Reference no: EM132623963

BSBLDR513 Communicate with influence

Assessment Task 1 Instructions

1. Outline key information that should be included in an organisation's communication protocol for communicating internally, as well as externally.

2. Explain why it is important to maintain confidentiality of information at work, including at least three examples of information that must be kept confidential.

3. Discuss three ways by which a business can ensure that confidentiality is maintained at work.

4. Explain the key principles of negotiation that should be used in the workplace to ensure that agreements are reached.

5. Explain the mediation process and at least three key principles that should be taken into account when mediating at work.

6. Discuss three effective conflict resolution techniques.

7. Discuss key steps to be followed to identify and resolve workplace problems.

8. Outline three effective communication techniques for de-escalation of a difficult situation

9. Outline effective strategies for cross-cultural communication.

10. Outline at least five important considerations in ensuring that a meeting is structured.

11. Explain at least five considerations to ensure that a meeting is inclusive.

Assessment Task 2 Instructions

Carefully read the following:

IPSO Appliances Australia is a company that manufactures and distributes a range of kitchen and laundry appliances. It has also had a commercial division supplying kitchen and laundry equipment to businesses.

The company is based in Penrith, NSW, where it operates out of a large office block, occupying 2 floors. There are also 2 warehouses close by for storing and distributing products. The warehousing staff are all located in the warehouses.

IPSO Appliances Australia staff include the Managing Director, Human Resources Manager, Finance

Manager, Sales Manager (Commercial), Sales Manager (Domestic), Warehouse Manager, Warehouse staff (20), Sales Desk Team Leaders (5) and a customer service department comprising of Technical Support Analysts (20) and Customer Service Representatives (80).

The Technical Support Analysts provide technical support via telephone and the Customer Service Representatives respond to general customer enquiries and provide general, non-technical support. 65% of the staff are female and 20% work part-time. Approximately 90% of the younger employees (under 35) work full-time hours (75 hours per fortnight) and 60% of older employees (35 years and over) work part-time (40 hours per fortnight).

The customer service department operates 6 days a week, Monday to Sunday from 7am to 10pm. Staff currently work rotating shifts.

Across the industry, there is generally a high turnover rate of call centre customer service representatives:

26%. Customer representative staff turnover for IPSO Appliances Australia in 2015 was slightly higher at 31%. Staff feedback surveys and exit interviews have identified that that many of the staff have either left or are considering looking elsewhere for employment due to the requirement that they work rotating shifts across seven days. Staff found that differing start times made it difficult to travel to work, particularly matching work schedules with public transport timetables, as well as attending to responsibilities at home

The company is in the process of expanding its operations and intends to recruit a further 50 customer service representatives over the next 2 years. The current office space is already tight and staff complain of the level of noise. The company has been looking around for new offices. However, has so far been unable to find anything in a suitable location.

As the General Manager of the company, you have identified that a potential solution to address the issues facing the company is to implement working from home arrangements for the customer service staff. You consider that this will address both the short-term issue of moving offices, as well as long-term employee relations objectives, including reducing the high turnover of staff.

To gain support for the working from home arrangements, you need to gain the support of key individuals in the organization.

There have been a number of changes to internal policies and procedures during the previous 2 years. Generally, staff acceptance of change has been a long and difficult process.

Complete the following activities:

1. Develop a position paper to present to staff

The purpose of this task is to ‘sell' a new policy. You are required to prepare for a meeting with staff by developing a position paper to assist in persuading staff to adopt working from home arrangements and to negotiate specific arrangements.

In developing your position paper, you should ensure that you provide a clear and accurate overview of working from home arrangements and supporting arguments, especially expected resistance from stakeholders.

To prepare your position paper, you will first of all need to:

Review the long-term employee relations objectives for the company in Employee Relations Strategic Objectives to identify alignment of objectives with working from home arrangements.
Research the benefits of working from home arrangements to employers, providing at least two examples of companies who have adopted these arrangements and outcomes.
Identify options for introducing working from home arrangements for IPSO Appliances based on your research.
Identify potential obstacles to the introduction of arrangements and solutions to address these.
Identify possible resistance to the changes and strategies that you can use to overcome resistance to change. You will need to demonstrate use of these strategies in your presentation.

You position paper should, as a minimum, addresses the following:

Rationale for the introduction of working from home arrangements based on the company's current situation.
An explanation of how the working from home policy aligns with the objectives in the employee relations plan.
Persuasive arguments as to the benefits of working from home arrangements for employers.
Details of the companies that you have identified and the working from home arrangements they have adopted and outcomes.
Options for introducing working from home arrangements for IPSO Appliances.
Obstacles to the introduction of arrangements and solutions to address these.

Ensure that you use non-technical terms to take account of the fact that staff are likely to have varying understanding of working from home arrangements.

Use Position Paper Template to guide your work.

2. Draft a word processed letter to the CEO (your assessor).

The text of the letter should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should provide a summary of the attachment, clearly stating its purpose. It should ask them for their feedback and their approval to present this to staff.

The letter text should also identify which key staff you intend to invite to the meeting and why.

Attach your position paper to the letter.

Your assessor will respond to your letter with place, date and time of your meting.

3. Develop a meeting agenda

The meeting will be used to advocate for the introduction of working from home arrangements.

The meeting will last a minimum of 30 minutes.

Use Agenda Template to guide your work.

4. Draft a word processed letter to the staff who will be attending the meeting (your assessor).

The text of the letter should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should give the place date and time, as well as the purpose, of the meeting.

The letter text should also introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment.

Attach your meeting agenda and position paper to the letter.

