University Report: Professional Communication Practices and Strategies

This report delves into the realm of professional communication, focusing on practical application through the creation of two business letters addressing specific scenarios and the development of communication strategies for an accounting firm. The report begins with an introduction highlighting the importance of clear and effective communication in a professional setting. Section A presents the two business letters, one responding to a donation request and the other promoting a ski resort. Section B analyzes the current state of communication within the accounting firm, identifying issues such as lack of information flow, conflicting responses to client queries, and ineffective communication between management and employees. The report then proposes both external and internal communication plans to address these problems. The external plan emphasizes website updates, email newsletters, training materials, and feedback collection to ensure accurate and consistent communication with clients. The internal plan suggests employee involvement, regular meetings, and surveys to improve communication within the organization. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of structured communication for professional success, referencing several academic sources to support its arguments.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION PRACTICE
Professional Communication Practice
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
This report aims to look into the aspect of communication which takes place in a
professional surrounding. For the preparation of this report, two letters based on the
scenarios specified are to be prepared. Apart from the letters, the report also needs to
prepare communication strategies for a well known accounting firm improvements are
brought about in the communication patterns between the employees and between the
company and their stakeholders.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction.............................................................................................................................3
2. Discussion..............................................................................................................................4
Section A....................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Letter for Scenario 1........................................................................................................4
2.2 Letter for Scenario 2..........................................................................................................5
Section B....................................................................................................................................6
1) Analysis of the current situation with respect to the firm’s organizational communication. 6
2) Preparation of plan to solve the firm’s communication problems.........................................7
External Communication Plan....................................................................................................8
Internal Communication Plan.....................................................................................................9
2. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................10
3. References..............................................................................................................................11

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1. Introduction
The purpose of this report is to understand the practices followed for professional
communication through the preparation of two business letters and answering the queries of a
case study. Communication in any discipline of life is extremely important to bring transparency
into the proceedings (Bhatia 2014). Maintaining clarity through constant communication help to
remove misunderstanding and develop a sense of trust and authenticity among the members
involved. Professional communication is an art, which should be carried out with utmost
precision to avoid any mishap from happening.

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2. Discussion
Section A
2.1 Letter for Scenario 1
To
Mr. Jason Smith
Sydney Youth Orchestra
182 Cumberland Street
The Rocks NSW 2000
Australia
Dear Mr. Smith
RE: Donation for Buying Instruments
Thank you for approaching Westfield Corporation with the purpose of receiving
donations for purchasing new instruments. With deep regret, you are informed that the
company currently is in no position to provide you with any sort of financial assistance.
This is due to the employment of two new staff and buying of new equipment and hence
the company expects costs to be on the higher side. In comparison with the costs, which
will be incurred, the company doesn’t expect to receive returns on a proportionate level
for the period close to the next two months. The company genuinely feels that their
scenario would change and until the same time next year, they could provide the
funding.
The organization sincerely hoped that the Youth Orchestra Company would
understand the situation Westfield was going through, the time which the new recruits
would take to settle down and for the staff to get used to the functionalities of new

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equipment. The understanding and the association which Westfield Corporation has had
with Sydney Youth Orchestra would remain intact and hopefully go from strength to
strength. The company would like to wish Sydney Youth Orchestra all the very best in
their endeavor towards purchasing brand new instruments and sincerely hope that they
grow and achieve success.
Thank you
Neil Anderson
Westfield Corporation
2.2 Letter for Scenario 2
To
Whom It May Concern
Subject: Come and Experience the Uniqueness of Falls Creek
Dear Sir/Madam
Falls Creek Ski Resort is a known place for all those who love adventures and
take their time out to do some skiing in this part of the world. The resort is filled
with visitors from all across the world to have an experience of a lifetime,
especially during the peak season from January till May but the intensity dies
down from the beginning of June, which also results in hampering the revenue
for the resort and hence not earn sufficient profits. As a manager of Falls Creek,
this is a call for all those who love taking risks and be adventurous, come over to
the Resort and get indulged in the natural beauty with hills all around the region.
The visit would also enable the customers to get exposure to the utilities of

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organic products and enjoy the cultural events in the nearby community, which
has become a major source of attraction for people coming over to Falls Creek
Ski Resort.
As a manager, hopefully the benefits and attractions in store for all of you
would be sufficient enough to come over to Falls Creek and help the resort to
serve you to the best of the abilities.
Thank You
Chris Martin
Manager
Falls Creek Ski Resort
Section B
1) Analysis of the current situation with respect to the firm’s organizational
communication
The organization is an accounting firm, which has been in operation since the
year 1885. They comprise of three different levels – top management, middle level
management and the lower level consists of the employees. The number of
employees in the organization is 5000, hence to improve the organization’s
reputation even further, certain strategies need to be put in place for improving the
communication pattern followed in the organization.
Whatever has been noticed so far, regarding the way through which the
whole process of communication takes place, an urgent need for change is a

