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Business Report

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Affiliation

Course

Instructor

Date
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Business Report

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Table of Contents........................................................................................................................................2
Executive summary.....................................................................................................................................3
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Findings and Analysis...................................................................................................................................3
Generational differences and communication styles..............................................................................3
Types of Business Communication..........................................................................................................5
Filling Gaps in Generational Differences..................................................................................................7
Summary.....................................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................7
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Executive summary
This business report is based on the Process Leadership Company, an American leading
consultation company based in North America. The company usually works with companies that have
projects that have a timeline of between one month to six months timeline, and which are trying to
develop and open up for more opportunities in work environments that are more open and
collaborative. The company does business with both American companies as well as multi-national
corporations. The report will be focused on a critical analysis of the current issues in the company to do
with communications and how poor communications are having an impact in the worplace. The report
will also seek to provide recommendations on how the company can improve its communication
strategies to address current issues. This report will make an accurate analysis of the current
communication strategies in the business world, after which recommendations will be given based on
the findings.

Introduction
Achieving goals in the business world need collaboration, and this is not achieved without
efficient communication. The better a company presents itself to the public, the more chances it has to
achieve its vision and mission. The current problem in Leadership Process has been properly highlighted,
although the specific areas that need improvement have not yet been identified. However, the company
is at a vantage point of salvaging itself from this condition because of the openness and fast-thinking
process of its management to solve the prevailing issues as early as possible. Every generation is a type
of culture in itself that includes realities that are based on national events, technology, innovations, and
socio-cultural values. Therefore, the inherent culture, beliefs, and values of a particular generation
significantly impact communication. It is, therefore, important to consider how various generations
conceive communication media and the various technologies that are used in business communication.

Findings and Analysis

Every generation has developed particular expertise in communication and media that depicts
the underlying situational reality. From the stone age communication to the digital era communication,
we cannot deny that every generation has had its strengths and weaknesses as far as communication is
concerned. Social norms, career paths, and the available communication technologies have diversified
the channels of communications in every generation, and how the actual communications are done.
From the traditionalist mundane communications etched in the word of mouth communication strategy,
we have today transitioned to smart, more personal communications such as texting, e-mailing, and
using emojis. With these differences, there have been five distinct communication phases, all flaunted
by every generation.

Generational differences and communication styles

People who were raised in different generations all react differently to depending on their age
groups. McCann & Giles (2007) expound on the differences to do with perceived communication starting
from the younger respondents to their older counterparts. Generational groups in the workplace are
brought together through a collective mindset that urges that every generation shares a unique set of
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values and ideas that are a result of sharing experiences. Millennial employees in the workplace are
more assertive, ready to work, and transparent in all their dealings. The Gen Y group needs ongoing
appraisals because the Gen Y generation needs to be kept in check through constant feedback or
approval to validate and achieve their achievements in the workplace. To develop attitudes of
engagement and cooperation in the workplace, the generations Zs need constant checkup and
evaluation (Gilbert, 2011).

According to Myers and Sadaghiani (2010), the members who belong to Gen Y work effectively
in settings that have to do with teamwork, and they are majorly motivated by appealing tasks. The
generation also prefers consistent and open communication because they comprehend communication
technologies more than the members of all other communication groups. Again, generation Ys have
fewer in-person interactions in comparison with all different communication generations. As such, these
generations members have apparent challenges in their in-person interactions, and they will need
proper guidance (Hartman & McCambridge, 2011). Therefore, because of these differences in
communication generations, the managers and leaders of organizations need to develop appropriate
ways of engaging with particular employees from a specific generation of communication in the
workplace.

Traditionalist communication

For traditionalists, for example, communication is more formal, and it involves strict adherence
to norms and values embraced by society. The prevailing communication techniques during the stone
aged were etched in speech and writing. Some people have argued that cave drawings of the stone age
have evolved to today’s emojis. Well, they may be right. From written words to verbal speech, the
interpretations and meanings of words have changed as humans have changed with time. So radical
have the changes been such that interpretations and meanings of words and languages, in general, have
changed. It is sufficient to say that languages have evolved and meanings too. Words that meant one
thing in the traditional era may today mean something different.

