BUS101: Communication Strategies for Fitness Industry Stakeholders

This report examines communication strategies within the State Fitness Industry Association, focusing on the diverse needs of stakeholders including gym owners, personal trainers, exercise professionals, consumers, and government bodies. The analysis begins by identifying specific communication requirements for each group, drawing upon communication theory to propose tailored strategies. The interactive communication model is applied to address challenges arising from indirect communication methods, such as social media, and the absence of face-to-face interactions. The report recommends specific strategies for each stakeholder group, including written communication for business owners and consumers, and face-to-face meetings for policy developers, to ensure effective feedback and address potential barriers. The report emphasizes the importance of considering all stakeholder perspectives and implementing feedback mechanisms to improve communication efficiency and ethical practices within the fitness industry.

COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
1

Introduction
In order to provide communication to all stakeholders, their individual needs have to be analyzed
(Bortree and Seltzer, 2009, p 318). Being a member of the State Fitness Industry Association, the
code of conduct will need to be developed along with several governments appointed members.
The Association's stakeholders comprise of gym owners, personal trainers and exercise
professionals. A consultation with the various stakeholders to get their feedback on the moral
and ethical issues will enable the committee to communicate the outcomes. The scope of current
discussion analyses the different communication needs for each group to draw from
communication theory and recommending communication strategy for each group.
Communication Needs
In order to recommend appropriate communication strategies, the varied internal stakeholders in
the group comprise has to be known, comprising of personal trainers, gym owners, and exercise
professionals, consumers, the State Fitness Industry Association and the local and state
government.
The personal trainers, gym owners, and exercise professionals can be grouped as a single
stakeholder group of people who conducts the business or business owners. The communication
consideration for this group is that they need to clearly communicate regarding the ethical and
moral areas which they failed to address. Types of communication consideration include
analyzing their clarity of communication made and understanding if any negative body language
regarding the ethical or moral code is present (Rybalko and Seltzer, 2010, p 338).
2

The second group of stakeholder is the consumer, who directly uses the services of the gym. The
consumer might express several concerns over ethical and moral conducts which have not been
followed for them. The communication consideration for consumer includes realizing their
stress, anxiety or negative feeling relative to the gym.
The third group of stakeholder includes the committee for State Fitness Industry, local and state
government. The core aim of this group is to develop effective moral and ethical codes for
consumers. Hence, they are the policy developers in the stakeholder group. The communication
consideration here includes analyzing the areas of extensive focus and those which are not given
much importance.
Communication Models
Post analysis of relevant stakeholder needs and considerations, an appropriate communication
model has to be identified and applied such that suitable recommendation strategies can be
developed. Interactive model is an appropriate communication model which can be applied to
this situation. The model states enable a two-way communication process to ensure effective
communication takes place (Walther, J.B., 2011, p 450). Feedback is crucial in this model, which
enhances the effectiveness of the overall model.
Applying this model to the current situation, it can be said that mostly face to face
communication will be absent while gathering individual needs from varied stakeholder groups.
There might not be any meetings conducted with the stakeholder group taken together, this might
hinder the effectiveness of the communication. Consumers might state regarding their moral and
ethical issues through social media (Frandsen and Johansen, 2011, p 350). Another stakeholder
3

group, such as business owners might also provide their feedback through social media or other
indirect communication technologies. Due to the vast numbers of consumers and business
owners, their point of view might be included appropriately. Therefore, it is necessary that a
feedback process is included to ensure that message that is conveyed and the one that is decoded
matches against one another van (Vliet, Kok, and Veldkamp, 2010, p 10).
In the absence of such a process where the sender's or the receiver's message gets decoded
appropriately, there might arise conflict amongst the stakeholder group. There is bound to be
present noise within the communication due to the presence of barriers. Absence of direct or
face-to-face communication is not applicable in this case hence there are several barriers present
in the communication process (Waters, Burnett, Lamm, and Lucas, 2009, p 104). In order to
overcome the ineffectiveness of this communication process, a process of feedback has to be
initiated.
Conclusion
In the communication process where a large number of stakeholders is present, there might arise
certain barriers. Increase in communication over social media and the internet has caused major
challenges. It is mainly one-way communication where the process of feedback is absent. While
getting moral and ethical codes of practices applied within the broader framework of the fitness
industry, it becomes pertinent that all communications from varied stakeholder group are
considered. Due to the presence of barrier of indirect communication methods, the following
recommended strategies for each stakeholder group needs to be adopted.
4

Recommended Communication Strategies
While it is suitable for the issue to adopt face-to-face communication techniques, it is not
possible to integrate the same for all varied stakeholder group. Hence, the following individual
strategies for each group needs to be integrated such as every stakeholder’s point of view can be
integrated.
 Business Owners: The process of feedback will need to be adopted for all relevant
stakeholder group, however for business owners, verbal written communication
technique can be adopted. The business owners can be asked to provide their moral and
ethical guidelines in a written note, which will allow avoiding any point being missed
out from their group.
 Consumers: Consumers will interact over the social media and a process of feedback
through forms can be accommodated for them. A form which clearly states the ethical
and moral guidelines they would like to incorporate will provide the best possible
feedback. There will be an area where the consumers will be provided to write down
their point of view regarding the codes. Hence, for this stakeholder group also written
communication will be preferred mode to avoid noise.
 Policy Developers: For the policy developers, a face-to-face meeting will be called for.
This direct verbal communication technique will allow discussion relative to the points
as indicated by the other stakeholder group. Though there might be present Priestly’s
paradox, however, it can be overcome through overcoming noise barriers through
several direct meetings. This can allow considering all valuable considerations for
ethical and moral guidelines, to be accommodated in the policy.
5

References
Bortree, D.S. and Seltzer, T., 2009. Dialogic strategies and outcomes: An analysis of
environmental advocacy groups’ Facebook profiles. Public relations review, 35(3), pp.317-319.
doi: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2009.05.002. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0363811109000691
Frandsen, F. and Johansen, W., 2011. The study of internal crisis communication: towards an
integrative framework. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 16(4), pp.347-
361. doi: 10.1108/135653281111. Retrieved from
https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/13563281111186977
Rybalko, S. and Seltzer, T., 2010. Dialogic communication in 140 characters or less: How
Fortune 500 companies engage stakeholders using Twitter. Public relations review, 36(4),
pp.336-341. doi: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.08.004. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0363811110000792
van Vliet, M., Kok, K. and Veldkamp, T., 2010. Linking stakeholders and modellers in scenario
studies: The use of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps as a communication and learning tool. Futures, 42(1),
pp.1-14. doi: 10.1016/j.futures.2009.08.005. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328709001360
Walther, J.B., 2011. Theories of computer-mediated communication and interpersonal
relations. The handbook of interpersonal communication, 4, pp.443-479. Retrieved from
http://commres.net/wiki/_media/42241_14.pdf
6

Waters, R.D., Burnett, E., Lamm, A. and Lucas, J., 2009. Engaging stakeholders through social
networking: How nonprofit organizations are using Facebook. Public relations review, 35(2),
pp.102-106. doi: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2009.01.006. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0363811109000046
7