Transcript for:
Effective Communication in the Workplace

hello and welcome everyone to another let training webinar my name is Marcel one of the trainers here at let's training and in this webinar I'm going to provide you with useful information regarding the assessment ESPN 501 lead communication in the workplace so this webinar is a part of our continuous Support Services mainly with the aim to enhance your learning experience and to help you progressing through the course more efficiently if you have any questions while watching this video or after when you work on your assessments please don't hesitate to contact your trainer via email or a phone call so what is the purpose of this webinar first of all we want to provide you with a clarification of the unit context making sure you are aware of the required knowledge and skills you need to demonstrate and also to give you confidence in completing all tasks and activities successfully here we have the webinar overview and the topics to be covered first I will outline the learning outcomes of this unit then I will talk about some key aspects of workplace Communications followed by the assessment overview and an outline of the resources that you require uh then we will have a closer look at the Practical assessment itself and go through each task in detail and at the end of this webinar I will also provide you with some additional or useful links um about the topic itself so what are the learning outcomes of this unit so after successful completion you should be able to establish communication protocols coordinate effective communication present and negotiate persuasively and also to review communication practices at work so um what are the key aspects of workplace Communications communication plays a vital role in everyday in every organization really in every day's work practices um especially you know those places that require collaboration exchange of information and interaction with internal and even external stakeholders and especially as a leader it's important to understand why communication is required and how to communicate effectively with others so here we have some common reasons why leaders need to communicate in workplaces first of all we have here to inform informing others providing updates giving information so team members or internal external stakeholders can perform their Works their work also to instruct to delegate and to coordinate tasks to sign work to ensure people are aware of their roles and responsibilities to clarify if there's any uncertainties any questions arising to address and to resolve issues obviously preferably to prevent issues from happening in the first place to warm but also to motivate and to inspire others right there's a lot of different reasons why communication is required and it is good practice to answer some of the following questions when it comes to communication um first question here is what is the purpose so everyone should be clear before communicating with others why why am I doing this what is the reason for my communication but also what is the desired outcome what would I like to achieve from the communication and what I'm what I'm expecting from the other person in terms of their responses what is the key message what are the key points of what I'm communicating with the audience makes a difference when speaking to manager customer a team member yeah so it should be clear who the audience is what method is most suitable of communication whether it's verbal written and within these different types there are there's different methods then again existing and here it's important to know okay what is the most effective and most suitable way of communicating this information there are different communication techniques that exist and it is a good question to ask what techniques are suitable to the audience um relating to the actual communication purpose what tools and resources are required all right so if you're doing a presentation you may want to use a um a PowerPoint or use PowerPoint as as a tool and you require maybe a monitor or a whiteboard could be also a tool that can support your communication as well what potential barriers exist so it's uh also important to um foresee potential barriers in order to be able to act and to to develop some mitigation strategies to overcome barriers uh more efficiently and how to overcome these barriers so here um knowing a specific barrier a specific uh communication limitation will help you to more efficiently or more effectively in fact to develop different strategies it is also important to acknowledge that communication at the workplace must fulfill certain requirements and here we have some examples of common organizational but also legislative requirements so let's have a look at the organizational requirements first many organizations would have policies and procedures in place which will guide internal Communications in areas such as privacy anti-discrimination for instance workouts and safety as another example and some organizations may even have a specific Communications policy in place for all internal but also for all external communication activities protocols is another example and protocols is something that you will be focusing on in this assessment code of conducts and ethics and also guidelines and standards exist um as part of organizational requirements for or for communication verbal communication but also uh non-verbal uh legislative requirements of course exists as well in areas such as anti-discrimination privacy work health and safety and fair work again in uh concerning verbal and also written communication that is taking place so I just mentioned so the um a communication protocol is something that you will be focusing on in this assessment and um what we need to clarify first is what is a communication protocol so that can be considered as a formal process or tool that outlines communication expectations and standards of an organization and the type of information to be communicated internally and also externally with various stakeholders it is strongly