5. Conduct meeting with staff

You are required to present your position paper to staff with a view to persuading them to adopt working from home arrangements for IPSO Appliances Australia.

You will also be required to negotiate specific arrangements. This will include discussing and agreeing on the most appropriate option for introducing working from home arrangements.

Your assessor will observe you conducting the meeting.

Staff will be roleplayed by your assessor and fellow students.

Prior to the meeting, you should review the Meeting Policy and Procedures to ensure that you conduct the meeting appropriately and to determine whether there is any information that may be subject to confidentiality.

You will need to be prepared to advocate for the position as documented in your position paper, as at least one staff member will be against such arrangements.

When conducting the meeting, you should:

Provide an introduction to the meeting, including the meeting's purpose.
Outline the ground rules for the meeting as set out in the Meeting Policy and Procedures.
Present the position paper, including outlining:
Rationale for the introduction of working from home arrangements based on the company's current situation. o An explanation of how the working from home policy aligns with the objectives in the employee relations plan.
Persuasive arguments as to the benefits of working from home arrangements for employers.
Details of the companies that you have identified including working from home arrangements that they have adopted and outcomes.
Potential obstacles to the introduction of arrangements and solutions to address these.
Options for introducing working from home arrangements for IPSO Appliances.

During the meeting, you will need to demonstrate the use of a range of persuasive techniques to convince others to accept arguments including:

Use of inclusive language
Use of rhetorical questions
Repetition
Confident tone
Advocating for own position

You will also need to demonstrate the use of strategies you identified to overcome resistance to change.

At all times during the meeting, you will need to demonstrate effective interpersonal and communication skills including:

Use of appropriate style (formal), tone (encouraging, respectful) and vocabulary (professional, business language)
Asking questions and listening to responses to clarify understanding
Active listening skills
Non-verbal communication skills that encourage discussion and feedback: nodding, smiling, eye contact.

During the meeting, you must provide the opportunity for discussion. You must ensure that you:

Respond to questions
Acknowledge and respond appropriately to differences of opinions through emphasising the benefits of the proposed arrangements and solutions to identify issues raised, as well as acknowledging opinion.
Discuss the range of options and seek to agree on mutually agreeable solutions, while compromising as required.
Ensure that at all times the meeting is focused on key issues and agreeing on a solution.

Close the meeting by summarising the agreed outcomes and advising that you will provide a

written summary of outcomes in the form of meeting minutes.

6. Write the meeting's minutes

Provide a written summary of the meeting's outcomes by writing the meeting's minutes. This should also confirm the agreements made at the meeting.

Use Meeting Minutes Template to guide your work.

7. Draft a word processed letter to the staff who attended the meeting (your assessor).

The text of the letter should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should summarise the purpose and the outcomes of the meeting.

The letter text should also introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment.

Attach your meeting minutes to the letter.

Assessment Task 3 Instructions

Carefully read the following:

Grow Management Consultants is a consultancy business specializing in leadership consultancy, and has been operational for the last five years. The company offers a range of services to assist companies to assess leadership behaviour of existing managers and performance metrics. They also design and implement customized leadership programs based on the assessment. Services are offered Australia-wide.

The company employs a General Manager (you), 2 Principal Consultants (who are also Directors), 1 Senior Consultant, an Administration Officer and Receptionist.

Over the last two years, the company has diversified, and now offers regular professional development workshops on all aspects of leading and managing staff. These workshops are conducted approximately every 3 months in all major cities including Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. In 2015 - 2016, the company ran a total of 36 workshops. The company has also recently produced an E-book about leadership techniques.

The company is currently seeking to promote its leadership services and products, and has decided that an appropriate way to do this is to develop a presentation about the importance of leadership skills, and to use this as a way of promoting the company's services and products.

Complete the following activities:

1. Identify forums

Research at least three industry, media and government organisations, events or communication channels at which you could present a paper on leadership and use as an opportunity to advertise your services.

Summarise the content of these forums, including the date, location and why you believe this is an appropriate forum for Grow Management Consultants.

2. Draft a word processed letter to the management team (your assessor).

The text of the letter should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

The letter text should list at least three forums, and give a reason for choosing each.

3. Create a PowerPoint presentation.

Develop a 10-minute presentation about leadership. You may focus on any area of leadership (for example, ethical leadership, key leadership skills, diversity in leadership, etc.).

Use the internet to find factual information to support your presentation, such as current research or statistics.

Your presentation should also:

Include a short video (no more than 5 minutes) about leadership to add interest to the presentation.
Promote the services offered by Grow Management Consultants through a brief description of the services offered.

The following workplace communication protocols set out the company requirements that you should follow when developing and then delivering your presentation:

When communicating with others, take into consideration:

Whom you are speaking to
The type of information to be communicated

All verbal communication must:

Be clear and concise
Be friendly and professional
Take into account understanding of cultural differences

Active listening must be used when responding to questions. Questions should be answered in a friendly and polite ways.

When giving presentations, promote our services to the full but do not disclose pricing. If asked, advise individuals to speak to you personally.

As indicated in the task summary, the focus of this assessment is your ability to clearly present information based on reliable sources and to promote the business.

4. Draft a word processed letter to your assessor.

The text of the letter should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment, seek their feedback and the place, date and time of their presentation.

Attach your PowerPoint presentation to the letter.

5. Conduct presentation

You are to conduct your presentation following the workplace communication protocol.

You should assume that you are presenting to a group of business associates. Your assessor and 2 students will roleplay these.

During the presentation, you are required to demonstrate effective interpersonal and communication skills including:

Speaking clearly and concisely
Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding
Asking questions to identify required information
Responding to questions as required
Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding

At the end of your presentation open the meeting up to questions from the audience.