Business Communications Report: St. Christopher's Hotel Case Study

Desklib provides solved assignments and past papers to help students succeed.

Business Communications
Business Communications
1

Business Communications
Executive summary
A background of this study was provided, which took St. Christopher hotel as the organisation.
First, good practices were found in this hotel and it identified skills, which employees already
possess. Some skills like empathy and effective listening were found inside some people. Factors
that can impact on communication and cause communication gap were found. It was established
that this communication gap can eventually cause communication breakdown. Some evidences
of racism were found in an employee. At last, it provided some evidence to overcome
communication problem, which suggested participation of both manager and directors. These
recommendations are listed at last section.
2

Business Communications
Table of Contents
Background......................................................................................................................................4
Analysis Section 1: Good Practice in Communication....................................................................4
Analysis Section 2: Analysis of the Causes of the Communication Breakdown............................5
Conclusions......................................................................................................................................9
List of Recommendations..............................................................................................................10
Reference List................................................................................................................................11
3

Business Communications
Background
In St. Christopher’s hotel, a project team, which is responsible for special arrangements for
elderly people with disabilities, is facing some difficulties. Due to diversity inside team, there
has been frustration and tension recently. Therefore, it caused a communication breakdown and
the team almost missed a deadline. This issue has motivated this study on communication.
4

Business Communications
Analysis Section 1: Good Practice in Communication
The theory of communication with the help of case study will be understood. Some skills like
empathy and effective listening will be evaluated. Contributions of these skills in solving
problems will be found.
According to Scarry and Scarry (2019) understanding another person’s feelings is important.
Empathy is described as “feeling with people”. Dr, Brene Brown says that people can show
empathy by connecting with someone by understanding what a person will feel by being at that
position. Elliot has empathy, as she understands the requirement for elderly people regarding
their health requirements. Samuel shows empathy for elderly people and points out that Su does
not shows empathy to any guests. Su points out that Carmen and Elliot does not show empathy
every time as they show rudeness. This skill helps these staffs of this organisation to become
empathetic towards guests. Therefore, it helps in increasing quality of customer service.
Empathy helps in reducing misunderstanding between staffs, which improves service design of
the organisation. This increases morale of employees and their commitment towards clients.
People with empathy such as Elliot, Samuel and Su can understand requirements of elderly
people in this hotel, which helps in increasing service quality (Parks, 2015). Samuel has effective
listening skill, as he understands medical requirements. John understands every word people say
to him and this shows that his effective listening is good.
John uses critical listening and understands meaning of speaker’s message. This helps him
understanding the logic behind arguments, validity related to conclusions and implication of
messages. John uses active listening to eliminate his own biasness and understands what other
people are saying. Samuel uses emphatic listening to understand feelings of elderly people. This
method helps patients to vent out their emotions. He makes sure that elderly people understand
that, he cares about their feelings. These skills are giving them power to understand guests,
which is increasing their ability to give service.
Elliot has showed empathy towards people especially guests and understands that Carmen has a
complicated job. This person further brings attention to service quality. Elliot says that needs of
guests are necessary to be addressed for making the organisation profitable in next ten years.
5

Business Communications
Elliot believes that individual requirements of guests regarding their mobility and health
requirements should be considered. Samuel shows empathy, as he understands that people staffs
should take care more of elderly guests, as he understands their medical requirements (Davis,
2018). He understands that elderly people are not like every other guest. He tries to understand
problem of other people by seeing their problems in his perspective. Effective listening can be
seen in john, as this person listens to every person clearly. This matches with the theory of
effective listening. John never interrupts colleagues during conversation even tries to understand
points by understanding the way that point affects him (Ali, 2018).
Empathy and effective listening is vital for communication. It is found that few people in this
organisation shows empathy and some of them show effective listening ability. These skills
benefit organisation and clients due to improvement in service quality.
6

Business Communications
Analysis Section 2: Analysis of the Causes of the Communication Breakdown
This section will discuss factors relating to communication, which are creating clash in this
company. Point of view of different cultures will be analysed. Cultural factors, causing
communication breakdown will be highlighted.
Communication breakdown and racism is a factor, which this organisation is facing right now. In
St. Christopher’s hotel, low power distance culture is followed. Individual members expect to be
in decision making. John says people in this hotel always argues, which makes decision making
difficult. Cultural biasness can become a problem and may induce racism in this organisation. It
is evident that John does not like Carmen and doubts her capabilities because she is Spanish.
This kind of racial discrimination can become a major problem in this organisation (Thompson,
2018) There is a chance that these staffs may see actions, which matches their own attitude as
correct. This will induce biasness in them and they might see actions, which are different to be
inappropriate. Cultural biasness can let people search for similarity. There can be some cultures,
which are future oriented. This can be seen in Elliott as this person points out that the
organisation should focus on making profit for upcoming ten years. There are some cultures,
which are present oriented. This can be seen in Samuel, as he says staffs should focus on
developing better service for elderly people and should not only focus on completing tasks only
(Sircova et al., 2015).
There are past oriented cultures, who believe that following tradition is necessary. Su says that
their previous methods for giving service has worked in past and this will work in future.
Therefore, due to diversity of culture, there are various opinions in this hotel. This can lead to
cultural clash between them. Some people in a culture believe that one activity should be done
in a set schedule (Sircova et al., 2015). They do not want to multi task and does not like to work
in an environment, where multitasking is necessary. There are some cultures in where people
believe that multitasking is necessary and they are open to any kind of change in work culture.
Therefore, there can be clash in interest and a person might think that employees should focus on
past while another employee may thing that it is better to focus on future. Therefore, a clash may
occur due to this kind of cultural difference.
7

