Analysis of Communications in Organisations: Vodafone PLC Report

This report examines the crucial role of effective communication in organizations, particularly within Vodafone Group PLC. It explores the importance of communication for key organizational functions such as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. The report delves into various communication styles, practices, and systems that facilitate the understanding of organizational policies and procedures, including the sharing of ideas and the fostering of workforce commitment. It identifies and analyzes common communication barriers, such as language, psychological, physiological, physical, and attitudinal barriers, and proposes remedies to overcome these obstacles. Furthermore, the report investigates interpersonal communication skills, including presentation style, meeting management, and networking, and suggests approaches to enhance personal communication styles. The report also discusses organizational practices that support internal and external workplace communications, including the use of communication tools and approaches. Finally, it outlines a plan for improvements in Vodafone PLC's communication strategies and the implementation of this plan, emphasizing the importance of clear, direct communication and employee engagement.

Communications in
Organisations
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION:.............................................................................................................................3
TASK 1...............................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Importance of effective communication in organisations :......................................................3
1.2 Communication practices and systems that allow organisation policy and procedures to be
understood and how ideas can be shared.......................................................................................4
1.3 Workforce Commitment through different communication practices:....................................6
1.4 Communication barriers and weaknesses and remedies .........................................................7
TASK 2...............................................................................................................................................8
2.1 Interpersonal communications and communication styles......................................................8
2.2 Awareness of personal interpersonal communication skills and provide evidence of your
skills
including presentation style, meetings management and networking...........................................9
2.3. Apply approaches to improve personal communication style. ............................................10
TASK 3.............................................................................................................................................11
3.1 Support of management to teams and other groups, departments or sections
within and outside an organisation.............................................................................................11
3.2 Organisational practices which support internal and external workplace communications.. 12
3.3 Description on the communication tools and approaches and practices which supports
internal and external communication. .........................................................................................13
3.4 Define the plan for improvements in Vodafone PLC communication and implement the
plan...............................................................................................................................................14
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES: ...............................................................................................................................16
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INTRODUCTION:
Effective communication is important to perform elementary functions of organisations i.e.
organising, leading, controlling and planning. It is significant for managers who can easily
communicate with their employees. Communication is considered significant in Vodafone Group
PLC multinational company Managers communicate planning and procedures and finally
implement them in organisation. In this report Importance of effective communication is shown
and its various styles are briefly described. There are also communication barriers and some of its
weaknesses which every organisation has to face (Alfaro-Lefevre, 2015). Vodafone Group PLC
uses different interpersonal styles and networking and focuses on its improvement through various
approaches. In communication management various tools and techniques are used within
organisation so that effective internal and external communication can be generated. For this
improvement, Vodafone Group PLC has given responsibility to various departments and sections
too. Effectiveness arises not just conversing but applying different plans and being aware of
current situation of organisation. This awareness can only be developed by conducting meeting
and strong networking among employees ans senior team members. Simultaneously, remedies
should be prepared for the barriers and weaknesses developed during communication. This report
will provide all remedies applied by Vodafone Group PLC and will show barriers which abstract
the way of planning and management.
TASK 1
1.1 Importance of effective communication in organisations :
Effective Communication is a pillar of successful organisation. Managers of Vodafone
Group PLC contribute largely in it. It is considered as organisational blood. Importance of
communication in organisations can be explained in many ways. By informing and clarifying
employees about the activities to be performed, communication boosts motivation. If their
performance is not to the satisfying level then their performance have to be improved in the
manner they are doing the task. Secondly, it helps in decision making process to great extent as it
is a source of information in the organisation (Arnold and Boggs, 2015). It helps in assessing and
identifying secondary course of practices. Moreover, it helps in developing individual's behaviour
i.e. a well informed person will possess a better behaviour than less informed individual.
Employee's attitudes are mainly moulded by journals, meetings, organizational magazines and
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other ways of written and oral communication ways. These meetings and journals alter their
behaviour in many ways and so they can communicate in better and understandable way. Another
importance of communication is that individual becomes more socialized and helpful. In today's
life presence of another individual is very important. One cannot survive without communication.