Baby Boomers

For Baby Boomers, there is an increased preference to informal and communal communication
approaches. Baby Boomers have grown in the face of more in-person communication that involves face
to face communications as the primary communication method in the job-places. As such, during the era
of the Baby Boomers, phone communication was more prevalent in the workplaces and the offices. By
then, e-mails had not been invented and sending and receiving e-mails was an arduous task. Because of
this reason, the Boomers never ever fully embraced the revolutions communication advancements.

Generation X

Gen X communications tend to be more direct and overmuch blunt. This generation ws the first
ever to embrace digital communication in the job-places. The Gen X populations were the very first ones
to use E-mails to send and receive information amongst peers in the workplaces. Mainly, the written
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word was the primary way of communication, although they were also at a more vantage point of
engaging in face-to-face communication.

The Millennials

Millennial, as well as Gen Z communications, are more dependent on technology because they
are living in a technologically advanced era. The Millennials can be truly referred to as the technically
native generation. This generation members have typically grown up with cell phones at their reach, and
as a result, texting and messaging are the two methods of communication that are prevalent with this
generation. This generation is more given to messaging and texting than making calls. The generation
prefers messaging to calling because they can deliver information in a more summarized way and on-
point messages as opposed to making calls that would require a lot of time to give explanations and long
findings.

Generation Z

Compared to all other generations, Gen Z generation is the most advanced when it comes to
technology, and has the strongest t driving force for communications. The Gen Z generation has totally
revolutionized the communication process because of their culture that has changed their English
language. For example, the Generation Z has truncated some words such as totally to “totes”, and using
abbreviations such as FOMO for “fear of missing out,” and TIL for “Today I Learned.” These word
clippings are reminiscent of the text language culture where words are mainly clipped. This truncation of
the language has optimized and greatly influenced the communication media and has consequently
gratified the expectations of mobile communications.

Types of Business Communication

Social media platforms

Social media networks’ are modern interaction platforms that are based on the web. This technology
allows people to share in more powerful ways than was before anticipated - a close mimic to the
physical interaction in the real world. People of the same interests can meet online, form friendships
and share in more ways than could even be possible in the real world. Participants I the social media
platforms create personal profiles where they advertise their preferences, likes and dislikes to the online
public to attract people of similar interests and preferences. Thus, people make connections, and the
social web is formed. Some of the most popular social media platforms include Facebook, Whatsapp,
Twitter. Social media platforms continue to diversify to integrate business features in them to attract
business investors. This is a positive remark because most businesses are looking for ways to keep their
employees most convenient and comfortable in their workplaces. Therefore, social media platforms that
offer robust business features that will be of help to businesses are more preferable in the business
world to personal social media platforms.

E-mail
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Currently, e-mail communications has taken over the traditional faxing and telephoning in workplaces.
E-mail communications is cheap and affordable, and it is considered to be one of the most convenient
communication methods between employees and management in the workplace. It offers a fast-over
edge advantage over other methods of communication between people who are in remote areas in a
manner as to offer the parties involved in the communication convenience that makes the use of e-mail
communications so irresistible. Although e-mail communication is less personal compared to in-person
meetings, or mobile phone calls, e-mail communication still has more advantages to their users
compared to mobile phones calls and in-person meetings. First, e-mail technology allows its users to
send and receive documents, images, videos and large bundles of files concurrently. Furthermore, e-
mails provide the ability to send and receive documents with the same or more confidentiality than the
traditional faxing technology, or the mundane hand technologies.

