Communication Skills Report: Analysis of SHDE Holdings Communications

This report, prepared by ROBERT CONSTANTIN CONSTANTIN, provides a detailed analysis of communication skills within the context of SHDE Holdings. It begins by outlining the core elements of effective communication, including active listening, nonverbal cues, clarity, and empathy. The report then identifies and examines the barriers to effective communication within organizations, such as language differences, prejudice, and cultural disparities, using SHDE Holdings as a case study to illustrate these challenges. It also explores various modes of communication—written, oral, and electronic—and assesses their application and effectiveness. The report further investigates the portrayal of organizations through their communication, assessing SHDE Holdings' image and comparing it to other organizations. Formal communication systems for customer interaction and the impact of social media are evaluated, supported by current examples. Additionally, the report assesses the influence of personal relationships and non-verbal communication on oral communications and evaluates the student's own oral presentation and written communication skills, including the impact of technology. Finally, the report addresses the importance of written documentation and references to support its findings.

Communication Skills
Student Name: ROBERT CONSTANTIN CONSTANTIN
Level 4

Table of Contents
The process of communication (AC 1.1)
Why communication within organizations is sometimes not effective (AC1.3)………………6
How organisations portray themselves through their communication. What image does SHDE
Holdings currently have? Give an assessment of other organisations and the images they portray
through their communications (AC 2.3)…
Explain formal communications systems that should be used to communicate with customers.
Please evaluate different systems. (AC 2.1)…………………………………………………..
Conduct an analysis of the effectiveness of social media to communicate with customers. Please
use current examples (AC 2.3………………………………………………………………...
An assessment of the impact of personal relationships on communications (AC 3.1)
An assessment of impact of non-verbal communication on oral communications (AC 3.2)
Assess the effectiveness of your oral presentation skills (AC 4.4)
Review your written communication (AC 5.4) including the conventions you have used (AC 3.4)
Assess the impact of technology on oral and written communication (3.3)
Following our discussions I wish you to produce written documentation from this meeting (AC
5.2)
References…………………………………………………………………………………….21

The process of communication (AC 1.1)
These are the top 10 communication skills that recruiters and hiring managers want to see on
your resume and cover letter. Highlight these skills and demonstrate them during job interviews,
and you’ll make a solid first impression. Continue to develop these skills once you’re hired, and
you’ll impress your boss, teammates, and clients.
1. Listening
Being a good listener is one of the best ways to be a good communicator. No one likes
communicating with someone who only cares about putting in her two cents and does not take
the time to listen to the other person. If you're not a good listener, it's going to be hard to
comprehend what you're being asked to do.
Take the time to practice active listening. Active listening involves paying close attention to what
the other person is saying, asking clarifying questions, and rephrasing what the person says to
ensure understanding ("So, what you're saying is…").
Through active listening, you can better understand what the other person is trying to say, and
can respond appropriately.
2. Nonverbal Communication
Your body language, eye contact, hand gestures, and tone all color the message you are trying to
convey. A relaxed, open stance (arms open, legs relaxed), and a friendly tone will make you
appear approachable and will encourage others to speak openly with you.
Eye contact is also important; you want to look the person in the eye to demonstrate that you are
focused on the person and the conversation (however, be sure not to stare at the person, which
can make him or her uncomfortable).
Also, pay attention to other people's nonverbal signals while you are talking.

Often, nonverbal signals convey how a person is really feeling. For example, if the person is not
looking you in the eye, he or she might be uncomfortable or hiding the truth.
3. Clarity and Concision
Good communication means saying just enough – don’t talk too much or too little. Try to convey
your message in as few words as possible. Say what you want clearly and directly, whether
you're speaking to someone in person, on the phone, or via email. If you ramble on, your listener
will either tune you out or will be unsure of exactly what you want. Think about what you want
to say before you say it; this will help you to avoid talking excessively and/or confusing your
audience.
4. Friendliness
Through a friendly tone, a personal question, or simply a smile, you will encourage your
coworkers to engage in open and honest communication with you. It's important to be nice and
polite in all your workplace communications.
This is important in both face-to-face and written communication. When you can, personalize
your emails to coworkers and/or employees – a quick "I hope you all had a good weekend" at the
start of an email can personalize a message and make the recipient feel more appreciated.
5. Confidence
It is important to be confident in your interactions with others. Confidence shows your
coworkers that you believe in what you’re saying and will follow through. Exuding confidence
can be as simple as making eye contact or using a firm but friendly tone. Avoid making
statements sound like questions. Of course, be careful not to sound arrogant or aggressive. Be
sure you are always listening to and empathizing with the other person.
6. Empathy
Even when you disagree with an employer, coworker, or employee, it is important for you to
understand and respect their point of view.

