Effective Business Communication Practices Within Australian Workplace

Question

Task: You are a country manager for an international agricultural products supplier. The main office is in Australia. You have recently hired 10 new employees from overseas (you may choose the home country of the new employees). They will be arriving in Australia within the next six weeks, and in preparation for their arrival you will write a document about communicating competently and incompetently within the Australian workplace. This document has two parts:
1. An overview of academic literature relating to communication practices/styles/recent research about business communication in Australia.
2. Recommendations for these new employees about competent and incompetent business communication practices (you may focus upon verbal, nonverbal, written, and CMC). There will be four recommendations—two competency behaviours and two incompetency behaviours. That is to say, how should the new employees communicate and how they should not communicate within the Australia workplace. You will need to explain why each of the communicative behaviours are competent or incompetent. The recommendations should be supported by existing academic articles.

Answer

Introduction
The Effective Business Communication is referred to as a two way speaking and listening process which is the most essential part of the regular business forte among the middle market company. All the employees are requested to have effective communication skills along with certain criteria’s like elimination of assumptions, to get heard and listen first, ask questions, expressing the respective emotions, paying attention to others, being patients and reinforcing positive behaviours. Thus, this process of effective business communication is the most efficient way to indulge people to accomplish the business goals. Hence, the respective study discusses about the effective business communication practices in the workplace in Australia.

Discussion
Australian effective business communication practices
As opined by Hartley & Chatterton (2015), Australia is considered to be a polyglot nation where more than 100 languages are spoken by different people migrating from the other countries of the world. But English is referred as the official language which is most commonly spoken. The Australian population prefers directness than diplomacy and considered as blunt on situations, especially on the people from the background who wary about speaking directly and creating negative emotions on the people they are talking to. Thus, straightforwardness is adored in Australian Business forte and miscommunication can happen if only there is evasiveness and hypocrisy.

As per the views of Lear Hodge & Schulz (2015), in the international agricultural product supplier companies of Australia, it is important not to be very much self-promotional as a hard sell approach can be misinterpreted as bragging and provoke as a negative response. The factual description of the products and services is accepted better than the hyperbolic approach as the people of the country do not prefer to make out the conclusion of being better than the others. This nation is considered to be one of the very countries in the world were humour is always penetrating and is prevalent in all business situations. 

As evidenced by Adler et al., (2015), it is discussed in this study of effective business communication
that in the agriculture product supplier companies of Australia, humour is not accepted rather it is expected in every condition. The employees coming from other cultures and traditions of the world should never underestimate the Australian Senior Manager of the agricultural product company because the individual might use humour which the staff may not feel appropriate for the present time. The first name of the employees is used invariably in the agriculture product supplier organisation as it is very unusual to communicate with the business contact using their surnames. Furthermore, in the agriculture product supplier companies of Australia, the educational title also plays a relatively small part.

As observed by Kernbach, Eppler & Bresciani (2015), the Australian culture is primarily regarded as Western and society respect the values of dignity and freedom of the people, their religion and commitment to the laws and rules of the nation. The effective business communication happens in Australia with certain criteria’s like a specified dress code for the men and women, punctuality of time is essential, contentment to the facts and figures rather than emotions and feelings, proper etiquette and manners is required in the way of talking or having any business meetings, strong and steady eye contact is essential which demonstrates the involvement of the person to the topic, a certain arm's length distances is to be maintained when involved in a conversation. Hence, in the agriculture product supplier organisation it is stated that modesty; patience and slow decision processes are accepted by the seniors with the tint of straightforward talk along with the receptive sense of new ideas. 

Discuss about the competent and incompetent practices of effective business communication
As stated by Mayfield & Mayfield (2017), the competence practice of business communication is referred to as the gaining of knowledge of the relevant and effective communication patterns along with utilizing the ability to endure that knowledge processes in several contexts. To understand the components of the competence in better forms, it is broken into several parts such as the first parts holds the cognitive elements which include knowing the process to do something or the way things are done. The staff of the company can develop the cognitive competence through evaluating and observing the others action and getting instructed to. The second part holds the ability to utilise the communicative competence which is affected by the age, physiology, maturity, mood, stress level of the person which helps the other staff to apply the knowledge learned for actual communication behaviour. The third part defines the ability to endure several contexts varies on cultural and social context along with race and nationality. As per the statement of Dulek & Campbell (2015), in the business organisation of Australia, the employees should follow certain terms to get developed as competent such as saying the ideas clearly, ethically communicating with others, recognising the appropriate time to communicate, identifying the communication goals, demonstrating the credibility, managing the misunderstanding and conflicts, listening attentively and being open minded to the viewpoints of others. The communication competency for effective business communication level includes the conscious competence and incompetence along with unconscious competence and incompetence, especially in the Australian agriculture product supplier sector. The employees have to become self-monitors and mindful communicators to achieve competence in communication. The communication apprehension such as fear and speaking anxiety is managed by several strategies in the business communication forte.

