Effective Communication, Professionalism, and Work Planning in Finance

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report explores effective strategies for managing oneself in a finance and accounting environment.

Managing yourself in a finance and accounting environment
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Table of Contents
1. Be able to communicate effectively............................................................................................3
2. Understand how to behave in a professional manner..................................................................5
3. Understand the importance of planning work in an accounting role...........................................7
4. Understand how to use timesheets to maximise productivity...................................................10
Reference list.................................................................................................................................12
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1. Be able to communicate effectively
1.1 Communicate internally with colleagues at all levels to build rapport
Internal communication is a significant factor to be considered in all organisations (Karanges et
al., 2015). This is because in order to work effectually with employees at all levels and ensure
that a strong bonding is built up between them, communication between colleagues is necessary.
Internal communication also helps in building rapport between employees working at all levels
within the workplace, which in turn helps in working together and managing all sorts of issues or
problems arising related to work by employees at every level.
1.2 Describe the advantages and disadvantages of a variety of communication techniques
Merits Demerits
Interpersonal communication Integral for improving
performance among teams and
communicates information
effectively
Complex in various instances
Non-verbal communication Reliable, efficient, and highly
credibility
Often imprecise and vague
and difficulty in understanding
Written communication Permanent records are present
and accountability is high
Time consuming, slow and
lacks confidentiality
Oral communication Saves time, persuasive, less
expensive and immediate
feedback can be achieved
Quality of making decisions
can be inferior and no written
records present
Table 1: Pros and cons of communication techniques
(Source: Wilson et al., 2015)
1.3 Explain communication techniques with external customers and clients
Communication with external customers and clients is also necessary for a business (Ton, 2016).
However, for doing so, there are different kinds of techniques or methods to be adopted. One of
the most significant techniques for communicating with customers and clients externally is e-
mail campaigns as well as newsletters. Clients can also be reached out externally through other
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means such as company websites as well as press releases. Effectual media relations could also
be developed in order to communicate with them. However, in the current scenario, social media
acts as one of the primary techniques to communicate with customers externally.
1.4 Explain how communication from the individual reflects on the business
The way in which an individual within a business communicates with the customers has a direct
reflection on the business. This is because whenever an individual is communicating on behalf of
a business, he or she is acting as the representative of the business and any form of negative
attitude or rude behaviour shown by them directly affects the image of the business. It is an
indication that the business has a negative approach towards its customers.
1.5 Explain the importance of how communication reflects on the business
Communication has a significant impact on every business (Quirke, 2017). It has a direct
reflection on a business because it is only through communication that a business is able to build
strong relationships with its customers and ensure that it is able to address all the demands and
expectations of customers. Customer needs cannot be met without communication, due to which
it has a reflection on the business.
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2. Understand how to behave in a professional manner
2.1 Explain the influences of acting in a professional manner in accounting
There are different kinds of influences on the professional behaviour of accountants. One of the
primary influences of acting professionally in accounting is financial gain and personal benefits.
In various instances, companies offer large funds to accountants, especially auditors. Another
influence on their professional behaviour can be considerable shareholding in a company or
pressure from the directors or managers involved in financial frauds.
2.2 Explain how the professional image of a workplace can impact on clients and customers
Customers are one of the key stakeholders of a business (Mosey et al., 2017). Due to this reason,
professional image of an organisation can be having an impact on its customers and clients. The
primary reason for this impact is that customers also prefer purchasing and dealing with
organisations that are ethical in nature as well as professional in their approach and take their
requirements seriously. They also look forward to purchase goods from more professionally
responsible organisations.
2.3 Describe what constitutes as professionalism within a workplace
There are various elements of being and acting as a professional within the workplace (Holtzman
and Kraft, 2016). All employers demand professional employees since they help an organisation
in maintaining and improving its culture and ensuring better service for customers. The
following are the constituents of professionalism in a workplace -
 Consideration
 Accountability
 Communication
 Humility
 Consistency
 Kindness
 Tidiness
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2.4 Explain how the actions of senior members of staff can have an impact on junior
members of the team
The actions or activities of senior staff members in a company have considerable influences over
the junior members. This is because the senior staff members are often the ones to whom junior
staff members look forward to improve themselves and adopt the way they behave in order to
ensure the effectiveness of their performance in an organisational context. Their actions and
behaviour is adopted for ensure that they can survive in the workplace. However, if seniors have
a negative attitude, juniors can be adopting the attitude, thereby affecting the entire organisation
negatively.
