Professional Communication Practice Report: Analysis & Strategy

This report, focusing on professional communication, analyzes communication challenges within an accounting firm characterized by a hierarchical structure. The analysis highlights issues such as top-down communication, lack of employee involvement, and interdepartmental rivalry, which lead to inefficiencies and a negative work environment. The report then proposes a comprehensive communication plan for improvement, encompassing both internal and external communication strategies. The internal plan emphasizes company-wide conversations, regular communication through newsletters and social networks, and clear articulation of organizational objectives. The external communication plan focuses on gathering feedback from stakeholders, addressing communication issues with clear and concise language, and utilizing engaging content such as infographics. The report aims to enhance communication effectiveness, employee engagement, and overall organizational performance.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION PRACTICE
Professional Communication Practice
Student’s name:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION PRACTICE
Table of Contents
Section A.......................................................................................................................................2
Scenario 1......................................................................................................................................2
Scenario 2......................................................................................................................................4
Section B.......................................................................................................................................6
1. Analysing the current situation with respect to the firm’s organisational communication..........6
2. Communication plan for improvement.......................................................................................6
Internal Communication plan.........................................................................................................7
External communication plan........................................................................................................7
Reference List................................................................................................................................9

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Section A.
Scenario 1
11th October
Mr James Cameron
Youth Orchestra
Castries St. Lucia, Melbourne
Dear Mr Cameron,
I would like to take some time to express my heartfelt good wishes as you are going to
start your new band. It is really good news as everyone in this locality regards you guys as
potential musicians. I received your letter yesterday and I am very glad that you are thinking to
expand your musical venture. You want that we donate some money for your Orchestra that you
can buy some instruments. We had already a few applications from local NGO and they asked
for a donation to develop their NGO activities. Moreover, each year, we donate some money to
the governmental social ventures as our CSR activities. We gave your application of donation
careful consideration. However, as you are aware there is only a limited scope to our
organisation to donate money, therefore, a money-donating decision was that much more
difficult.
Although, we are impressed by your recent musical venture, however, we are not capable to
donate money at this point in time. Our organisation has just employed two new staffs and we
have bought new equipment in order to expand our business. Our management body has just
decided to spend more money on marketing. Moreover, we expect our costs can be higher than
the returns for next two months. Therefore, We are extremely sorry to let you know that we
cannot help you to buy musical instrument until this time next year.
You could ask for our help in next year in this time, we would welcome the opportunity to review
your financial aid. Until then, good wishes. We wish you best in your endeavour.

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Regards,
Human Resource Department
Tel: [phone]
Fax: 345-098
Email: [e-mail]

4PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION PRACTICE
Scenario 2
54, Victoria East Street
Victoria Ski
Melbourne.
October 2017
Mr James Wan
Marketing Manager
Victoria Ski is among the most respected ski alpine resort in Australia, mostly in Victoria
region. We believe ourselves to the best in snowboarding and skiing destination in Victoria. Our
organisation starts skiing after the second week of June and it still continues until August.
During this time, Victoria Ski has plenty of tourists who like to enjoy the season with skiing and
snowboarding. In Victoria, there are extensive skiable terrains in winter. In the year 2015, there
were 900 skier days in Victoria. Victoria Ski provides the highest lifted point at 1800 m and
lowest lifted point 1300 m. we have the skiable area with 300 ha and snowmaking area is 70 ha.
Victoria Ski has 22 lifts. Our organisation provides the best ski experiences in beginner,
intermediate and advanced runs as all types of experts are available in our organisation.
Overnight visitors of Victoria region in last year was 439000 for snow tourism activities from
domestic areas and in the international sector, this figure crossed 26000.
However, we request you to visit our resort not just only during the season (June-September),
but also, you can visit our resort at other times of the year also. Mostly, in Feb and March, you
can enjoy the beautiful season in our hill station and it looks awesome when wild colourful
flowers bloom amidst the hills. Our resort is located in beautiful hills and residents in our village
are helpful and they make handicrafts products. Most importantly, within a few kilometres,
cultural events are organized by local people. In recent time, the number of visiting in cultural
events has increased in the last few years. Victoria area is famous for art and culture. In
October, Vietnamese and Asian people near Victoria organize Sunshine Lantern Festival with
the culturally diverse community. Visitors can also enjoy the organic products that are made
near the Victoria villages. We offer online booking and you can pay through net banking and

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pay-at-resort facility is also available. We have experienced guide who will help you to explore
the places.
Therefore, it is our request on behalf of Victoria Ski to visit our ski resort in all around the year
as we have a lot of surprises to entertain you and nature are waiting with its potential. You
contact to our toll-free number: 033-34-1800.
Thank You.
James Wan
Marketing Manager of Victoria Ski
Email: [e-mail]