linked to organizational and legislative requirements such as the ones that I have just outlined on the previous slide it aims to provide consistency in communication but also to provide efficiency and Effectiveness in communication as well all right uh here we have a process of how to develop present and Implement a communication protocol and this is um yeah pretty much reflecting of what you will need to do in your uh in the assessment um the first step is you will need to develop the protocol using organizational guidelines um standards for instance templates you will also need to develop support materials that will guide your actual protocol you will then release protocol to stuff with date of effects that's where you then kind of present information of the protocol and you will clarify um any concerns any questions that that your team members may have you will then train stuff in its use also part of the presentation process then comments use from date of effect you will then need to monitor use and compliance so a protocol should be um yeah guiding the organization it should support communication but you may then find out there are uh barriers that you need to need to overcome throughout the entire implementation process and therefore you will need to constantly monitor the effectiveness and compliance of it uh in order to then make make adjustments if necessary and you will provide ongoing support as needed we will be looking at some of these stages in more detail when we have a look at the actual assessment so on this slide we see the assessment overview and as you can see the assessment is divided into two tasks with a variety of activities including three role play activities each like about 10 10 to 15 minutes in length again I will talk about each of these different activities in more detail and just the moment um you'll find this overview in your assessment as well um and it makes here references to the learning module in different sections that are related to the activities um itself it's very important before you are starting with your practical assessment um yeah to go through the learning module and to complete your knowledge assessment first so this will give you then sufficient background information entity assessment requirements will make a lot more sense and you have already an idea of where to allocate certain information in your learning module um yeah so here we have uh like an overview about the learning resources so very important is the learner workbook so this is the assessment itself where you present your answers and you complete all the activities so please ensure You are downloading this document you familiarize yourself with the step-by-step instructions of how to complete each activity and also the the workplace scenario that is given to you the learning module is just mentioned is important um yeah for the background information about different topics um and systems and tools that you will be using throughout the assessment activities and it will be important to go through when you complete your knowledge assessment it's also good to um yeah speak to professionals um people in your workplace who have leadership roles and who demonstrate communication effective communication on a uh yeah ongoing daily basis really um so they may be able to also provide you with a bit of an idea of um yeah how effective communication should take place in barriers that exist potentially and requirements that need to be followed um and yeah I also highly recommended is that you conduct further research in fact you will need as part of your activities you will need to conduct some um online research at some stage but there's a lot of interesting uh and useful articles out there that will um yeah talk more about the yeah importance of effective workplace Communications especially as team leaders um I will provide you with some links later towards the end um however the learning module already has like two pages of uh additional reading resources that you can refer to all right let's have a look at the workbook and the assessment instructions and all the tasks and activities that you will need to complete for this unit so BSB xcm 501 lead communication in the workplace assessment to learner workbook very important not only with this assessment but with every assessment that you complete please ensure you are completing the learner details section at the beginning of this document with your name contact details um and very important signature and date that you have read and understood the Declaration information yeah um any um assessment that has been submitted uh without a signature without a date without a name or contact details will not be able to be marked it will be returned to you um and you will need to add the information as required it's also important that you provide this document as a Word document in a word file please do not convert your document into PDF again if that happens you submit your assessment as a PDF file it will be returned to you and you need to send the um the word a word version or words document instead so this is the assessment overview which I just had in the um uh on the PowerPoint slide you can consider this as a as a checklist for yourself it just gives you um yeah in overview of all these activities that are required and references to the different sections in your learning module jump straight into project task one and this is where you need to develop present and negotiate a communication protocol okay very important is before you start with your first written activity is that you refer to section four this is with every assessment task in every single assessment the most important section really which provides you with these with a step-by-step guideline with action words of what is required and how to complete each activity so looking at this starting off with the the development of a communication protocol there is a scenario given to you a simulated business called tell now so there's some background information of what this business does in about the industry it does