It is an important source of socialising of employees in Vodafone Group PLC. Effective
Communication delivers and receives messages frequently and it also helps in managerial
proficiency. Earlier also it was discussed that, it plays an important role in process of controlling.
Behaviour of members are controlled in various ways. Employees of Vodafone Group PLC
follows certain guidelines and principles and also maintain levels of hierarchy (Cardon, 2014).
They are compatible with organisational policies and procedures, communicate about their
problems and grievances to their supervisors and do their job without any complains. Effective
communication creates good impression and many people pay attention to their verbal skills so
that more customers are attracted. Organizational policies are acceptable by employees and fine
results are achieved by organisation. It takes complete firm to an easy mode and each employee is
aware about the procedure of its organisation. There is combine motivation among employees to
work towards same objective. They do their best achieve goal. In this process communication is
very important as each employee moves towards the same path. Non-verbal communication is also
important as it helps in creating good body language. The flow of communication with employees
is known as B2E communication which improves relationship between subordinates and seniors.
Since it helps in better performance so organisational profit and growth also increase with
productivity. If communication is weak with human resource management and marketing
department then it is difficult to make profit for companies. Customers are also attracted due to
good communication skills only. Moreover, communication ensures that information is properly
transferred to other employee in the firm. It also promotes unity of various departments. All unit
work with integrity for same goal. It also increases transparency in organisation and there is less
wastage of time.
1.2 Communication practices and systems that allow organisation policy and procedures to be
understood and how ideas can be shared
There are many communication practices that can enhance good communication system:
1. To be Relatable : It is a quality of every organisation that senior leaders should make
special effort to know situations of his/her individuals (Fearn-Banks, 2016). This
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communication practice involve engaging of seniors with their subordinates and walking in
the office for informal talks. Interest should be shown by them towards their partners,
employees and customers so that a friendly environment is created.
2. To retain, hire, develop, effective communicators: They facilitate organisational change .
Individuals know and understand to design communication system within organisation
which makes communication flow quite easy. Some leaders have described it as
'communication with care' as seniors apply strategies by choosing their channels and focus
on their initiatives by pacing sensitivity of it (Forbes and Wongthongtham, 2016). An
employee with better and valuable human resource and skills is rarely found and his/her
skills are improvises for better communication system. So to hire good and skilled
employees and designing communicating system is one of the communication practise.
3. Investing in information Technology with New formats: There is capital investment in IT
due to some reasons. Diminishing cost of information, profit in productivity and transition
from industrial to information based economy have increased capabilities. Information is
being shared at large level between executives. This information is related to results of
unit operating system, corporate operating results, performance of competitor and business
goals and plans. Firstly comprehensive information is provided. Secondly, data is
integrated across various departmental boundaries. Then, performance and organisational
abilities are measured. Then, organisational change is centralised by linking to rearward
system and goals. Lastly, effective information is made visible all across organisation. This
implies that good communication is not possible without perfect information technology.
There are many communicating ideas that should be shared with the employees. It is
foremost rule of better communication that every person should be a good listener. This helps in
creating better impression and increases knowledge. Reactions can be seen by nodding or
answering or encouraging feedbacks from the employees of organisation can be considered. There
should not be any type of casual conversation with employees (Gallois and Giles, 2015). A limit
has to be set with them else unexpected reactions are created. Another important thing is that
employees should never rush during communication. A pause should be given while
communicating so that discussion can be cleared out.
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1.3 Workforce Commitment through different communication practices:
Commitment is connected with employees voice and its concepts. It has its own freedeom
to speak about his capabilities to do work with consistent and concern. Employees can issue about
the environment in which they are working through various mediums. This depends on their
effectiveness and knowledge power. They have understanding of various strategic issues related to
organisation. Communication demands well management so that at any time confusion created can
be avoided among the team members. The problems made are accurate, clear and honest through
various practices. Through various practices and media communication has its coverage and
impact over business strategies (Hargie, 2016). Workforce commitment is more important than
that a thoughtful strategy as change process is accelerated. Communication model needs
perceptions and commitment both as a supportive measure. This commitment and support is
generated along with superiors and top management. Major view of communication system is
integrity which arises due to efficacious and sincere communication style among members of
organisation. This integrity is important to achieve its goal and follow Vodafone PLC's rules and
regulations in systematic manner.
