Communication Challenges and Solutions for HOPE Organization

This report analyzes communication problems within the HOPE organization, focusing on issues related to leadership, language barriers, and employee reluctance to speak up. The CEO's leadership style, characterized by unilateral decision-making and a lack of employee consultation, has led to dissatisfaction and miscommunication. The report identifies the language problem as a significant obstacle, impacting team cohesion and project success. Additionally, it explores the reasons behind employees' fear of speaking up, including concerns about retaliation and challenging authority. To address these issues, the report proposes three initiatives: an employee engagement tool to improve leadership practices, storytelling to enhance communication, and strategies to encourage employees to voice their concerns. The report emphasizes the importance of effective communication and employee engagement for organizational success, offering practical recommendations for HOPE to improve its internal dynamics and achieve its goals.

Running head: COMMUNICATION FOR PROFESSIONALS
Issues of Communication in HOPE
Name of Student-
Name of University-
Author’s Note-

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Three issues existing in Hope
Leadership Problem: In HOPE organization, the CEO of the company Alex Coles has
taken a new project of creating and rolling out a new health promotion campaign via community
health services of the nation. The campaign would include promotion of clean air in the mining
area and in the metro areas. Alex has also hired consultant who has experience in education as
well as health promotion. Alex has also hired another consultancy named Innovative Health
Solutions for creating the promotion content. Alex have taken all the decisions of his own and
have not consulted any of the employee and have never taken their opinion before hiring the
contractors.
Alex does not have proper leadership to gain responsibility to train, develop or to provide
direction for his employees. Leadership is mainly included to govern as well as authority for
some business, organization as well as government (Yeomans & FitzPatrick, 2017). Proper
leadership in a business helps to set proper organizational culture and helps to increase the
expectation along with the vision of the company. If Alex would have been able to take the
leadership responsibilities, then he would have increase the effectiveness as well as the
productivity of the organization. This helps to identify as well as address the organizational
issues and include positive change in the working process of the company.
Alex has lack of communication in the organization and he is not able to communicate
with his employees. He takes his own decisions and does not includes his employees to take part
in organizational decisions (Smith, 2017). Alex should have incorporated upward
communication as well as downward communication in the working process for enhancing the
working process in the organization. Alex has also not provided opportunity to their employees

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to provide feedback of his decisions that are taken for the organization. Alex has an ineffective
leadership style that has led to un-satisfaction of their customers.
Language Problem: Communication is considered as the heart of handling a business
and with proper communication clients and employees of a company can be known. Working of
teams unitedly helps the company to achieve the needs and its goals faster with actionable
strategies. Alex as a CEO of Hope is not able to communicate properly with his employees
(Chen & Hou, 2016). He does not organize proper meeting with the employees to know their
mind status and the way the employees are thinking about a particular decision taken by the
management or the owner of the company. Hope is facing miscommunication between the
employees and the CEO of the company Alex. Alex should have taken proper communication
strategies to avoid organizational problems to avoid the problems that the company is presently
facing.
The main communication problems that exists in an organization personality differences,
setting of goal and accountability, different cultural backgrounds as well as existing ethical
issues and ethical interpretation (Fyke, Trisler & Lucas, 2018). It is important for the company to
identify the communication problem as quick as possible and address the communication gap
with the employees so that the competiveness of the employees and the productivity can be
increased.
There is another reason of communication that exists in HOPE. Communication problem
includes low motivation, productivity of the employees and the performance of the business. If
the employees working for the company do not get appreciated, their work is not valued as well
as kept informed, they might not get the motivation for work they do for the company. The
employees should be appreciated for the work they do for the company and that might lead to