Using phrases as simple as "I understand where you are coming from" demonstrate that you have
been listening to the other person and respect their opinions.
7. Open-Mindedness
A good communicator should enter any conversation with a flexible, open mind. Be open to
listening to and understanding the other person's point of view, rather than simply getting your
message across. By being willing to enter into a dialogue, even with people with whom you
disagree, you will be able to have more honest, productive conversations.
8. Respect
People will be more open to communicating with you if you convey respect for them and their
ideas. Simple actions like using a person's name, making eye contact, and actively listening when
a person speaks will make the person feel appreciated. On the phone, avoid distractions and stay
focused on the conversation.
Convey respect through email by taking the time to edit your message. If you send a sloppily
written, confusing email, the recipient will think you do not respect her enough to think through
your communication with her.
9. Feedback
Being able to appropriately give and receive feedback is an important communication skill.
Managers and supervisors should continuously look for ways to provide employees with
constructive feedback, be it through email, phone calls, or weekly status updates. Giving
feedback involves giving praise as well – something as simple as saying "good job" or "thanks
for taking care of that" to an employee can greatly increase motivation.
Similarly, you should be able to accept and even encourage, feedback from others. Listen to the
feedback you are given, ask clarifying questions if you are unsure of the issue, and make efforts
to implement the feedback.

10. Picking the Right Medium
An important communication skill is to simply know what form of communication to use. For
example, some serious conversations (layoffs, changes in salary, etc.) are almost always best
done in person.
You should also think about the person with whom you wish to speak, if they are very busy
people (such as your boss, perhaps), you might want to convey your message through email.
People will appreciate your thoughtful means of communication and will be more likely to
respond positively to you.For best communication, four important elements play an important
role. They are sender, receiver, and channel and message (Dev and Don, 2005). Sender is the
individual or an entity that intends to communicate a message to other individual. For an
organization, the sender can be the public relations office or marketing that seeks to
communicate. Receiver is the person to whom the communication is targeted. Receiver, for an
organization, can be any of the stakeholders including customers, suppliers, local communities
and employees. Message is the content that is transferred by the sender to receiver. For example,
the organization sends promotional content which is in the form of information about the
services, products or brand of the organization. Finally, media refers to channels that carry the
message from the sender to receiver. Media for an organization could be an email, telephone,
newspaper, television and radio etc. The communication can be termed as successful only when
the intended message is rightly decoded by the receiver (Hutt and Speh, 2004). The failure of
communication takes place when the receiver understands the meaning of the message in a
different way which is not desired by the sender. In today’s business environment,
communication is influenced by factors such as availability of technology, sender’s skill sets,
cultural differences and language barriers etc.
Why communication within organizations is sometimes not effective (AC1.3)
The communication within the organization is not effective because of various kinds of barriers
mentioned below.
Language Differences – In this globalized environment, organizations are forced to send
business managers to foreign countries. If the business manager does not the native language of

the country where he has been placed, he would fail to communicate the short-term business
objectives correctly to employees and thus find it very difficult to drive them towards the
business goals.
Prejudice – Normally employees develop prejudice on their peers and business managers from
what they hear about them from others. Due to the prejudice, these employees will not appreciate
their peer’s or business manager’s words and activities. The lack of appreciation would
ultimately lead to communication gaps.
Cultural Differences – Today, it has become mandatory for organizations to group people
belonged to different cultures as a team to carry out operational activities. Due to lack
ofknowledge on the cultural elements, employees belonged to one culture will not appreciate the
work done by people of other culture. The lack coordination and support between people
becomes major barrier to communication within the team.
Technical Language – At workplace, business managers often like to use technical jargon while
referring to business concepts. Whilst some people understand this technical jargon used by the
business manager, other employees will struggle. When employees don’t understand what their
managers are speaking, they cannot put their best efforts and thus fail to derive the best results.

What is the greatest barrier to internal communication in your organization?
“I hear. I forget.
I see. I remember.
I do and I understand.”
Confucius

Figure-1: Barriers to Communication
The communication is not effective if it does not meet the principles of communication such as
conciseness, consideration, completeness, concreteness and correctness. Conciseness ensures that
the communication should be highly precise in nature. It demands the speaker to avoid
repetitions. Consideration principle ensures that the communicator should understand the listener
completely before he or she start communicating. The consideration is a principle that makes the
communicator to start based on listeners’ requirements (Burnett and Dollar, 1989). Completeness
ensures that the communication should not be half-hearted. Concreteness ensures that the
message communicated to the audiences should be definite, point-to-point and vivid. Finally,
Correctness principle ensures that the message communicated to the audiences should be
authenticated, and trustworthy.
Reasons for ineffective communication at SHDE Holdings
1. The major problem with SHDE Holdings is that the workplace does not have proper
protocols to answer the questions asked by customers over phone. The internal
communication is also not effective at SHDE Holdings because poor communication
systems and procedures.