Some scholars also states that passion and concentration both are required to attain success
and competence. Workforce commitment improves productivity of employee. It leads to
improvement in entire company's performance. Those who have high grade in production get
effective communication. This communication can be done through email, voicemail, notes etc.
through commitment employees feel encouraged and empowered. It has positive effect on turnover
rates and employees feel updated as they receive truthful information. Upward communication is
also there where employees are committed with their work. In this, information track is upward in
the firm and feedback is accepted. If senior authority listens to employees then job satisfaction is
always there. Actions on the decisions are taken only through communicating with workers on
organisational issues and then they are cleared out. Major problem in organisations is that leaders
think employees will automatically go through the information without anybody's concern but
actually it never happens. Direct and clear communication is required with staff so that effective
feedback can be achieved. More listening helps in more learning (Holness and Rule, 2014). Goal
of company should always value the working staff so that they can get commitment from their
side. Employee's engagement should be the starting point of development of organisation. Every
person has its own responsibility to understand and should be committed. More people should
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never be involved in any project because the communication gap arises due to rise in number of
employees.
1.4 Communication barriers and weaknesses and remedies
There are many communication barriers which abstract employee's career:
1. Language Barrier: Linguistic and language are the most common barrier to communication.
Here while communicating terminology used in message may be a barrier which cannot be
understood by the receiver. For example. If a message contains lot of abbreviations and jargon
then it cannot be received by other person completely.
2. Psychological Barrier: Here receiver is influenced by its psychological situation. For example. If
a person is occupied by personal tensions and is worried about something then also he/she cannot
get the message properly as person's mind will not be free and the things communicated to him
will be a wastage (Lane, 2016).
3. Physiological Barrier: Here the problem is from receiver's side. If the state of mind of receiver
cannot grasp or reduce hearing then problem is created. This barrier occurs especially when there
is background noise.
4. Physical Barrier: It occurs due to geographical distance between receiver and sender.
Communication becomes faster and easier when more channels are available. It is good when the
use of technology is less. Though modern technology decrease the effect of physical barrier but
then too there are pros and cons of it and suitable channel should be used to overcome this barrier.
This communication is made when both persons are living at short distance.
5. Attitudinal Barrier: These barriers are kind of perceptions or behaviour which prevent persons
from communicating properly. This may also lead to poor management, resistance to change and
deficiency in motivation. Attitudinal barriers should be overcome through effective receiving of
messages so that communication can be facilitated.
There are some weaknesses of communication like poor written communication skills,
communication styles that cannot be adopted properly involving people of various generation.
Non- verbal communication that conveys yelling or speaking too softly.
Remedies for communication:
There can be remedies to above barriers. The receiver can hire interpreter or learn language
and instead of communicating with signs of hand something polite or respectful can be searched
out in case of language barrier (Men, 2015). If there is any gender barrier then it can only be
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processed through time and taught with proper attention. Communication is a type of broad brush
practice in which person has to change his/her feelings, thoughts and physical attention. In
organisation communication can be improved by highlighting critical areas for action and pointing
key issues so that supervisors can communicate with their employees. Initial assessment of
problem is required si that a baseline is created for future research.
TASK 2
2.1 Interpersonal communications and communication styles.
Interpersonal communication is a procedure in which people persons deal with different
information, emotions through non-verbal and verbal communication. It explains the way a person
says or convey its message. It is concerned with the gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice.
It occurs when two or persons are present on the same place for any type of conversation no matter
how common or subtle the message conveyed is. Components of interpersonal communication are
Communicators: For any communication to take place there must be involvement of more that two
or more people (Sarapaivanich and Patterson, 2015). These people are denoted as receiver and
sender. It is one way process where people receives and send messages from both sides. While,
two way processes is quite complex as it involves talking and listening of both persons but there is
feedback sending in the form of nodding head and smiles.
Message: Messages can be in the form of speech or non-verbal in the form of gesture, body
language, facial language.
Noise : It has its special meaning in communication theory. Noise is something that distorts the
message. It is an unaccepted thing received from speaker. Noise which can interface with
communication is whilst physical noise i.e. background sound. Inattention, complicated jargon,
inappropriate body language can be said as noise.