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high productivity for the company (Carnevale et al., 2017). There might be regular
disagreements between the CEO of the company and between the employees with rejected
appraisals that also leads to communication problem in an organization. Communication helps to
interact directly with the sender and the communicator. The skilled communicator in an
organization have active listening and includes clarification with reflection between the
communication barriers. Communication barrier is not only because of management
communication problem, but also can be occurred from employees who work for the company.
Employees afraid to speak problem: After Alex repeatedly asking to speak up for the
new that has been made for the company. The employees were afraid to speak up for the decision
being taken as they were afraid to speak up. There are many factors that causes employees afraid
to speak up against the decision of the management in a company. Sometime they fear to speak
up because the managers are hostile about the past decisions (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018).
Sometime the employees are least bothered about the decision taken by the management as they
are least bothered about it. Employees also believes that their decisions might be betrayed by the
managers or the team leads. So, they do not speak up for the company.
Hope had efficient employees and the employees were afraid to speak up for the decision
that Alex had taken. The employees also might feel that their stakes are too high and other
employees might also think that they are not safe to work for the company if they speak up.
Always the employees feel insecurity as well as employee thinks as engenders more than the
corporate inconvenience. The organizations that faces the problem of employee not speaking up
actually does not succeed in competitive market (Ting et al., 2017). Proper leadership can help
the employees to speak up for the company.

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The managers of the company always should give opportunity to the employees to speak
up for the situation that exists in the company. Afraid of speaking mainly happens when there is
miscommunication or there is lack of communication in the working environment. There are
actually five reasons because of which the employees fears to speak up. The reasons are:
1. Retaliation fear among employees- The employees of the company might fear to speak
up because they might have retaliation fear as they might not have trust or might feel nervous
about being stupid among all other employees in the company.
2. Having difficulty to challenge authority- The employees might not have the ability to
challenge the authority (Bligh, Kohles & Yan, 2018). They are always taught not to question the
management and the employee do not question the management for their decisions.
3. Employees might have bad experience of speaking up previously- It might have been a
bad experience for the employee before when the employee has spoken up. The employee might
have been insulted for they spoke up against the manager or the management decisions earlier.
So, they do not want to speak up more.
Three initiative to address the issues
Engagement tool for Leadership Problem: The employees working for Hope were not
happy with the working culture that was existing after Alex signing up for the project. The
decision made by Alex was much unmotivated and they felt least important for taking company
decisions (Venkataramani et al., 2016). As per the employees the Innovative Health Solutions
were charging quite a large amount of money from HOPE and they were not providing up to the
mark promotion content. The employees were not happy as they were not engaged and were

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actively disengaged in their work. The work has also affected the personal lives of the employees
and the work that was carried out in HOPE was discouraging their development.
Employee engagement is an important tool in a company and that would help to enable
the workforce productivity and is also connected with job satisfaction. Employee engagement is
responsible for constructing a company and breaking up of a company (Chin, Desormeaux &
Sawyer, 2016). The first priority of a company should is to identify the problems as well as
address all common problems that exists in the company. With proper employee engagement, the
employees feel that they are a part of the company and feel motivated in doing efficient work.
With employee engagement, the employees also become efficient to take their own decisions and
becomes independent of taking decisions.
The employees in the organization with employee engagement has strong responsibility
bond for taking their own decisions (Javed et al., 2019). With employee engagement, they feel
more focused on future oriented problems instead of blaming the management with the present
problems. Employee engagement increases morale and also increases motivation of working and
this also helps the manager or the CEO of the company to think less as they keeps on getting new
ideas from their team members.
There are certain steps that are included in improving the engagement of the employees
in the company and those steps are to be taken as priority in the company (Quirke, 2017).
Engagement of employee is the main role of the manager and the manager has to put this in to
practice. The steps that are to be followed are

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1. Allocation right role to the employees: The employees should be allocated with proper
work so that they can be engaged in the working process of the company. Allocating proper
work helps them to complete the work with enthusiasm and includes retention strategies.
2. Frequently discussing their engagement: The CEO of the company needs to talk about
the engagement with the employees very often so that they can improve their engagement in
taking decisions (Lam et al., 2016). This can be done by organizing meetings and engaging all of
them in the system.
3. Take regular feedback: The recent workforce mainly depends on taking regular
feedback and this leads to faster correction of the course and helps to reduce the wastes that are
no longer needed in the company.
Story telling for language problem: Story-telling is a tools that is needed fundamentally
by the humans. It is nature of human brains to change their mind state with examples of
situations that are stated with storytelling. Storytelling is the most important tool that can
mitigate the communication problem in the organization and the managers or the CEO of a
company should be a good story teller or should have professional clique (Starzyk & Sonnentag
2019). It is the nature of humans to describe situations as stories. Stories help to connect with
real world examples and helps to imagine the future. Storytelling helps to connect with dreams
and helps to imagine the dreams that comes true. Storytelling helps to connect with others and
helps to imagine futures.
Alex should have included storytelling tool that would have helped the employees of the
company to know the working process that Alex is thinking to have and thus could have
established a proper relationship with the employees of the company (Emelifeonwu & Valk,