Business Communications
In some culture, people think that getting extremely close during conversation is rude. However,
people from other culture think that it is very rude to stand far while communicating. Therefore,
they might misunderstand each other due to this difference. Another problem is stereotyping,
which John did in case of Carmen. John thinks that Carmen’s inability to organise her work due
to her heritage (Bodenhausen et al., 2016). He used the phrase “typical Spanish writer”, which is
an evidence of him stereotyping. This kind of racial slur yield bad reaction from colleagues. A
person may feel offended and might not want to communicate further. A person may not try to
further communicate with another employee, as this person might have some preset mindset
about another person. Therefore, chances of having a better communication get lost.
Racism is another cultural problem, which can occur in this hotel. A person may believe that
success of a colleague may base only on their genetics and may completely ignore facts like
opportunity as well as environment (Garner, 2017). John says that Carmen is disorganised and
her work does not make any sense because she is a Spanish woman. Direct racism is where a
person gets paid more than other people and institutionalised racism is where a person is given
more opportunity than others. These kinds of racism can happen inside this hotel. Racism can
bring down motivation of a person and that individual might not want to communicate. This may
bring some negative changes inside a person’s behaviour and this can bring communication gap.
Therefore, this kind of environment can lead to communication breakdown.
Racism, ethnocentrism, cultural biasness, power distance, time orientation are some factors in
culture, which can lead to communication breakdown in St. Christopher’s hotel. Therefore,
communication gap can arise.
8

Business Communications
Analysis Section 3: Managing improvements
Some recommendation will be given to solve issues such like racism and improve
communication amongst employees. This will consider some issues discussed in previous
section.
Managers in St. Christopher’s hotel can solve these cultural issues. Managers will have to
establish strong work culture inside this organisation. They should strictly ban any kind of
cultural biasness. Meetings can be held to point out flaws of every culture and positive points
about it. This will make employees aware about every culture and they will gain knowledge
about it. This way, they might not have any cultural biasness inside them. Racism can be avoided
by taking strict measurement against it. This should be done by managers by implementing
legislation against racism. “Equality act 2010” should be implemented by the hotel
administration (Cotter, 2016). Managers of each department should monitor activities of this
organisation. This law has some guidelines, which bans every kind of discrimination in respect to
race, nationality, and gender. Managers can create a committee, which will look upon these
matters. If any person faces some discrimination, then that person can contact directly with this
committee.
A major issue, which needs a solution, is communication breakdown. This can be improved by
hosting training sessions. Employee participation should be made compulsory and managers of
various departments should ensure that employees are participating with enthusiasm.
Communication breakdown happens because employees tend to distance themselves from
people, who are racist. An anti racism committee can be formed by board of directors
(Lockwood, 2015). They have to see if their policies are enough to improve this situation. If their
policies are not strong, then it should be reformed. This reformation should make policy stronger
to tackle racism, cultural biasness and ethnocentrism. There should be punishment to employees,
who have racially abused other colleagues. This will help in solving these issues, as employees
will see that there is strict punishment if they do not adhere to hostel’s policy. Moreover, training
can be provided by managers to employees regarding way of talking and being more sensitive to
other colleagues. If employees become sensitive and have empathy, then they will be able to
9

Business Communications
understand problems of other staffs. This will channelize a better communication due to good
relationship between employees.
Managers of St. Christopher’s hotel should teach employees about diversity. Hotel staffs should
understand that there are many cultures that are very different from each other. A work culture of
inclusion should be established by board of directors. This will empower every employee
irrespective of their race. This work culture will ensure that every person is being heard amongst
employees. Therefore, by solving racial issues, communication gap can be eliminated, which will
solve problems of communication (Cohen, 2017). Intercultural communication should be
channelized by managers. Managers can give specific tasks to teams, which will require them to
communicate with each other. These teams should consist of people from different cultural
backgrounds. Employees of different nationalism will be forced to communicate between
themselves. This manoeuvre from manager can improve intercultural communication. This kind
of team activity will give opportunity to employees to understand each other. This will ease the
process of communication between them and disruption in communication can be solved.
Role of managers and board of directors for improving communication by eliminating racism
and cultural bias will be eliminated.
10

Business Communications
Conclusions
Some staffs inside St. Christopher’s hotel showed empathy to elderly people, who are staying as
guests inside the hotel. Some communication skill like effective listening is present in few staffs.
Samuel. Elliot shows empathy and John has great effective listening ability. Causes such as
racism, cultural biasness, and ethnocentrism are a major issue in this hospital. Some evidences of
this were found in this context. These factors were highlighted as major causes behind
communication breakdown. Some recommendation was provided to overcome this situation. It
was recommend that managers should train employees and ensure that policies are being made to
ban discrimination.
11

Business Communications
List of Recommendations
 Managers should train employees to make them more sensitive.
 They should see if “Equality act 2010” is being implemented properly inside hotel. Strict
actions should be taken by them in case; any one is not adhering to this law.
Discrimination and racial slurs should be banned inside St. Christopher’s hotel.
 Board of directors should build new policy to tackle these problems inside hotel.
 Managers should help employees in building intercultural communication by forcing
them to work inside a team (Neuliep, 2017).
 Inclusion in work culture should be established to make every person heard.
12