namely Australia, India, Nigeria, Vietnam and Oman (Beamer & Varner, 2011). Hence, communicating the local language is a major issue (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). In order to mitigate this issue, employees of the specific countries need to be selected, such that they are able to communicate effectively (Leonard, Graham & Bonacum, 2014). Moreover, the representatives of the specific country need to have the specified skills that are required for the organizational activities (Fallowfield & Jenkins, 2009). Thus, the employees who are chosen from the local countries will ensure that the issue of the local language is mitigated successfully (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Moreover, English could be used as a common language of communication among the employees of the 5 counties, such that this issue could be mitigated. For example, Mc Donald’s have been facing the same issue with the local languages. However, it has been mitigated by employing people from the local countries.
Cross-cultural barrier is an important barrier that needs to be mitigated successfully, in order to ensure success of the business organization (Leathers & Eaves, 2015). Since the employees belong to five different countries, hence a wide variation in the culture of the people is seen (Austin & Pinkleton, 2015). However, in order to ensure effective team-work, the culture of each of the employee has to be respected and accepted by the others (Dolan, 2017). In order to ensure that, the employees of the business organization should be engaged in team-building activities, as well as cultural activities (Sageev & Romanowski, 2011). This will ensure that all the employees learn to respect the culture of each other, along with accepting the cultural diversity gladly (Fallowfield & Jenkins, 2009). Moreover, the successful mitigation of the language barriers, along with reduction of the hostile stereotypes is essential for the successful mitigation of the issues of cross culture (Hovland & Lumsdaine, 2017). In order to reduce the intensity of the cross-cultural issues, active listening and observation of the body languages needs to be implemented (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Mc Donald’s also faced cross cultural issues. However, with employment from the local people, and effective induction, this issue was mitigated.
One of the major issues that are faced by the multi-national company is the discrepancy in the digital literacy among the employees from the various countries (Beamer & Varner, 2011). The company has been operating in 5 countries, out of which Australia is a well-developed country, whereas India is a developing country (Leathers & Eaves, 2015). However, Niger and Oman being under-developed country, the digital literacy is not high enough (Austin & Pinkleton, 2015). Thus, due to the lack of digital literacy, the employees are not able to communicate effectively using technology or various social media (Dolan, 2017). Thus, in order to mitigate this issue, the employees should be given adequate training so that they are able to equip themselves with digital literacy (Henderson, Stackman & Lindekilde, 2016). Moreover, the lack of digitalization of the countries also results in lack of adequate equipment to communicate with social media.
Conclusion and implications
Communication has a key role to play in any business organization. As mentioned in the given case study, the multinational company had been facing communication issues. However, it is essential that these issues should be mitigated. Various strategies have been recommended in the assignment that could be helpful for enhancing the communication in the business organization. However, if the issues of communication faced by the company are not mitigated, then it implies that the recommendations are not diligently incorporated. The implementation plans, as well as the strategies have to be planned. The organizational culture and the structure need to be modified, in order to ensure that the communication issues are completely mitigated. If the recommended strategies are not successful in the business organization, then the employees should be given adequate training. Imparting adequate training to the employees will result in mitigation of the communication issues in the business organization. The training, to all employees, irrespective to the country they belong to, will result in improvement in the communication skills of the employees. The implications of the effective communication are that the business organization and its performances will be enhanced successfully. Moreover, employee retention and customer satisfaction will be achieved. Thus, it is concluded that effective communication is inevitable in any business organization, and thus achievement of employee satisfaction and the client satisfaction is achieved.
References
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