give you information about some communication requirements for instance and this will be the first activity that you read the background information in appendix one and familiarize yourself with the organization that will then help you to complete the following activities a lot more efficiently uh you will also need to conduct some internet research um to just get a better understanding of what kind of information needs exist in the Telecommunications industry or in IT industry there will be a template given to you with different stakeholders and for each stakeholder you will need to identify the information needs um and in later stage you will then need to choose the type or purpose of your protocol that you develop and a number of examples are provided to you here if you wish you can use your own um type or own topic for a communication guide if it is different to what is provided here please feel free to speak to your trainer just to see if the protocol if the topic or the purpose of your protocol is suitable then you will need to document the communication protocol in in fact you will need to develop this protocol and there is a template provided to you and in addition to that protocol it is required that you are producing some supporting materials some instructions are provided in here or requirements for the supporting documents you will then need to um also consider situations where the protocol needs to be adapted um so you know there may have been some changes yeah to to uh to the organization that requires a modification of the protocol and you will need to explain three different examples you can use some of the examples provided here however you can also think of your own examples after the development of your protocol it's then time to present this protocol and the audience is already given to you so there's four team members assigned to you um there is a bit of a profile a bit of a description of who your team members are and in fact you just have to pick two team members in the end that you are presenting this protocol to considering all of these team members have um very specific characteristics and also some some communication limitations assigned to them so that is something you will need to take into consideration when presenting um then you will need to present the protocol and the supporting documents to the two team members in about 10 to 15 minutes the last part of this first assessment task is that you need to negotiate some changes to the protocol so the team members will play an active role in the presentation and requesting uh or demanding perhaps some changes to the protocol which you will then need to negotiate in a second role play um but yes I'll explain that in a bit more detail broadly so that is like the um a quick overview of the assessment task and now have a closer look at each activity so as I mentioned appendix one is about the business background information for you to get a better understanding of what the business does yeah so I'm just scrolling through this so that it's that is your reading activity and in appendix 2 this is where you need to analyze or research first and analyze information needs so that requires you to use information from appendix one that are provided to you however you have to conduct some additional online research the different stakeholders of the organization are listed here already on the left and what you will need to describe Or List are common information needs that stakeholders have um yeah for example here a team member or the team would require information in terms of features and benefits of products and services that the organization offers to its customers and you will need to justify why there is such information need and for this particular example here is well the team needs to know this information in order to be able to provide correct and relevant information to customers and to generate sales all right so this is one example um think of uh information needs for all of these different stakeholders with a uh justification then appendix 3 this is your communication protocol as I explained some examples of communication protocols or the topics or types uh given to you um so please go through that list if you feel comfortable using one of these different topics that's right if you have a better idea please feel free to consult with your trainer uh so this is a template and in this template of course what we need is the name of the protocol or what your team members need yeah uh so they need to identify what is this document all about uh then the purpose of the protocol so a bit more in detail of why this protocol is being developed and the tiger audience so who is this protocol for and appendix 4 provides you with details about the target audience in fact I've just mentioned that earlier you are presenting this protocol to your team members then we require or you will be required to complete um or describe the details of the protocol in in this box here so provide details on the specific guidance and instructions of the protocol including when and how it is applied in the workplace and full details can be described here in this box or you can also provide like an additional attachment then as I mentioned you need to develop and describe two supporting materials of this document here as an example they are providing or we are providing here the Privacy Act 1988 you will not need to develop this act or or type it up from scratch however you will then in this case need to have like a pdf version of this act something that you can pass on to your team members and um yeah so please ensure that you provide existing or newly developed documents which you also need to present and introduce in your meeting so it's not just a matter of going through this protocol and not making any reference here but there's a purpose of having this supporting material which you need to also describe and these are the three different examples or situations of when this protocol may need to be modified or changed so please describe a situation that requires a potential modification