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necessity. This will help in making the communication more effective, allow the
employees to sort their problems and hence make them even more productive. The
problems that have been identified in the flow of communication are:
a) The lower level employees are not made aware of the new goals
formulated by the organization as there is very little communication
between the management and the employees.
b) As the employees are not clear about the company’s perspectives, so this
results in the current and prospective clients receiving conflicting
responses to their queries.
c) The employees who let the middle level managers know about any tricky
situation or about their inability to communicate accurately with the clients
due to lack of knowledge, do not receive any response from their side.
Rather the employees get penalized for interventions (Dainton and Zelley
2014).
d) The memos prepared by the top management do not remain in their
original state, when they reach the middle level managers. Thus the
original information of Memo gets distorted, resulting in the appropriate
information not getting passed on to the middle and lower level
employees.
The above-mentioned issues are serious purely communication process can never
be successful without maintaining a good rapport and clarity in communication between the
employees and management.
2) Preparation of plan to solve the firm’s communication problems:
Solving communication problems on both internal and external basis is extremely
important to ensure transparency and restoration of faith for the organization in the eyes
of the existing as well as prospective clients.

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The following are some of the strategies which can be implemented by the
organization to allow a smooth flow of communication to take place between employees
and existing and prospective clients which would be external in nature:
External Communication Plan -
a) The company should make sure that accurate information about their products
and services get updated on a regular basis in their website.
b) They should make provisions for getting their clients subscribed for the
newsletters and journals through emails (Goetsch and Davis 2014).
c) Proper training materials should be provided with specific instructions, which
would allow the employees to impart correct information over calls to their clients
(Hynes 2012).
d) Sending across accurate information to the clients would put the company in
good stead and create a really good image in front of the clients.
e) Collection of feedback can be another way through which the company can work
on their communication problems and come up with improvements (Johansen,
Aggerholm and Frandsen 2012). Feedback forms a part of all the reports made
to the company by the external sources and which contains information about the
company’s strengths and weaknesses on their ability to deliver services on time
by meeting up the expectations of the customers.
f) Any kind of misinformation provided by an employee of the organization due to
lack of knowledge about a particular service should be backed up by concrete
reason (Okoro and Washington 2012). Hence, the assurance must be given to
the customers that the queries would be resolved in a short notice and they
regret for the inconvenience caused due to the inappropriate information passed
on to them.
The internal communications strategies which should be implemented to take
care of the problems that are currently existing in the company:

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Internal Communication Plan
a) Employees should be always made to feel a part of the organization by getting
them involved into the scheme of things.
b) Keeping employees in the dark about the goals which an organization is
setting for themselves to achieve, is never a good thing. This is because employees are
the asset of any company and through the achievement of targets, set by the
organizations, they are the ones who take the entity towards the path of success and
help them grow in stature (Quirke 2012). So, if the organization doesn’t disclose the
plans which they have formulated, to their employees, then the employees would never
be able to live up to the expectations of the organization as they would not be aware of
what is going on within the organization (Wood 2013). So, each and employee should be
intimated through mails regarding the path which the organization is willing to take for
the achievement of their new goals and objectives (Eğriboyun 2017).
c) Regular meetings should be held between the management and employees to
understand each other’s requirements better and be sure about the fact that the
communication is happening to and fro (Ruck and Welch 2012). These meetings would
also help employees to talk about the areas where they might be facing issues and
require the management to intervene quite frequently. This allows removal of any kind of
barriers that might exist under other circumstances where direct communication cannot
take place (Schnurr 2012).
d) Filling up survey forms and questionnaires based on the action plan which the
employees would like to suggest for bringing improvements into the system, should be
immediately introduced make communication more transparent, avoid misinterpretation

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of facts and thereby create a healthy and energetic work atmosphere (Verčič, Verčič and
Sriramesh 2012).
2. Conclusion
The report concludes that through the two business letters and preparation of business
communication strategies, both internal and external to the organization, a clear understanding
has been gathered on how to go about in structuring communications for delivering on the
professional field.

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3. References
Bhatia, V.K., 2014. Analysing genre: Language use in professional settings. Routledge.
Dainton, M. and Zelley, E.D., 2014. Applying communication theory for professional life: A
practical introduction. Sage publications.
Eğriboyun, D., 2017. The Perceptions about Communication Skills and Job Motivation: A Case
Study. Management, 7(4), pp.137-146.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hynes, G.E., 2012. Improving employees’ interpersonal communication competencies: A
qualitative study. Business communication quarterly, 75(4), pp.466-475.
Johansen, W., Aggerholm, H.K. and Frandsen, F., 2012. Entering new territory: A study of
internal crisis management and crisis communication in organizations. Public Relations
Review, 38(2), pp.270-279.
Okoro, E.A. and Washington, M.C., 2012. Workforce diversity and organizational
communication: Analysis of human capital performance and productivity. Journal of Diversity
Management (Online), 7(1), p.57.
Quirke, M.B., 2012. Making the connections: using internal communication to turn strategy into
action. Gower Publishing, Ltd..
. Ruck, K. and Welch, M., 2012. Valuing internal communication; management and employee
perspectives. Public Relations Review, 38(2), pp.294-302.
Schnurr, S., 2012. Exploring professional communication: Language in action. Routledge.