As highlighted by Brink & Costigan (2015), the incompetence practice in effective business communication refers to skilfully avoiding the conflicts with the co-workers and other executives that gradually wreck an organisational havoc. The manager of the organisation uses certain routine behaviours like talking to each other bluntly and candid which produces devastating side effects in the company. The company getting split with different honours of candidates with different designation create a havoc that gets represented in the business meeting like people coming up with several issues but not getting it sorted. This tends to be pretty discouraging for the management board of the company and also for the people working in it. The lack of the vision and strategies in a company and the egos within the staff produces unnecessary data of incompetence. The emergence of manipulation and politics in the mind of the executive gives a bad impression to workers and the skills of the executive rested upon the assumptions inhibited the resolution of intellectual issues which develops incompetence in the strategy. The unskilled knowledge and the defensive routine with unlearning answers create the incompetence in decision making and causing challenges to the company.

Competency and incompetency behaviours
Considering the views of Lasater (2019), the competency behaviour refers to the personality traits and attitude of the individuals such as the skill sets and knowledge which helps determining how successful an employee can be in the effective business communication condition in agricultural product supplier companies of Australia. An employer specifically looks for the specific competencies for the various roles. There are certain competency behaviours that are incorporated into the companies such as adaptability/decisiveness, initiative/perseverance, interpersonal skills, organisational skills, stress management, valuing diversity and service.

As per the observations of Marcel (2015), the new staff coming from the different region should adore the interpersonal skills that are the ability to work efficiently with different people, acknowledging the opinions and relevant concerns with minimising the conflict and encouraging the harmony. The employees must cooperate with others for the consensual solutions and achieving the objectives of the group. Valuing the diversity and service is to be sensitive to the community needs and providing efficient, prompt and equitable service to the client. Hence, these are considered as competent for the employees to work accordingly in an organisation of agriculture product suppliers which gives the opportunity to be modest, blunt, and patience.

Hence, the perceptions of Austin & Pinkleton (2015), states that the incompetence behaviour in an effective business communication is referred to as the lack of doing something especially to stand trial or testify. This causes several kinds of disqualification, unfitness and inability. The incompetence behaviours are caused due to certain factors like laziness, poor communication, lack of training and skills. The new employees coming from different backgrounds falls into the incompetence like lack of skill people who are tactless, unclear, rude and upset doesn't inspire the other candidates that won't be competent to work in the management and sales positions. On the other hand, lack of training can cause major incompetency like designating a person with different honour to a different department with no training. Hence, these two behaviours are considered as incompetent for effective business communication as it can cause the company with managerial incompetence, and the person would also fail to create budget, sale goals, determining the price.

Conclusion
The above discussed study highlights the effective business communication in the agricultural product supplier companies of Australia. The research throws light upon the practices of effective business communication of Australia and the style and recent researches on the respective topic. The verbal, non verbal, written and CMC recommendation of the competent and incompetent business communication has been mentioned along with the two competency and incompetency behaviours. Lastly, the new staffs coming from the different culture and tradition are instructed in what way to communicate and not communicate within the Australian workplace with explaining the communicative behaviour as competent or incompetent.

References
Adler, R. B., Kotler, P., Grey, A. M., & Hugos, M. H. (2015). Communicating at work: strategies for success in business and. info: Singapore: McGraw-Hill, 2015.

Austin, E. W., & Pinkleton, B. E. (2015). Effective business communication Strategic public relations management: Planning and managing effective communication campaigns. Routledge.

Brink, K. E., & Costigan, R. D. (2015). Oral communication skills: Are the priorities of the workplace and AACSB-accredited business programs aligned?. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 14(2), 205-221.

Dulek, R. E., & Campbell, K. S. (2015). On the dark side of strategic communication. International Journal of Business Communication, 52(1), 122-142.

Hartley, P., & Chatterton, P. (2015). Business Communication: Rethinking your professional practice for the post-digital age. Routledge.

Kernbach, S., Eppler, M. J., & Bresciani, S. (2015). The use of visualization in the communication of business strategies: An experimental evaluation. International Journal of Business Communication, 52(2), 164-187.

Lasater, I. (2019). Words that work in business: A practical guide to effective communication in the workplace. PuddleDancer Press.

Lear, J. L., Hodge, K. A., & Schulz, S. A. (2015). Talk to me!! Effective, efficient communication. The Journal of Research in Business Education, 57(1), 64.

Marcel, M. (2015). What's the best course? Evidence from alumni on the value of business presentations preparation. Effective business communication Journal of Education for Business, 90(1), 10-17.

Mayfield, J., & Mayfield, M. (2017). Leadership communication: Reflecting, engaging, and innovating.