Business Communication Methods Australian Organizations Assessment Answer

Answer :

Business Communication

Business communication is one of the most important aspects of success in any business organization. The efficiency with which management of the business organization is exchanging information within the organization is very essential to the success of business operations. The success of an organization is totally dependent on the decision-making process and the decision-making process is dependent on the use of accurate and reliable data. It is important that the accuracy and relevance of such data are not lost in the communication process. This is one of the primary reasons that business organizations are focused on ensuring the efficiency of management communication (Shockley-Zalabak, 2014). This essay will be focused on identifying business communication methods and practices used in Australian organizations. In the given scenario management of agricultural products supplier has hired 10 new employees from different countries. Three of the employees are from New Zealand, 3 are from Ireland and the rest of the employees are from the United States of America. It is important for the management of the organization to make them understand the general practices and methods of communication in an Australian organization. This will help in ensuring that these employees are working at their full potential and providing value addition to business operations.

Communication practices in Australia 

There are various aspects of Australian business communication that are focused on developing effective and efficient channels of communication for a business organization. Generally, a particular set of rules and regulations are developed by any business organization for the purpose of communication. This type of fixed policies and procedures helps in providing direction to business operations in relation to communication. The section of the report will discuss different literatures and researches undertaken by Business organizations in relation to the Australian organization's communication.

In Australia generally, business organizations divide their communication strategies in two aspects i.e. communication with customers and internal communication. Communication with customers is related to communicating information about the product and services of an organization with customers. Marketing strategies developed by an organization can be defined as the strategy used by the business organization for communicating with customers (Wiewiora, Trigunarsyah, Murphy & Coffey, 2013). On the other hand, internal communication is referred to as the transferring of information within different departments of a business organization. This type of communication helps in increasing the overall efficiency of business operations and it also contributes towards an effective decision-making process.

The mode of communication with customers generally changes constantly due to changes in the business environment. In earlier times, the mode of communication was limited to marketing strategies such as billboards, TV advertisements, radio advertisements, celebrity endorsements, etc. The current business environment has changed significantly as compared to earlier times and these modes of communication are not that effective (Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2015). The Internet has become an integral part of the day to day life of customers and the general mode of communication of business towards the customer is focused on the internet.

Social media has become one of the most essential modes of communication in communicating with customers. Every business organization is establishing its own through which they can communicate information about products and services to the customers. The use of Smartphones and social media is increasing significantly and business organizations are changing their mode of communication to accommodate social media platforms (Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2015). The overall cost of implementation in relation to social media advertising is also very low in traditional methods of advertisement. This is one of the reasons that customers are aware of the product and services offered by small scale business organizations.

In addition to that, there are other modes of communication that are related to the internet which are being used by business organizations. Email marketing is also becoming one of the most efficient mode of communication among retail sector organizations. Information about products and services by Business organizations can be sent by emails that are collected wild customers visit their official website for their retail stores. Information about the discount and other offers issued by business organizations are sent by business organizations through email marketing. Another method of communicating with customers is through search engine optimization. Organizations optimized different search engines such as Google and Yahoo in such a manner that any inquiry about products and services on the search engine will show the product and services of their organization (Miller & Barbour, 2014).

Internal communication among Australian organization has not changed very significantly over the period of time. Formal channels of communication address generally preferred by Business organizations as compared to informal channels of communication. This is due to the fact that formal channels of communication help in establishing accountability and responsibility. Formal channel of communication helps in establishing documentation in relation to every aspect of communication which helps in identifying culprits in case of any deficiency.

Formal channels of communication are still being used but the method of using such channels has changed over the period of time. In earlier times physical documents were used for establishing formal channels of communication. Nowadays information technology has been very helpful in establishing effective and efficient formal channels of communication among business organizations (Karanges, Johnston, Beatson & Lings, 2015). Business organizations in Australia prefer to use their own internal information technology platforms for the purpose of communicating information from one department to another department. This type of information technology platform is very beneficial for organizations to maintain secrecy and documentation of communication.

It is very common for business organizations in Australia to establish elements of communication in order to increase the efficiency of their communication process. One of the most common elements of communication is defining roles and responsibilities in the communication channel. Chain of command is established by business organizations to ensure that proper communication is maintained with respect to general business operations. This will help in providing accountability with respect to communication in business. Another important element of communication is setting goals and objectives. It is important to define the goals and objectives of a particular organization in order to provide direction to the communication process (Ramadanty & Martinus, 2016). For example, the goal of a particular organization can be to ensuring the accuracy and relevancy of data throughout the communication process. 

