Individual Report: Communication Strategy Analysis for Sports Love

This individual report examines the communication strategy for Sports Love, an independent leisure and sports center in London. It begins with an introduction to organizational communication and then delves into the principles and purpose of a communication strategy, emphasizing clarity, attention, feedback, consistency, timeliness, and adequacy. The report also explores the general characteristics of effective listeners and speakers during meetings, focusing on understanding, avoiding distractions, attentiveness, and providing quality advice for listeners, and confidence, clarity, interaction skills, and content richness for speakers. Furthermore, the report includes a self-assessment of communication strengths and weaknesses in both oral and written forms, concluding with the importance of effective communication for organizational success and productivity.

INDIVIDUAL
REPORT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTON.............................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1 Principle and purpose of communication strategy...................................................................1
2 General characteristics to be an effective listener and speaker during meetings.....................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
3 Strengths and weaknesses in terms of oral and written communication..................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Organisational communication is termed as the channels and forms of interaction among
working staff and employers within an organisation. It is also referred as information sharing
between individuals outside and within the company for the purpose of managing business
(Austin and Pinkleton, 2015). This assignment is based on Sports Love which is an independent
leisure and sports centre business in London, UK. This report involves principles and purpose of
communication strategy. General characteristics to be a good listener and speaker is mentioned.
At last self-strength and weakness are discussed.
TASK 1
1 Principle and purpose of communication strategy
Communication strategy is an efficient business tool which assist a company in aligning
their business objectives with marketing plan that focuses on achieving a desired result. To
maintain an effective communication within company, HR director of Sport Love can consider
following mentioned principles and purposes of communications:
Principles of communication
These principles guide an organisation to maintain an effective communication between
workforce and employers. Main principles of communication are:
 Principle of Clarity: Information and message within an organisation must be shared in
a clear manner. Ambiguity while conveying information must be avoided. HR director of
Sport Love needs to follow this principle in order to avoid misunderstanding between
employees during performing their duties (Conrad and Newberry, 2012).
 Principle of Attention: To maintain an effective communication, it is important for
receiver to attentively listen messages given by sender. If employees will be attentive
when some information is conveyed to them. This will help superiors in Sport Love to
gain the attention of subordinates in a better way and desired results will be obtained.
 Principle of Feedback: It is an important principle of communication in which feedback
information from employees is collected on a timely basis. This will help HR director of
Sport Love to understand if the employees are acknowledging the business information in
expected manner or not.
1

 Principle of Consistency: According to this principle, Information needs to be consistent
with plans, policies, objectives and programs of an organisation (Dozier, Grunig and
Grunig, 2013). Consistency will help in reducing the confusion in minds of employees
regarding the policies and rules of Sport Love company.
 Principle of Timeliness: Communication carried out at right time helps in implementing
plans in an effective manner. HR director needs to consider that delayed communication
will impact the productivity and revenues of Sports Love in a negative way.
 Principle of Adequacy: Message and information passed to employees should be
complete and adequate in all aspects in order to maintain a healthy communication.
Inadequate information will delay action and initiate confusion which will generate
inefficiency between employees while performing business activities.
Purpose of communication
Effective communication helps an organisation to conduct business operation in an
appropriate manner. Below are mentioned the basic purposes of communication:
 Flow of communication: The main purpose of communication is the unending flow of
relevant information from top to bottom and contrariwise within an organisation. To
achieve predetermined goals and targets, it is vital for HR director of Sport Love to
acknowledge employees regarding organisational objectives and other developments
taking place within company (Friginal, 2013).
 Increased coordination: Efficient communication helps in enhancing coordination
among different members of an organisation. This will help Sport Love in satisfying their
customers in a better way along with accomplishing organisational targets.
 Acknowledge individuals regarding change: Appropriate communication within
company will help HR director of Sport Love to bring amendments in procedure, policies
and rules of organisation according to the changing demands of customers and market.
 Build strong relations: Communication helps in exchanging perceptions, concepts and
thoughts between employees and management in a proper manner (Grunig, 2013). Best
way for Sport Love to sustain a strong position within market is to develop strong
interrelations by maintaining an efficient coordination.
2

2 General characteristics to be an effective listener and speaker during meetings
Effective listening and speaking skills is the ability to understand and convey information
to other individuals in an appropriate way. Effective listening will help employees of Sport love
in catering the needs of customer properly. By effective speaking skills, managers and
employees of Sport love will be able to acknowledge the customers regarding their services in a
better way.
Characteristics that members of Sport Love must have to be an effective listener:
 Understand the speaker: An effective listener is capable to have a two-way
communication with the speaker (Hilliard and Cook, 2016). To be a good listener, it is
important for employees to understand what the manager or other employee is trying to
convey. This characteristic will help in enhancing the productivity level among
workforce of Sport Love.
 Avoid distractions: In-activeness and other distractions try to steal attention of
employees while having face to face conversation with superiors. To became an effective
listener employee in Sport Love needs to avoid distractions like gossiping, using phone
and internet during working hours. By this, they will be able to handle customers by
efficient means.
 Attentiveness: Employees and management needs to be attentive while listening to each
other. A positive eye contact with speaker and nodding according to the situation will
enhance the effectiveness of discussion which is carried out to discuss business
operations (Karpen, Bove and Lukas, 2012). Work carrying capacity of employees will
enhance as they have clear information regarding their tasks.
 Offer quality advice if required: Another characteristic of a good listener which
members of Sports Love needs to adopt is to provide suggestions and advices after
listening the information conveyed by superior or other employees. By this different
opinion for a single topic will be acknowledged and best alternative will be selected
which will assist company in fulfilling the desires of customers appropriately.
Characteristics that members of Sport Love must have to be an effective speaker:
 Confidence and expressing power: To be an efficient speaker and presenter, an
individual need to have expressing power and confidence. These can be built and
developed by observing each concept in a deeply manner. Confidence and expressing
3