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Section B.
1. Analysing the current situation with respect to the firm’s organisational
communication
More than 5000 employees work in several managerial levels in this accounting firm and
the organisational structure is hierarchical. The communication flow of the organisation goes
top-to-bottom approach. Therefore, decisions are made by mainly top management and
communication flows to the lower levels employees and to the other stakeholders. Top
management keeps the lower ranking staffs in dark about new objectives and goals of the
organisation. Moreover, management does not communicate with all levels of staffs. As stated
by Modaff et al. (2016), the disparity in communication flow in hierarchical organisation creates
issues in department loyalty of the employees and works within department get in conflict. In
this regard, staffs members provide conflicting answers to the clients about organisational
objectives. Lower ranking staffs face maximum pressure and if they sometimes inform the
situations to middle managers, no improvement occurs and sometimes they get penalised. Top
managers take a decision and these decisions do not even reach to the middle managers. As
opined by Eisenberg et al. (2013), effective communication is needed to keep the organisational
structure goes smoothly, without this, communication can get confused. Employees would not
have any idea about their responsibilities and critical success of the organisation will be lower.
Slow communication can result the delays in work and sheer of potential time is lost that can be
utilised in employee motivation, customer satisfaction and production of the organisation.
According to Holmes and Stubbe (2015), in rigid hierarchy, the interdepartmental rivalry is seen
as departments can compete for each other. In this organisation, memos also get changed by
the time it reaches to the managers and it results to demoralise the staffs of the organisation.
Challenges come in forming unilateral decisions as some of the senior executives who are
autocrat personality create the decisions for the overall organisations and the decisions lack the
creativity. These issues within the organisation have been creating unrest and it has been
creating an unproductive work atmosphere.
2. Communication plan for improvement
As a communication manager of the accounting firm, my role is to create a
communication strategy for both internal and external communication.

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Internal Communication plan
The first thing that the organisation needs to do is to enable the company-wide conversations
before making any decision. This conversation can be made through asking personally by the
team leaders or group chats option can be helpful to make the conversation archived. The
conversation will be perfect, in seamless collaboration between team leaders and team
members. Before taking any organisational-change decision, top management must talk to the
staffs in understanding their perspectives. In this case, staffs would feel valued and
communication flow will be smooth. Moreover, management can publish a weekly notice or bi-
monthly newsletter after company meeting; these would communicate properly the information
to the staffs in all levels.
As the organisation follows the hierarchical structure, it is needed to make an internal social
network, like Zoho or Bitrix24. These types of portal or software help the firm to make contact
with the employees even after the office hours and each of the activities will be recorded there.
In this social networking platform, the firm can post any office related news, any plan in
objectives of the organisation, any change in shifting time and birthday wishes for employees.
Moreover, it provides an opportunity to tag the persons, it is intended to make. As stated by Men
(2014), the internal social network provides benefit the company in sourcing, searching and
consolidating employees skills.
According to Karanges et al. (2015), management needs to take some time to explain
the lower staffs about the organisational objectives, mission and vision as these can make clear
the responsibility of the staffs. Understanding company's objectives can help in communication
between top management and lower staffs. In addition, management needs to encourage
information sharing among the staffs. Employees must communicate with each other and
communication should flow in both top-down and bottom-to-top approaches. Sharing the
information to all will make the employees eager to be involved in this endeavour.
External communication plan
External communication of the organisation maintains the communication to the persons who
are outside of the organisational structure. The external stakeholders of the organisations can
be clients or customers, business partners and fundraising entities. In order to improve the
external communication, the accounting firm can gather feedback from the external stakeholder
through a report. Then, the firm can analyse the strengths and weaknesses of them from the
perspectives of external stakeholders. In delivering the services, the firm should overcome

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those weaknesses by inputting strategies. External feedbacks mainly fill the gap of
communication between management and external stakeholders (Rauwers et al. 2016). In
addition, the management needs to address the external communication issues and find out the
solutions. In this regard, management at first should find out the potential issues that can impact
on communication. Management should not use too much technical jargon and they need to put
the things simply. Moreover, the team leaders and senior executives must be updated and they
need to offer track records to solve the issues.
Management should communicate regularly in order to understand the needs of the
external stakeholders and maintaining regular update of the external stakeholders can help to
improve the business communication. If the employees of the organisation are not motivated
and lack the update from the senior managers, they will not be successful to deliver the correct
information to the external clients or customers. Therefore, right information flow is needed from
all levels. Moreover, in sending any information about the organisation, it is needed to put info-
graphic information more and fewer texts. These engaging contents would be helpful for an
organisation to ask for a quick response from external stakeholders' sight. Accounting firms can
regularly communicate with external stakeholders with newsletters, blogs or business letters.
Before sending any contents to the external stakeholders, it is needed to proofread these.

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Reference List
Eisenberg, E.M., Goodall Jr, H.L. and Trethewey, A., 2013. Organizational communication:
Balancing creativity and constraint. London: Macmillan Higher Education.
Holmes, J. and Stubbe, M., 2015. Power and politeness in the workplace: A sociolinguistic
analysis of talk at work. Abingdon: Routledge.
Karanges, E., Johnston, K., Beatson, A. and Lings, I., 2015. The influence of internal
communication on employee engagement: A pilot study. Public Relations Review, 41(1),
pp.129-131.
Men, L.R., 2014. Strategic internal communication: Transformational leadership, communication
channels, and employee satisfaction. Management Communication Quarterly, 28(2), pp.264-
284.
Modaff, D.P., Butler, J.A. and DeWine, S.A., 2016. Organizational communication: Foundations,
challenges, and misunderstandings. Sydney: Pearson.
Rauwers, F., Voorveld, H.A. and Neijens, P.C., 2016. The effects of the integration of external
and internal communication features in digital magazines on consumers' magazine
attitude. Computers in Human Behavior, 61, pp.454-462.