Feedback: Returns from receiver is known as feedbacks and from this accuracy can be noted
Context: Context is influenced by communication. However apart from situational context social
context is also taken into consideration.
Channel: It refers to means by which messages are moved from one person to another.
There are various communication styles too (Silverman, Kurtz and Draper, 2016). They Assertive,
Aggressive, Passive-Aggressive , Submissive style and Manipulative Style. High self esteem
person possess assertive communication style. It is most effective and healthiest style. In this style
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person have confidence to speak without doing any type of manipulation. Employees of Vodafone
PLC have assertive style for achieving goals but they don't hurt anybody. They are emotionally
and socially expressive by nature. While, aggressive style is not at all liked by anybody. They are
demanding all the time and bully others. In Passive style people show anger indirectly and act
passively. They are unreliable and little sulky. Their facial expressions often looks innocent type
but actually they are two faced (Sprague Martinez, et.al., 2017). 'Cut off your nose to spite your
face' perfectly fits on their behaviour. This style is usually used for avoiding conflicts and reflects
pleasing personality of others. Manipulative style is mainly for shrewd and calculating people.
2.2 Awareness of personal interpersonal communication skills and provide evidence of your skills
including presentation style, meetings management and networking.
Interpersonal awareness includes self awareness and self acceptance. An effective interpersonal
skills helps in building good relationship with others. It consists of social, soft skills, etc. basically,
these skills are natural and develops with age. It is very important to have awareness about
interpersonal skills so that good relations can be made. Also, these skills help in expressing ideas
and thoughts. In professional life skills help in communicating and working with each other.
Besides this, it also helps in personal life in maintaining relations with friends and relatives. In
present times most of the people work in groups they have to continuous interact with each other.
Hence, active communication and listening ability is required. An individual must be aware of
interpersonal skills as it helps in developing good habits. Besides this, it helps in understanding
why our relationships are suffering and taking measures to improve them. However, by improving
skills help in personal growth and development. By becoming aware about this, person can easily
give practical advise to others. Strong interpersonal awareness will lead to better work
performance and relationships. It also helps in better sense of fulfilment. Thus, interpersonal skills
play vital role in all areas of life at work.
Presentation style includes visual style, free-form style, instructor style, coach style, storytelling
and connector style. Meeting management are essential as it reflects our ability to run effective
business and it initiates with a purpose. Meeting management teaches us time management too.
People should not wait for others. In meeting open encouragement is preferred before delegates
with summarization of main point. Networking keeps company stable connected with every
employee (Taylor, 2016). It makes us more knowledgable and transparent about the current
scenario of market. We get to know about competitors and customers thoroughly. Networking
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helps in cultivating, utilizing and interpersonal relationships. It is a kind of objective directed
behaviour. It has its own value in the eyes of organisation and individuals. Networking helps in
developing casual contacts and strong contacts. This networking strongly helps in marketing level.
2.3. Apply approaches to improve personal communication style.
There are different approaches to improve the personal communication in Vodafone group
industry. Communication is the most effective process in any organisation because without
communication a company can not achieve success. To explain the objectives and mission of the
Vodafone group industry to their employees, it is necessary to have the best skills of
communication(Lyall, 2016). To improve the personal communication style there are various
approaches such as :
4. Assertive : This is the most effective communication style which is born of high self-
esteem. In the assertive approach, there are different features of behavioural, non
behavioural, language and the feeling of people while receiving. Key principles of this
style of approach are confidence, clarity and control. But there are different obstacles to an
assertive communication as external and internal. External factors as such lack of facilitator
and other parties are more aggressive and dominating while communication process(Eyre,
2015). This approach gives various tips to improve the communication as such use polite
words always and stay objective rather than subjective. This approach refers that if you are
criticizing someone, then criticize the behaviour not about that person. In this approach,
people have mostly these types of characteristics such as in behavioural they are trying to
achieve goals without symptom others and they are mostly socially and emotionally.