power will allow directors and managers of Sport Love in representing themselves in
front of employees in a strong & confident manner.
 Clarity of words: Customers and employees never wants to hear an ambiguous speaker.
In Sports Love, all employees are not English speaking people. If words and information
conveyed by superiors of Sport Love company are not clear and adequate, employees will
face difficulty in understanding them. This will result in unstandardised services to
customers which will lead toward reduced reputation of company.
 Efficient interaction skills: The best way to engage listeners during a meeting or
discussion is to have appropriate interaction with them. If interactivity among managers
and employees of Sport Love is low, they will not be able to impress customers. This will
results in loss of revenue and market shares of company (Pate and Goldwater, 2015). To
interact with non-English persons, special sessions and meeting can be conducted to
avoid inefficiency.
 Content rich: An effective speaker needs to be rich in content. Content rich discussion
grabs attention of employees and they willingly listen every aspect shared by the speaker.
This will helps in enhancing the overall productivity of Sport Love company along with
profit margins.
TASK 2
3 Strengths and weaknesses in terms of oral and written communication
Oral and written communication is a way to express idea and information to listeners and
audience. It is recommended when a direct and indirect interaction is required. These are an
effective way to communicate in conference, meetings, gathering, interviews and group
discussions.
Strength and weaknesses in term of oral communication:
Strength: As a HR director of Sport Love I have efficient oral communication skills so
that I am capable to represent myself in front of employees and customers in a better way. I
possess good verbal skills and capable to convey my opinions and plans in the desired manner
(Räsänen and Laine, 2013). Due to this, employees feel connected while talking with me. Also,
my voice is pleasant due to which I am able to interact with listeners in an interesting manner. I
4

adjusts my speed, tone and volume of speech according to the situation which is my appreciable
strength.
Weakness: Along with some strengths, I have noted that I possess some weaknesses
during verbal communication like misinterpretation of words. Due to which actual message is
not conveyed to employees regarding business operations. Another weakness is that I sometimes
faces difficulty in interacting with employees due to which accomplishing tasks on timely basis
become difficult.
Strength and weaknesses in term of written communication:
Strength: I have strong written communication skills. I writes down every important
meeting and information due to which records are easily available for future use. I stores relevant
information in a consistent and structured manner.
Weaknesses: Sport Love is facing issues in performing their business operations due to
ineffective communication at workplace. Due to this, customers are also not satisfied with the
company. My weakness in written communication is that preparing documents take a long time
due to which I am not capable to carry-out work on timely basis (van Ginkel and et. al., 2015).
CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that it is necessary for an
organisation to have an effective communication. This helps in maintaining organisational
culture and increase productivity within organisation. Also, principles of communication guides
employees towards right way of interacting and purpose & characteristics specifies the
advantages of adopting effective communication.
5

REFRENCES
Books and Journals
Austin, E. W. and Pinkleton, B. E., 2015. Strategic public relations management: Planning and
managing effective communication campaigns. Routledge.
Conrad, D. and Newberry, R., 2012. Identification and instruction of important business
communication skills for graduate business education. Journal of Education for
Business. 87(2). pp.112-120.
Dozier, D. M., Grunig, L. A. and Grunig, J. E., 2013. Manager's guide to excellence in public
relations and communication management. Routledge.
Friginal, E., 2013. Evaluation of oral performance in outsourced call centres: An exploratory
case study. English for Specific Purposes. 32(1). pp.25-35.
Grunig, J. E., 2013. Excellence in public relations and communication management. Routledge.
Hilliard, C. and Cook, S. W., 2016. Bridging gaps in common ground: Speakers design their
gestures for their listeners. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory,
and Cognition. 42(1). p.91.
Karpen, I. O., Bove, L. L. and Lukas, B. A., 2012. Linking service-dominant logic and strategic
business practice: A conceptual model of a service-dominant orientation. Journal of
Service Research. 15(1). pp.21-38.
Pate, J. K. and Goldwater, S., 2015. Talkers account for listener and channel characteristics to
communicate efficiently. Journal of Memory and Language. 78. pp.1-17.
Räsänen, O. and Laine, U. K., 2013. Time-frequency integration characteristics of hearing are
optimized for perception of speech-like acoustic patterns. The Journal of the Acoustical
Society of America. 134(1). pp.407-419.
van Ginkel, S. and et. al., 2015. Towards a set of design principles for developing oral
presentation competence: A synthesis of research in higher education. Educational
Research Review. 14. pp.62-80.
6