2.5 Explain the importance of client confidentiality
Client confidentiality is one of the most important aspects or factors in a business (Jenkins,
2015). This is because without client confidentiality, trust cannot be developed or built among
clients. The significance of client confidentiality also lies in terms of allowing free flow of
information among workers and clients. In most instances, failure of maintaining client
confidentiality leads to creation of bad reputation in the market and loss of client.
2.6 Explain the fundamental ethical principles of working in a professional environment
Ethics are an important factor to be considered in every business (Ferrell, 2016). This is because
ethics help in defining human behaviour that is acceptable. There are six main ethical principles
needed in order to work within a professional environment and they are as follows -
 Integrity
 Ethics
 Morals
 Values
 Character
 Laws
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3. Understand the importance of planning work in an accounting role
3.1 Explain the importance of planning work
Planning is of great importance in case of any form of work one does (Parke et al., 2018). This is
because planning helps an individual or organisation in doing work in an accurate manner along
with ensuring that costly mistakes are avoided. It helps in organising one’s work to be more
efficient as well as productive along with helping in setting as well as accomplishing clear goals
and objectives. Through the means of planning, an individual is also able to prioritise and do
their tasks in a systematically.
3.2 Describe methods to help estimate how long a task will take to complete
It is necessary for all businesses to estimate the span of time, which will be required for
estimating the time to be taken for a task to be completed. However, there are different methods
needed being adopted for doing so. According to Nagar and Shah (2017), the following are the
most effectual methods that help in the estimation of the time needed for a task to be completed -
 Bottom-up estimation
 Top-down estimation
 Three-point estimating
 Parametric estimating
 Comparative estimating
3.3 Explain how investing time in planning work can increase personal effectiveness
In addition to the investment of time on planning work to an organisation, planning work also
helps in the enhancement of personal effectiveness (Thompson, 2015). This is because investing
time into planning leads to improving the focus and flexibility of an individual followed by
improving his or her action orientation and coordinating capacity. It also brings about
improvements in their time management skills as well as controlling abilities. All these factors
contribute towards the enhancement of personal effectiveness of an individual.
3.4 Explain how a clear work plan can have a positive impact on productivity
Work plans have a considerable role to be played in all organisations through bringing
improvements in their productivity (Tanizumi et al., 2017). This is because through a clear as
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well as detailed work plan, all obstacles can be removed in a project or activities of an
organisation along with helping it by providing opportunities for organising thoughts, evaluating
options and reducing the potential difficulties. It also helps in ensuring that its activities or
projects run smoothly and they are on the right track, which contribute towards improving its
productivity.
3.5 Describe the actions to be taken should there be a need to alter a work plan
In order to bring about changes or alter the work plan of an organisation, it there are various
steps or actions, which are required being followed. In the first place, the reasons for change
require being found out, followed by testing the arguments for change, the steps needed being
taken for the change followed by setting and clarifying the goals for the new work plan to be
prepared through altering the existing one. The other actions involve setting targets, establishing
objectives for change management, identifying critical milestones and stages followed by
identifying the risks of the alterations and finally making the changes.
3.6 Explain the need to inform a manager where work is not going to be completed by an
agreed deadline
It is necessary in all instances to inform the responsible managers to inform whether work will
not be completed within an agreed deadline or not. This is because the manager is the person
responsible for ensuring that all works are completed within time and keeping the stakeholders
informed regarding the progress of the work. A manager should also be informed since he or she
is the individual who is going to be negotiating the deadline or making all necessary
communication with client regarding the work and its non-completion within time.
3.7 Describe the effect that a disorganised individual has on other people
In an organisational context, disorganised people end up affecting other people. This is because
whenever a person is disorganised, they have more stress and anxiety and whenever people are
working together in an organisation or in a team, it is obvious that the stress and anxiety in him
or her will be affecting others. Similarly, others are affected also because if one person is
disorganised, the work allocated to him or her remains incomplete, due to which in most
instances others cannot complete their work in case if their work is interrelated. Goals also
remain unaccomplished.