2. SHDE Holdings has a right mix of young professionals and old professionals. Most of the
young professionals are using text messages to communicate with old customers about
delivery timings. However, the old customers are finding it very difficult to read these
text messages because they are not used to texting.
3. Another important problem with SHDE Holdings is that the communication skills of
employees are not up to the mark.
Outline modes of communication used at for various purposes. Please support this with an
assessment of what other organisations do and examples of that could apply to SHDE (AC 1.2).
Organizations use three modes of communication. They are Written Communication, Oral
Communication and Electronic Communication.
Verbal Communication: The verbal communication is a communication takes place between
two individuals through words (David, 1986). The verbal communication can be used at the time
of team meetings, brainstorming sessions, conferences and face-to- face discussions. Team
meeting refer to the face to face meeting that a business manager conducts with his or her
subordinates in an open environment or conference room. The team meeting is conducted when
the team leader wants to communicate something important to the team members and collect the
feedback from them. Brainstorming session refers to a discussion among a group of employees
to evaluate an idea. The brainstorming session gives an opportunity to all group members to
express their opinions and ideas. SHDE Holdings has been using team meetings and face-to-face
discussions and conferences at the workplace for effective communication. Whilst face-to-face
discussions take place while conducting interviews, conferences take place when a marketing
executive meets a group of customers.
Written Communication: Written communication is the communication that takes place
between two individuals through writing. The written communication is used while interacting
with others through emails, press releases and brochures. Mails are the messages sent through the
individuals through a carrier such as postal service or courier. Emails are used by all
organizations to facilitate the communication between employees and other stakeholders. Press
releases are used by organizations to communicate latest happenings that take place at the

workplace. Brochure is nothing but a newsletter that carries information about the organization
and its offering to the stakeholders. SHDE Holdings has been effectively using emails and
brochures in order to facilitate the written communication.
Electronic Communication: Electronic communication is a method of transferring the textual,
visual and audio related to content to the desired destination over internet. Organizations
useseveral methods including emails, Facebook, Twitter and Blogs etc. Email refers to online
channel that carries messages from one individual to another over internet. Facebook and Twitter
are social networking sites that help organization to communicate promotional messages to
customers. The social networking sites give an opportunity for organization to get quick response
from customers. As mentioned in the case study, SHDE Holdings has been using Facebook, and
Twitter to promote services and products it has been offering.
How organisations portray themselves through their communication. What image does
SHDE Holdings currently have? Give an assessment of other organisations and the images
they portray through their communications (AC 2.3).
The way organizations portray themselves depends on their vision, mission and long-term
objectives. The vision and mission statements change from one organization to another. Whilst
some organizations want to become niche players by offering superior products, some
organizations want to target mid-class customers by offering moderate to good quality products
at affordable price. If the organization does not communicate about what it does in the market, it
cannot attract right customers. Organizations whose aim is to become technology leaders want to
portray themselves as Cutting Edge Organizations that introduce new technology to the
customers. In the same manner, organizations that target people with lesser income levels, want
to portray themselves as a traditional organizations that cater the needs of middle to lower-
middle class people at affordable prices. In this vast market, organizations are portraying
themselves as contemporary organizations, technology leaders, and energising organizations etc.
SHDE Holdings has an image of the traditional organization in the market. Since the
organization has portrayed itself as and traditional organization which has more than 10 years of

experience in repairing the electrical parts, customers are also looking at it as an Traditional
Organization only.
Apple is another company which had tried to portrayed itself as a Technology Organization or
Cutting Edge organization by developing innovative products whose technology cannot be
imitable. On the other hand, Tesco, one of the leading retail organizations in the United Kingdom
has been portraying itself as a Cost Leader by offering products at much lesser prices that its
competitors could offer.
Explain formal communications systems that should be used to communicate with customers.
Please evaluate different systems. (AC 2.1)
Website: Website refers to a pool of webpages on the internet. Every website is assigned with a
domain name through which an individual can access the content. Organizations make use of
website to communicate about their history, management and offerings. Website does not allow
two –way communication for the organization.