Top management and employees working in leadership positions plays a very essential role in developing effective and efficient communication channels in Australian organizations. They are responsible for preparing strategies and policies that will help in establishing formal channels of communication. It is very essential for these employees to ensure that they are aware of every aspect of business operations so that they can develop policies accordingly. It is important for these leaders to ensure that employees are motivated and they are aware of their importance in the organization.

Another important aspect of effective communication is employee engagement. It is important for management to ensure that each and every employee in the organization has specific roles and responsibilities in the communication process. The efficiency of the communication process is totally dependent on the participation of each and every member of the company with respect to the communication in the business organization. Each and every employee of the organization is bounded by a chain in the communication process and if any of the employees are not engaged in such communication then the overall communication process will collapse (Baker, 2015). Preparing strategies for communication in any business organization can be affected by various internal and external factors. It is the general practice for any business organization in Australia to consider these external and internal factors before making any kind of decision with respect to the communication process. 

Recommendation for the new employees

Competency behaviour

Following are the two factors that should be included by new employees in their communication process-

Formal communication 

First and foremost to these employees are required to ensure that each and every communication is undertaken by them is through formal channels of communication. Formal channels of communication in this scenario mean that the general mode of communication that is used by the organization on day to day basis (Kramer, 2014). In addition to that, they should also have evidence of communication in order to ensure accountability and responsibility. For example, any formal call received from employees of the company can be recorded through voice messaging in order to ensure that they have evidence about the message communicated by them or to them. It will also help in ensuring the accuracy of the data that is being communicated. It is not essential that every person is able to retain the message accurately as conveyed to them. In such a scenario it will be effective for the employees to ensure that they have proper documentation in relation to such messages so that its accuracy can be maintained. This type of communication will also help business organizations in making sure that a lack of experience on part of new employees is not affecting their decision-making process (Christensen & Cornelissen, 2013). In this manner, new employees will be able to adapt to the communication channels of the new organization more quickly.

Clear and concise communication

Message to be communicated throughout the communication process should be kept clear and concise by the new employees. This will be helpful in ensuring that messages communicated in the manner in which it is intended to be communicated. The message should be communicated in such a manner that it is understandable by the other stakeholders in the communication process. Any technical acronyms or terms should be avoided at high priority as they can create confusion (Mumby & Kuhn, 2018). This characteristic of communication should be followed especially when employees are communicating with the customers. 

It is also very essential for employees to remain calm and collected all the time. There might be business scenarios in which employees will have to interact with customers and they can be a little rude at times. In such a scenario it is very essential for employees to ensure that they remain calm and collected and able to retain the feedback or suggestions made by such customers. This type of communication process will definitely help in improving the efficiency of business operations and amending the services in accordance with the needs of the customer (Barbour, Gill & Barge, 2018).

Incompetency behaviours

Using verbal modes of communication

Verbal modes of communication are required to be avoided at the highest priority by every new employee joining the organization. This type of communication mode is very harmful for the organization as accountability cannot be assigned in such a communication process. It is very common for new employees on the organization to use this type of method as they are not aware of general procedures of communication in a new business organization (Kassing & Matthews, 2017). This type of communication processor will help in avoiding confusion. In addition to the accuracy of data will also be maintained by avoiding verbal communication.

There is a high probability of distortion of meaning in this mode of communication which will result in the inaccurate transfer of information. The entire decision-making process of a business organization will be affected by the distortion of meaning in verbal communication. The probability of distortion of meaning will increase significantly if new employees are conveying long messages on verbal channels. It is not possible for any person to retain long messages for a long period of time if they do not have written down instructions with respect to such a message (Cooren, 2016). Therefore it is recommended that new employees should only use the non-verbal mode of communication especially in case of critical business matters.

Reacting instead of responding

One of the most important factors that affect business communication in a negative manner is the immediate reaction by employees without proper listening to the whole message in the communication process. It is essential for new employees to ensure that they are good listeners with respect to business communication. It is very important for these employees to respond rather than reacting in a communication process.

Conclusion

On the basis of this report, it can be said that this will be a very important learning curve for all the new employees that have joined the organization (Gherardi, 2019). It is important for an organization to ensure that proper orientation process is conducted for each and every of the new employee that has joined the company. It will help in getting these employees to get aware about day to day operations of the company and important business activities such as communication.