QUESTION 1

1.1 The cultural and work backgrounds between Sarah Dlamini and her staff are very different. This contributes to the barriers of communication.
Culturally, Mrs Dlamini thinks that working for more hours shows that someone is dedicated to his/her work. The staff perceives the thing differently. Mrs Dlamini thinks that they are not committed because they knock off early. Mrs Dlamini is a highly driven and single woman. She does not have any obligation in her home unlikely some persons of the staff. Also, Mrs Dlamini has a higher position than anyone else of the staff. She is a knowledgeable and innovative engineer who values professional appearances. In fact, she has more experience and knows her job. However, she does not know how to manage her stress, in situation of extreme stress or criticism at the point that she can explode. Dlamini is not business-oriented, she also has a little patience with those who fail to share her ‘’big picture vision’’, or who do not fully understand the technical details or jargon meetings.
As a perception, Mrs Dlamini cannot expect that the staff do the work that they are not supposed to. She also treat them to be lazybones. Through the message, she simply wanted to show that she is the ‘’boss’’ of the structure. In dealing with the perception aspect as well, it stands to reason that Nontsasa is from now on ill-seen by the others.
Concerning the needs and goals, Mrs Dlamini would like to see the project succeed. She therefore wants the employees to work more in order to deliver it on time. In response, the staff claim the overtime.
At least, pressure appears here as a fact which comes to destroy the environment. Mrs Dlamini is indeed under pressure. She has lost good manners and self-control because she really wants to deliver the project on time. That is why, she overlaps things.

1.2 Through the case study, we are going to identify the nine components of the communication process * The sender
Sarah Dlamini as a sender, is the initiator of the communication. Encoding her message through the email she attempted to be understood by her staff. * The receiver
The staff as a receiver, refers whom the information was directed to. The staff had to interpret Dlamini’s message in order to make sense of what she expected from them. * Message
The message refers to feelings, values and opinions of the managing director. She put in her message all of her frustrations without account how the staff would have felt about that * Medium
As a medium, the email that Mrs Dlamini sent from her office’s computer to communicate with her absent staff was not appropriate. She had no idea about the medium to use for this type of situation. As a matter of fact, the email was not the good medium. * Channel
The CEO has authority over employees. After listening to what was going on, the CEO has anticipated to calm the tension of employees caused by Dlamini’s email. He also promised that their jobs are not on the line. Communication was efficiently controlled by the CEO. * Feedback
After Mrs Dlamini sent the email in which she qualified the employees to be incompetent, one of them responded to her by criticising, resigning her ungratefulness not to recognise the work they have done. This is the mechanism of the feedback. * Noise
In the case study, we can encounter three categories of noise: * Semantic: Mrs Dlamini used a vocabulary that her staff did not understand. Through her words, the receiver did not know what he/she has to do. * Internal: refers to the fallout that followed the email. The staff disagreed with Mrs Dlamini’s doubt on their competences and the hard work they have done. * External: Many employees sent their CVs out to other firms and are now actively job-seeking, and this created the intervention of the CEO. * Context
She sent the message from her office, where the communication process took place. So upset, she could not wait to organize a meeting with all the staff. She directly sent the message to show how she was not happy with their lack of professionalism. * Result
Mrs. Dlamini’s email due to the discontent of its staff created a bad image of the Company through various grapevine. Also, this would have caused the failure of the project if the CEO had not intervened to restore the situation.