5. Aggressive : In this approach, persons are generally cared about themselves and they do
not care about other person or third party. In this approach, people's behaviour are
demanding, belligerent, intimidating, bullying and explosive. In non verbal behaviour,
people's voice is mostly loud, gestures are sharp and fast, facial expressions are glare and
scowl(Van Gramberg, Teicher and O'Rourke, 2014). These communicators will often
attempt to influence others and criticize or attack others. It impacts on the individuals in
negative manner as it generate fear and alienate others. Aggression tends to generate from a
spot of insecurity. This style normally originate when a person feel vulnerable. Aggressive
people may come off as communicative insulting to others.
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6. Passive – aggressive : In this style, people are behaving like passive on the workplace but
in actually they are anger behind the scenes ways. Person who are behaving in this manner,
they usually feel resentful and lazy(Irina, 2016.). This is an intentional way to express
anger. These communicators will often use witticism, grumble to themselves instead of
encounter the individual or issue have trouble admitting their emotional arousal. They are
indirectly sarcastic. They are not dependable and can be sulky or patronizing in behaviour.
In this style people have a sweet and exculpated facial gestures.
7. The submissive : In this style of communication approach, people try their foremost to
gratify others and avert ambivalence. They consider the requirements of other party than
theirs requirements because they think that other person have more authorities and rights to
contribute(McKeown and Chabrier, Accenture Global Services Ltd, 2015).
As all communication styles have different characteristics and limitations. A person can not pick
out the one of the best among these all styles. Vodafone group industry can choose the
communication style on their requirements and suitability.
TASK 3
3.1 Support of management to teams and other groups, departments or sections
within and outside an organisation
There should be value of communication in between team members to improve productivity and
trust can be built up. Effective communication is required to increase profitability and sales of
organisation. It is important to identify team so that management can easily support its own team
and improve it. After improvisation roles and responsibilities are given to each employee so that
every employee can perform it in a perfect manner. Communication should be there between staff
and members so that no further confusion is created related to any topic. Secondly, development of
procedure is there (Trevarthen, 2017). It should be outlined for common communication process
so that clear and transparent plan can be formed and enforced. For example, if an employee wants
everything should be written properly or detailed in a sheet then he/she has pay attention on
frequently asked questions for those topics which require a permission for development. After
creating procedures a memo has to be send out and these are implemented for effective
communication. Everyone in the team should be fully trained in their procedures. If employees are
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provided with platforms than it is good where there is sharing of innovative ideas, questions,
concerns etc. This results in handling the team in a more better way and dependency on formal
meetings is reduced. Digital sharing platforms like Asana and Slack are better for this purpose.
Some organisations keep their employees on same page by distributing internal newsletter on a
daily basis. Casual interactions are also preferred sometimes. Midday walks or time spent through
water cooler is useful. It builds positive relationships between employees of organisation. Then,
organisation should be reciprocal to feedbacks. This feedbacks should be detailed and cleared out
in organisation (Weller, Boyd and Cumin, 2014). Communication training should be there to reset
team. Real things should be delivered through effective level by improving group communication.
It not covers conversational skills but also covers managerial skills, writing, presentation skills and
following instruction in business. It should also be decided that what kind or type communication
is suited with which kind of employee.
Video conference is excellent for members working remotely while face to face meeting is crucial
for in house projects. From few decades Email has become popular but it is not perfectly reliable
source. It can be lost in cyberspace or can be hacked. It can be overlooked too. Other than this
diversity issues should be perfectly identified. Cultural expressions, dialects, nuances, accents
make communication difficult for team leaders.
3.2 Organisational practices which support internal and external workplace communications.
There are various internal practices that support communication. Some of the internal practices are
listed below:
1. Visualize, strategize and plan first: Firstly everything should be visualised and strategies
should be made and then planning is done. There should be answer in the mind that what
internal communications will do for team members and what all improvement is required.
All answers should be there in mind before heading to planning level. Create an internal
communication strategy or pre-pan for a successful team. This would at least provide an
idea from where the process has to start or initiate.
2. Right tools should be used: if the team is busy then finally what internal communication
wants is full of friction and bothersome. Company should implement some good practices
like using software chat like Hipchat, Slack, making use of cloud technology if it is
possible then one platform should be developed so that problems can be visualized in
Google or Microsoft.
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