Mobile phones

Phones constitute one of the most personal forms of communication compared to e-mails and
other communication methods. The traditional telephones that were more characteristic of the Baby
Boomers generation. However, the Baby Boomers generation was characterized by the traditional
voluminous desk phones compared to today's mobile phones that are way too portable and convenient
to carry. Thus, the generation Xs and generation Ys are more have maximized mobile phones, especially
using the phones for messaging, making calls, and accessing social media services. Today's mobile
phones are called smartphones because of the wide range of activities that they are able to execute. For
example, smartphones are today used as the basis of business operations, with most businesses shifting
fro the traditional web-based business operation to using the more diversified mobile applications.

As such, most of the X and Y generations are more used to communicate using mobile phones
more than any other generation. For companies and organizations to enhance their communications in
the workplace, they must make available mobile technologies in the workplaces for their employees to
access. Furthermore, businesses can maximize mobile applications to favor their employees and leaders
who are more poised to use their phones than desktop computers or laptops. If businesses can work in
such a way as to centralize all their business operations and activities from central mobile applications,
more employees will be motivated to work and be comfortable in their workplaces because they have
been used to mobile phones more than all other communication methods. On the same note, the
management can change how they deliver information to their employees. For example, instead of
using memos and the traditional paperwork of letters and notices, they can transit to using electronic
prompts and messaging techniques to pass important information to their employees. As far as mobile
technologies are concerned, generation Xs and the generation Ys have an added advantage.

In-person meetings

This type of communication involves the oldest and yet the most popular and most fulfilling type
of communication. In-person meetings require the physical presence of the involved parties of
communication.
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Filling Gaps in Generational Differences

Research has shown that the various generations and their characteristics shows that most of
the employees in workplaces fall either in Generation X or Generation Y. Generation Xs tend to occupy
managerial positions while Generation Ys occupy the entry-level positions as well as middle level
positions in the workplace. Additionally, most of the female leaders fall on the two distinct generations:
Generation Y and generation X. Only a small number of employees constitute the Baby Boomers
generation. Research has also shown that individuals can also be influenced by eternal phenomena, and
sometimes they can shift from one generation to another. For example, exposure to the western culture
and studying abroad enhances the work relationships between employees. Furthermore, the Generation
Ys are more inclined towards an inclusive method of management, are more given to feedback, and
prefer leaders who mean what they talk and who talk what they mean (Cox, 2016; Francis-Smith, 2004).
The employees and leaders who constitute what can be considered as the traditional generation of
communication are more inclined to preferring particular boundaries between the work mates and have
a respect for structures that are hierarchical, personal privacy, and self –respect (House, 2004).

Summary
Every employee falls into a particular category of a generation. Findings from the analysis and
findings section shows that most of the employees constitute the Generation X and Y cultures. Again,
most of the managerial leaders form the Gen X culture. Findings also showed that most of the female
employees and female leaders as well fall in the Generation Y category. Results indicated that only a
small percentage of employees constitute the traditionalistic generation of workplace communication.
There is great need to understand the generation gap in the Process Leadership workplace. This is to
help in helping those individuals who will seem to have challenges. For example, generation Ys have
obvious challenges in face-to-face communications, hence they cannot communicate effectively in in-
person settings. They will need to be coached and properly guided on how to make change to adopt to
in-person communications especially when this has to enhance collaboration and team work that is
essential in the work place. Therefore, I recommend the following recommendations for the company.

Recommendations
 The company should give a special consideration to female leaders. Most female workers
are Gen Ys and Gen Xs, and there is need to allocate them to allocate them the work
positions that will favor them.
 Again, there is need to fill the gap between normal employees and leaders. Since most of
the employees are generation Ys, it will be prudent to include the employees in the decision
making processes since these class of individuals in generation Y appreciate open
communication, and are more inclined to feedback than direct authoritarian supervision.
 There is need for the company to adopt novel technologies of communication to satisfy the
needs of most of their employees who fall either in the generation Y or in the generation X.
since these two distinct generations are fundamentally the offspring of modern technology,
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the company should make sure that all employees and the management can access the
technological tools and equipment that they would need to enhance their communication
process in the workplace.
 Lastly, the company needs to inculcate cultural values and principles into the day to day
operations of the company to favor those employees who belong to the traditionalist
generation.