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2019). Alex should have told his employees the success stories of the contractor that he has hired
and from that the employees would have trust on Frank and Innovative Health Solutions.
Storytelling would also have increased the communication between Alex and the employees of
the company. Alex would have included power point presentation to take meetings with some
story telling so that the employees would feel motivated to work for the employees. Storytelling
helps to convey the main purpose as well as the business with some purpose that included loyalty
for the customers. There are many reasons for which storytelling is considered is one of the most
important tool for solving communication problem.
1. Storytelling helps in business development and helps to grow the business (Vien,
2016). This helps to provide context for the customers and the stakeholders so that they can
provide service better. Storytelling helps to connect with trust with the employees and helps to
understand the situation better.
2. This helps in increasing the competitive advantage in the market as because the
storytelling help to compare with other similar businesses. This might increase competition with
the other businesses and helps to make better decision making to have better competition in the
company.
3. Storytelling helps to maintain attention and enhances understanding process for the
business process. Storytelling is engaging and helps to lose the attention of the audience.
Presentation starting with stories gains more attention and helps audience to understand better.
4. One of the most important tool of storytelling is it increases the marketing strategy
o=for the company. It helps to connect people with brands as well as with businesses.
Storytelling helps to advert with relatable as well as helps in revoking emptions (Detert & Burris,

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2016). The advertising tools helps to invent more cheap tactics. Storytelling is a transparent tool
that helps the customers to know the struggle of the business.
5. Story telling helps to increase the efficiency of the employees and increases the
engagement of the employees with management. Employees are the best asset that the business
needs to succeed. This helps to cultivate the right culture in the work environment and helps to
have a clear vision for the company goal.
Activity based learning for employees afraid to speak problem: There are many ways
to encourage people to speak up for the decisions that are taken by the management. Some of the
ways that helps in employee encouragement are
1. Telling the employees that their feedback is important for the organization and gives
them to speak for the decisions that are made in the company (Jain, 2018). The employees might
speak up as form of feedback for the company.
2. The managers or the team leaders should include in practice of listening, and repeat
some parts of conversation repeatedly so that they can speak out.
3. At the time of speaking with employees, the manager should have eye contact with the
employees and they should keep their phone silent so that there are no disturbances in the
meeting (Waymer & Logan, 2016).
4. The team leader or the manager should reciprocate with the employees in the same
way that employees speak with them. The team leaders should explain the merits and the
demerits of including a particular decision in the company.

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5. The team leaders and the managers should always be available for the employees.
They should always take their calls and help them at the time they need help.
One of the best method that enhances employees to speak up for the company is activity
based learning. This is a tools that includes communication, critical thinking as well as creativity
for the decisions that are being taking in the company. This encourages the team members and
also helps others to provide their decisions for the company. The activity based learning in the
company helps to allows employee flexibility for their working in the organization. It provides
the managers an opportunity so that they can expand as well as contract the workspace when
there is demand. This tools helps the organization to utilize the space with flexibility (O'Connor
et al., 2016). The organization with activity based learning includes more flexible as well as
transportable workforce and helps to reduce the cost of real estates. The company also gains
ability to move the employees as per the demand of the clients so that the project gets completed
in time with customer satisfaction. With activity based learning, there is also sustainability that
enhances positive learning in the workplace strategy. This tools helps to enhance creative
learning as well as helps to organize more informal meetings for the organization. This also
creates a threat to complete individual focus in the organization.

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