QUESTION 2
By diving into this question, we can easily put forward that the image of a company is influenced by the following factors: * The way the staff welcomes consumers * Communication within the company and with the outdoor partner (SAIIG Company) * Marketing, the way to praise at the products so that they can be well sold * Quality of the product
Thus, looking at Tradewind Turbines Ltd, we realize that it has strengths and weaknesses.
As for strengths, the company has got a logo design, a slogan and a new order of merchandise. As far as its weaknesses are concerned, it is noticeable that the bad communication between the Managing Director and her staff does not vehicle any good atmosphere within the company. That plight even has a consequent impact on their outdoor relations.
By considering the key factors which allow to influence the image of a company and the current situation of Tradewind Turbines, the two main elements that we can choose are: * Communication within the company * External relations (consumers and other companies)
Through this choice, we would like to show how important communication is in a company. Actually, a structure can have everything like Tradewind Turbines, but activities will not be successful if communication is not well done. Any company needs to communicate with its staff. By looking at Tradewind Turbines, the Managing Director lacks knowhow. She needs to be taught the different ways and means to use when speaking to her staff. In fact, she is the centre of the company. She should set out surprises (anniversaries of staff’s members), select the employee of the month or year and make the company a family of her in spending religious ceremonies with the staff (Christmas, Easter…). This will easily improve the relations in the company. Even the staff will appreciate her.
As for the second point, it is quite true that a company needs to communicate with the outdoor world composed of consumers and other companies. It is a way, on the one hand, of maintaining the relations with the public and, on the other hand, of making them be filled with how things are going on. Actually, all is about information. Tradewind Turbines should not downgrade its communication policy because people have to be informed. Thus, the company should always go to the public and the other companies to deliver its different information. This can firstly be done with the public through TV advertisings, websites and social networks; then with the other companies through meetings and conferences. However, this would only be possible if there is first a good atmosphere in the company itself.

QUESTION 3
By slamming the door, Mrs Dlamini showed how she angry and upset she was. In fact, all the staff, except Nontsasa and her, left their offices earlier. By this gesture, according to her, the staff does not care about the company’s future. She has focused her life on the future of the company; that is why she expected the same from the staff for the welfare of the project. Unfortunately, that was not the case. When she needed any piece of information about the project, to her surprise, no one could give it to her because she/his was already off. She was therefore at a loss to keep on working because of the information she needed. This non-verbal refers to that of the kinesics or body language one: slamming the door
Also, in her email, the tone she used to say that only Nontsana still was in the office created jealousy and discord between Nontsana and her colleagues. They did not understand the reason why she mentioned her name whereas they do their job as well. Mrs. Dlamini exposes its employees by taking Nontsasa as an example. Now, some of the colleagues who were friendly to her could stop short trusting her. She might be considered as a betrayer. By thinking through, Mrs. Dlamini only created a barrier of communication between Nontsana and her colleagues. This refers to paralanguage because of the way she said “only Nontsana”.

QUESTION 4
When staring at Dlamini’s email, it stands to reason that lots of mistakes are included in. This could be justified on the one hand by the framework of the note, which does not really rhyme with the different exigencies of a communicative mail from a Managing Director to the staff, and on the other hand by the presence of mistakes, e.g. grammar, tone, style, syntax and punctuation…
At first, we are going to try to correct the different mistakes included in the note. Then, it will be a matter of making a fair copy of the email itself.

Grammar and spelling
We can notice capital letters everywhere in the note. That justifies the fact that Mrs Dlamini was shouting at the staff. Actually, she lacked good manners in speaking to them. She simply wanted to show how angry she was. However, this is quite informal in the business communication language.
As another grammar slip, we have the use of “and” at the beginning of the third paragraph. This is not really appropriate in the written language. As a matter of fact, Dlamini writes as if she was speaking. She does not bother about the syntax side of the language unit.
Moreover, there is the misuse of the interrogative form. In fact, the mailer does not manage English language rules. For instance, ‘’don’t you understand how urgent this is?’’ or ‘’don’t you believe in this company?’’. In short, the latter witnesses that the writer does not care for grammar points. Instead, she should have written ‘’do you not understand how urgent this is?’’ and ‘’do you not believe in this company?’’.
At least, let us consider the misuse of tenses. This is mainly seen in the fourth paragraph. The sentence is as follows: ‘’….you are here when you are needed in the future’’. Actually, she mixed up the tenses. Instead, she was supposed to say ‘’…..you will be here when you are needed in the future’’.
She is even mistaken in the spelling “unaxceptable, aoubt”. Through those slips of the type, we can easily remark the angry Mrs Dlamini was filled with and how in a hurry she was.

Tone, punctuation, capital letters, emoticons
Mrs Dlamini’s email tends to be aggressive when she is saying: “…one person other than me is here at this hour”. In her email, she does not use a catch phrase which would have allowed her staff to read and think more about the message. She must have used a friendly or neutral tone. In fact, the bad punctuation, the presence of capital letters and the emoticons show how angry she was. This simply shows that she was shouting at them. When she wrote the message, she was full of anger. It is neither formal nor professional. She is even provocative in her saying: “You are in or out”. It is like a confrontation with her staff.

