Business Communication

Business Communication

Student’s Name

Institution

Date

Part 1: Opening Paragraph. How effective is the opening paragraph?

The opening paragraph of the email is very effective. It conveys the core objectives of the company to employees to show how the company cares for people. It also draws attention of employees to the email before delivering the message which is the goal of the email. In the first paragraph it is pointed that Microsoft focuses on productivity and desire to help people, this means that the company would look at the interest of its employees and therefore, the company is forced to lay off employees though they would wish to have everyone on board. However, there is no clear message in the first paragraph. The first paragraph should be able to deliver the message to the audience.

Part 2: Immediate Impacts. How effectively does the message explain the immediate impacts?

The email is generally vague because it focuses on the services and strategy of the company rather than providing direct message to the audience (employees). The core message is placed in the middle of the message and cannot be easily identify. Therefore, the message does not explain the immediate impact, action to be taken and the intended solutions.

Part 3: FAIR Test. Conduct a FAIR test of the message and report your findings. Support your conclusions

Stephen wrote the email to employees with good intention to information employees of the intended lay off of some of the Microsoft workforce. Though the message was delivered to the audience, it was not clearly articulated as it supposed to be. It failed to mention immediate impact of the intended action and the message of lay off did not come out in paragraph as supposed to be done. The email also failed to provide reasons for the company to take action to lay off its workforce.

Overall, the email is vague and focused a lot of unnecessary things, instead of pointing out the issues and providing immediate impact to employees. The email focuses on the company’s strategies, plans and products it offers customers and therefore, it failed to deliver message to employees as expected. It also discuses other brands which was very unnecessary when a bad message is being conveyed. The email is also long and very boring since it talks about what employees already know and therefore, is no different being achieved by telling employees about the company’s strategy a time when they are being laid off.

In conclusion, the writer’s main points are not clearly expressed throughout the email. Stephen cannot tell employees that some of them are going to be layoff and inform them of the impact of such action without talking about the products and other brands. He spent a lot of time talking about things employees are not interested on at the time when a company is lay off its workforce. Therefore, there are several loopholes in the communication and it does not deliver the message as expected. It is therefore, vague and lack clarity. The information cannot influence readers based on the message it intended to pass.

Part 4: Recommendation

I would recommend for the changes to be made on the first paragraph. The first paragraph should be able to deliver information to the audience. The employees should know that some of them are going to be sacked after reading only the first paragraph. The second paragraph shall provide the reason for such decision and the impact to employees to have a clear objective of the email just by writing the first and second paragraph.