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3.8 Explain the need for targets and objectives and how to evaluate performance
It is important to set targets and objectives of both a business and individuals because they help
in believing in one along with fuelling one’s ambitions (Franklin, 2018). Setting targets and
objectives act as an inspiration to individuals as well as creation of plans in order to ensure that
success is accomplished. It is also necessary since it helps in determining the habits that are
necessary to be established for accomplishing the path of success.
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4. Understand how to use timesheets to maximise productivity
4.1 Describe what a timesheet is and the information included
Timesheets can be defined as the method using which the amount of time spent by a worker or
an employee on each of their jobs (Young et al., 2016). Traditionally timesheets used to be in a
sheet of paper that had data arranged within it in a tabular format, which is now often found as a
digital spreadsheet or document. The information included in it is usually the time spent by
employees at work, for a specific job, or project or for working for a particular client.
4.2 Explain the importance of timesheets to an organisation
There are different purposes or reasons due to which a timesheet is important to business
(Omorogbe, 2016). The primary importance of a timesheet to organisations is that it helps in
recording the starting time and ending time of tasks and their duration, which are helpful to
organisations for purposes such as costing of its projects, estimation of the jobs required being
performed, the tracking, management, payroll and client billing. Another reason for which a
timesheet is important to an organisation is that it can be benefitting businesses through
improving their work process.
4.3 Explain the importance of timesheets to employees
Similar to importance of a timesheet to an organisation, it is important to an employee as well
(Lakshmi and Ghuli, 2017). This is because a timesheet can be used by employees for recording
and keeping a track of his or her duration of work. Similarly, employees can also have a
complete breakdown of the tasks they have performed and the ones that they have accomplished.
It acts as the basis of pay for employees as well along with tracking their over time.
4.4 Describe how the use of timesheets can have a positive impact on productivity
A timesheet not only enhances the quality of work done by an organisation but also increases the
productivity of a business (Shinde and Hedaoo, 2017). This is because through it, employees can
be conducting a real-time tracking and monitoring of its employees’ work and effectiveness,
which acts as an aid for improvement of employee workability, thereby enriching the
environment of work. All these factors collectively contribute towards the higher productivity of
a company.
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4.5 Describe other methods of improving productivity other than timesheets
In addition to the use of a timesheet, there are various other ways in improving productivity in an
organisation. A few of these methods include e-purchasing, use of smart systems for inventory
control, the implementation of an approach for continuous improvement along with providing
flexible schedules of work for employees. Employee empowerment, improvement of conditions
of work, use of effectual tools for communication as well as internet filtering can also contribute
towards the improvement of organisational productivity.
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Reference list
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New challenges for business schools and corporate leaders(pp. 15-29). Routledge.
Franklin, B., 2018. PLANNING: WHAT ISIT AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?. Strategic
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Holtzman, D.M. and Kraft, E.M., 2016. Skills needed in the workplace: A comparison of the
results of feedback from representatives of large and small businesses in New Jersey.
Jenkins, P., 2015. Client confidentiality and data protection. In Handbook of professional and
ethical practice for psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists (pp. 65-75). Routledge.
Karanges, E., Johnston, K., Beatson, A. and Lings, I., 2015. The influence of internal
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Lakshmi, G.S.S. and Ghuli, P., 2017. Design and Development of Timesheet Management
System. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 10, p.27.
Mosey, S., Kirkham, P. and Noke, H., 2017. Entrepreneurship with external stakeholders.
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Nagar, C. and Shah, A., 2017. Analogy-based estimation with three point technique. Int. J.
Modern Trends Sci. Technol., 3(2), p.1.
Omorogbe, C.E., 2016. Task scheduling automation and organisational efficiency: study of
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Management And Accounting (ISSN: 2455-6114), 2(2), pp.01-20.
Parke, M.R., Weinhardt, J.M., Brodsky, A., Tangirala, S. and DeVoe, S.E., 2018. When daily
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interruptions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(3), p.300.
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