Here is how the Email would have been written

To: All staff Friday, 1 December 2013, 19h21
Cc:
Subject: Work Ethic

Dear employees,
I am coming honourably to all of you to express the plight that the company is going through.
Indeed, it stands to reason that all the offices of the company are already empty at the present time. I am writing to you because the situation does not obviously suit me as a Managing Director.
As you may know it, we have an order to deliver in March. Gone are the time where we could stay the hands folded. I do need you to feel part of this company. The company needs you as you need the company. So, let us work together and above all in harmony so that things can work well over here. I am quite aware of overtime, and make sure that I am working on it.
I do rely on your full and positive comprehension
Kindest regards
Sarah Dlamini
Managing Director: Tradewind Turbines (Pty) Ltd

QUESTION 5

This report provides an analysis of the current staff discontent at Tradewind Turbines (Pty) Ltd Cape Town Branch and also finds possible solutions to establish a mutual communication between the staff and their managing director.

The Tradewind Turbines Company taking the delay on the delivery of 150 MW (Megawatts) of power to the country’s energy grid, raises the stress of the managing director of the branch. It shows her frustrations through an email in which she doubts the skills of her employees. The investigator has to provide the problem and identify some solutions to restore good relation that existed before.

Purpose of the summary
The purpose of this summary is:
To improve relevant issues between the staff and the managing director
To prevent such issues from happening again
To help Sarah improve her communication skills
To provide the main solutions to the managing director

Procedure used
The investigator gathered information through:
Various grapevine
Interviews of employees
Direct communication with the managing director
A discrete survey on all the employees to better know them
A general meeting with all the staff to discuss the company’s issues

Main conclusions
The main conclusions are that:
Communication used by the managing director creates a damage control inside the company
Dissatisfaction of employees to work overtime
Salaries are not appropriate to all employees
She must show knowhow in speaking to her staff with good words.

Main recommendations
On the basis of our analysis, we recommend that the managing director undertakes the following steps:
Be coaching by her corporate image specialist to make her a good communicator of the company.
Suspending her for one or two months for the lack of communication skills
The CEO can give the managing director one holiday month to distress
In the future, choose her words carefully when she means something even if she is right
Learn some grammar lessons to avoid making mistakes
The managing director is to treat the staff with respect
Rewarding employees after big projects to motivate them

Results of investigation
The above conclusions and recommendations are based upon the following findings:
That the main problems of staff discontent are identified
That the managing director has become more professional than she was
That Tradewind Turbines Company gets more contracts
That the company has better relations with its partner SAIIG Company
That the new Eskom project was delivered on time

5.2 In the following chart, it will be a question of designing the different steps the company has to take into consideration, not only to re-boost its activities but also to upgrade its relations with its employees, even beyond.

The above bar chart sharply summarizes the way that the company has evolved from its birth in 2001 to the 2015’s expectations.
Indeed, it turns out to be that the structure was quite balanced in 2001. There was no major issue. As, we are not at a loss to notice it, the coaching and the labour relations were stable. The employees did not obviously complain about the wages or salaries on the one hand, and Mrs Dlamini was not in a bleak situation where people would have wanted her to be dismissed on the other hand.
As the time went on, the company started getting ages. They almost hired the double number of the employees they began the activities with by 2008. In short, the blueprint was working well.
However, things started falling apart after the arrival of the mail in 2013. The employees were claiming the augmentation of wages and Mrs Dlamini’s dismissal or suspension because of her misbehaviour. Hence, the drowning of the company.
Fortunately, after taking into account the advice of the investigator, Mrs Dlamini has put right the image of the company, not only in its walls but also outside. This can clearly be justified by the fact that she has improved her communication skills and the labour relations. Furthermore, the employees do not complain about rewards and her suspension anymore.
This allows to understand that communication is a key element in business. The more the company communicates well, the more it goes right.

Bibliography: * Effective Business Communication in Organisations, Preparing messages that communicate Special edition for the IIE, 4th edition * Higher Certificate in Business Principles and Practice, Year 1, Intro to Public relations, Varsity College Page 59-60.