to the protocol for instance there is some role changes changes in legislation or products and services have changed yeah there could be a lot of different situations or reasons for the required change and here you will need to explain how this change will be applied or what the change actually is of your original or initial protocol so three different examples in the appendix or in the template here that's all so that's now leading from your preparation so you have developed your your protocol and now you it gets into the preparation of your communication of the protocol and as I mentioned earlier so there's four team members described here each of these team members have very distinct characteristics and also some communication barriers for you it's important to pick two out of the four that are given to you and to analyze and to clearly understand okay what could be potential barriers here yeah when explaining this protocol um to them in fact um the team members will need to play an active role here um and kind of um yeah raise concerns or have questions in relation to the protocol and also asking for modifications that suit suit them or suit their communication needs um that is a part of the role play that I'm going to discuss in just a moment uh presentation preparation so before you are actually presenting your communication protocol to your team members um it is important that you have a clear understanding of how you're going to do this uh first thing to answer here is what communication Styles will you be using uh here I can recommend you to have a look at section 3.1 in your learning module that provides you with useful information about various communication styles that can be used you may identify a certain style or you find a number of styles that you would like to use just because of the um different characteristics of your audience then you need to justify the selected communication Styles relate your response to the purpose of the protocol and very importantly to the audiences you present to what communication challenges do you for see um again some of these challenges are clearly described or they are relatively clear in the characteristics and profiles of your team members but you may want to think of additional communication barriers that are not very evident at this preparation stage um yeah please refer to sanction 2.4 in your learning module and there you find like quite a few examples of common communication challenges and barriers that exist foreign for each of the communication challenges or barriers you need to then explain how you're going to address and resolve or overcome these challenges and the last question here to answer is how can you promote respectful communication during this presentation uh and here um yeah it's important to outline some ethical uh principles that guide your communication and the communication of others and section 2.4 is providing you with some useful information in this regard when it comes to respectful Communication in workplaces so now that you have then started your preparation a PowerPoint is not required for this role play um the communication uh protocol and your supporting documents should be the focus of your of your meeting with the team members appendix 5 is just an observation checklist for your assessor however it is wisely to have a look at the criteria that the assessor is looking for when assessing your performance in that role play activity so you can use this as a personal guideline uh which then yeah ensures you are you know following all these coins and uh which then the assessor will need to determine whether there is a satisfactory or unsatisfactory outcome so there's nothing that you will need to complete in in this document here but it is provided to you as an additional um yeah supportive document that kind of then tells you what is required uh in the same for appendix six so these are the two first role plays that you will be completing uh appendix seven so before you actually engage in the uh uh meeting you will kind of um sorry I just dropped back first so you will need to then meet with your team members so you will arrange the um communication of your product however as I mentioned there need to be interaction between the team members and the team leader so the team members will need to raise concerns and will make some suggestions for for modifications to the protocol regardless how great the protocol actually is so this is just part of the activity and the performance criteria that needs to be fulfilled whether the changes or all of these chain proposed changes or modifications can be adopted um that is up to you it is a negotiation meeting and this meeting requires you to determine whether something is possible and some or if something is not possible to change so that's the negotiation uh meeting that you will have right after it is up to you you can either conduct the sessions in one single goal so you have your presentation of the protocol first you have a short break and then you go get into the feedback session negotiations um or you have them in in two different recordings so that is that is up to you um you will then in the Panic 7 communicate the negotiation outcomes and so here you will need to then summarize all the discussion points yeah it is a good practice here to reflect on positives yeah something that has been agreed upon and also then for but then focusing on some of the uh discrepancies or or requirements from the audience perspectives and um yeah explaining what can be done and what cannot be done uh in terms of the modifications of this protocol uh please ensure that you write an email that is in a professional and business-like Manner and structure and there's like an attachment section here where you list any attachments that you would have in an actual email if you would have sent out an actual email so it is then this year in appendix 8 are the um communication or the role play records um so yes two options to you you can do this role play with friends family members on your own and uh record yourself important is that the recording is of uh decent quality in terms of uh um you know the visual quality but audio quality is very important um and it is also important that you share a link later that is accessible and downloadable so it can be assessed it can be then uh stored or we can take the record place the recording in your learners folder for record keeping compliance purposes uh or option number two uh if you prefer to conduct the role play activity with your trainer um you will request a date a time for the role play you receive an official confirmation email and uh this email confirmation you can take a screenshot and place the screenshot in the Box provided here with details about the name of the role play the Access Link the time the date and so on and that completes task number one so this is focusing on the preparation and presentation of a communication protocol project task two is an improvement plan and Mentor a team member so this is a continuation and um you know it's very important that you have like at least one One requirement um yeah that you have identified and you're going to implement in this activity from from task one foreign very important is this is giving you the step-by-step guideline of what is actually uh required in this task so you will need to First gather feedback on the communication protocol which you have initially done in that first role play however it is a good idea to use different channels different methods of gathering feedback which you need to identify and describe in one of the activities you will then need to gather the feedback and take notes of the feedback um you will then need to identify at least a minimum of two improvements only Communications that can be implemented based on the feedback gathered that can be based on your role play activity in task one or in your feedback activity and task two um after you have been gathered the feedback you will need to prepare a one-page Improvement report on the communication protocol and explain the two improvements in more detail where you outline some actions that are required for the final implementation of this protocol um anti-up so there will be um also based on new Improvement you have to have to them prepare an implementation plan using a template that is given to you and what's the implementation plan has been developed obviously in consideration to a specific team member who required a change you will then need to offer a mentoring session provide further support to this team member in order to understand and to use the protocol uh in the most effective and efficient way that's gonna be another 10 to 15 minutes session that you will need to conduct here and uh yeah during the mentoring session that you have um you will need to uh Identify some communication goals some desired outcomes and also some Milestones that need to be achieved throughout the mentoring process yeah uh and then yeah so you have your final role play in the end now looking at the activities in more detail so first a feedback plan and Improvement report so first what you need to do is think of three ways of how you can gather feedback from your team members about the protocol about the um about some concerns they may have about uh suggestions of improvement yeah and here you will on the left hand side explain what what is the method what's the actual feedback method the example provided here is Staff interviews in the next column format and details of the collection here you describe more in detail of how this is going to happen for example staff interviews happening uh or in a one-on-one staff meeting uh in one-on-one staff meeting sessions where you um yeah where questions focus on interpersonal team communication and identification of improvements to communication policy so this is just an example yeah of a description of how this staff interview will be conducted and when and how often will feedback be collected please outline here the frequency and time when feedback will be gathered uh as an example you know you will come back five interview interviews one with each member 30 minutes for each team member uh and the whole process should take like about a week again so that's up to you uh in terms of when and how you will gather this feedback um so this template then um yeah it's the same type feedback type or feedback method that you list here however you will then need to take notes of actual feedback received details about the feedback um you receive from your team members yeah in relation to improvements in concerns they may have in uh questions they have raised and so on and you will then need to outline suggested improvements improvements that came from team members uh and improvements that came from you yeah and uh yeah obviously uh improvements that both parties agree on you as a team leader and then also the team members so here you need to Outline Three three improvements all right then next stage is the communications Improvement plan from the three improvements that you have listed here just have to focus on two improvements that you then use for your improvement plan so you have the first area for improvement and the second area form if you wish you can also add an additional third or the additional third Improvement here with details as well for each Improvement area um you need to provide or explain how the Improvement can be implemented and what actions are required all right in a in a step-by-step format so each area you break it you you kind of break it down into okay what are the actual minor steps that are that are needed in order to get this Improvement uh on the way uh then you need to consider any human physical or financial resources for each step or each action here and for each action like the person who is responsible in order to monitor in order to to conduct the uh the action and the completion date which is also up to you which date date you pick here um all right and then uh you will from the implementation in a general context you will then focus more on one of your team members who requested a change who requires Health assistance in order to understand in order to use the protocol in the future and um uh this monitoring plan first of all yep we need your name as the mentor the mentee one of the four team members that were described um earlier and what you need to do is you have to then describe or answer the question in terms of what are the goals of this session for the mentee and in relation to the suggested improvements yeah that are that are being made so what are you kind of expecting from the mentee um yeah communication wise as well yeah and knowledge wise yeah so demonstrating obviously understanding and confidence in using the protocol and what would achieving this goal look like to the mentee uh here it's um a good idea to outline benefits to the mentee and provide examples once goals have been achieved so how does it benefit mentee in um yeah successfully completing this mentoring session in um you know gaining the knowledge skills confidence in this protocol and you also need to describe from your own perspective of what your role will be in achieving this goal for the mentee so they uh I mean you will have a goal as well so there need to be a purpose and the desired outcome of your mentoring session um you're not just fulfilling the needs of of the mentee but also organizational or your own personal needs and here you have to explain what your role will be and you need to describe your activities actions involved in the session and explain what it means to you to be a mentor Mentor in this particular scenario um and you need to consider resources any resources related to like learning resources further mentoring and coaching that you offer to the mentee organizational documents that can support um the mentee and using the protocol yeah uh also need to then just be described in this section here all right um the achievement of goals um yeah it is a process um yeah which may take uh the shorter process or it may take a little longer and however it is um yeah helpful to break this major goal down into different objectives into different Milestones yeah achievements throughout the process of achieving the end end goal so consider the achievement of goals as a process and think of objectives that need to be met and that leads to the overall achievement of the goals um you will then need to describe the desired outcome of each milestone in a bit more detail um outlining any resources that are needed in terms of human physical or financial resources um instead when the Milestone should be achieved or should be met yeah in fact so you you look at your overall goal and you need to break this goal down into three Milestones three objectives along the way um and yeah then meeting check and schedule again it's a process and it is um a good practice to um yeah to follow up to monitor progress yeah and whether Milestones are being achieved or not do not want to end up having the end date of achieving the goal and figuring out okay now there has been no progress made at all so that would mean the um not only the uh mentoring session was uh wasted but also your the initial discussions the feedback that you have gathered was not effective enough and the um suggestions that you have applied to the protocol weren't effective enough um so here it is very important to have like um yeah these monitoring uh or meetings or follow-up follow-ups scheduled and here you find um yeah this kind of template here where you just need to then said okay the overall achievement of the gold should take like four weeks and you know we actually have once uh one meeting per week um where we where you or the mentee meet up and to see if progress is being made so you just provide some details here uh you can also leave some additional notes if there's no notes you can leave this blank or state an a not applicable and then just provide some signatures here mainly mentor and yeah so that's the that's actually then forming part of the uh last role play activity where you then meet with that specific mentee and where you discuss yeah the mentoring plan in more detail and clarify uh any further questions any concerns that may arise so that's your third role play and um yeah that's again uh here the role play record section in appendix 13 where you need to provide an accessible and downloadable link or alternatively when you do this with your trainer the confirmation email of your session and uh once you have completed all the activities um yeah successfully um then you will hopefully be picked satisfactory for task one and task two task three is not applicable to this particular assessment so assessment tasks both are satisfactory you will have successfully completed this unit of competency good I'm just now jumping back to the PowerPoint okay so as I uh mentioned before so here we find some uh or you find some useful uh resources for you to access communication in the workplace from the fairwork.gov.eu website um 12 effective communication strategies to use at work components of the successful strategic communication plan um yeah 12 steps to create a communication strategy and employee communication policies all relevant uh more or less directly to the actual topic and the um learning module as I have as I have mentioned earlier also has two pages on pages 91 and 92 uh two pages full of additional readings for you to refer to all right so we are now at the end of this webinar and I hope you have a much better understanding of what is required to successfully complete all the uh tasks and all the activities of the assessment and as mentioned in the beginning should you have any questions um or concerns about this assessment please don't hesitate to contact your trainer by email or phone call we also appreciate any feedback regarding this or any other webinar sessions you have already watched perhaps in the past and yeah we appreciate um any any feedback yeah because in the end it will help us to continuously improve the learning support but it will also benefit you in having a much better learning experience with us so thank you for watching and yeah take care and see you next time