Touchstone 3.1: Sending Good News and Bad News
Overview: In any job, you need to be an effective communicator, and sometimes that means delivering information that has an impact on the recipient. In this touchstone you will practice writing a message with both good news and bad news. The nature of the message will affect the structure of a message as well as the tone and word choice.
A. Assignment
Select ONE of the following scenarios and draft a message of 250-400 words. Be sure to include an appropriate subject line, a greeting, and an opening. The body of your message should be two paragraphs, each 4-6 sentences, communicating the two pieces of news in your chosen scenario. You should end with an appropriate closing to your message.
- Announce a new hire to the organization. It is a new position at a leadership level called Director of Customer Engagement. The new hire is named Natalie Lopez and comes to the job from another company where she had a similar job for six years. You want to share this as good news and get workers to warmly welcome Natalie, but you know the outside candidate was chosen over two popular internal applicants and some people in the office are upset about this.
- Announce the pay increase and benefits for the upcoming fiscal year. The pay increase is lower than usual due to company revenue being less than expected, while copays on health insurance are going up for unrelated reasons. To mitigate the bad news the company is giving all workers an additional three days of vacation and a small one-time bonus of 0.5% their annual salary that they’ll receive on their anniversary date in the next fiscal year. You know these combined benefits are substantially less than the difference in expected raise and insurance copays.
- Announce that the entire company is going to relocate to a new location, 1010 Mill Road. The current location has had many complaints about cramped space, unreliable heat and air conditioning, and limited parking. The new location is further away, but has plenty of parking, new and reliable HVAC, and ample space. However, at the current location most staff have private offices, while at the new location all but the most senior staff will use an open, shared space with less privacy and personalization of work spaces. Key facts to communicate are the dates of the move (April 15-19), that professional movers will take care of everything, and that workers need to remove all personal belongings before April 14.
C. Submission Requirements
The following requirements must be met for your submission:
- Use a readable 12-point font and single-spacing.
- The message must be 250-400 words; this will be about one page single spaced. Do not go over one page!
- All writing must be appropriate for an academic context.
- Writing must be original and written for this assignment. Plagiarism of any kind will be returned ungraded, subsequent plagiarism will receive a grade of 0.
- Put your name, date, the name of the class, and the touchstone title at the top of the page.
- Include all of the assignment components in a single file. Acceptable file formats include .doc and .docx.
Sample Message for Business Communication Touchstone 3.1
This message is not a response to any of the prompts in your assignment but is a similar message conveying both good news and bad news. In this scenario a longtime employee at a parks organization is retiring and will not be replaced. The author of the message (the parks director) wants to acknowledge the positive impact this person had while giving the bad news that the position will be eliminated and her program discontinued due to waning interest.
Subject: 2022 Winter Festival and beyond (and a fond farewell)
Hi everyone,
First, congratulations on another successful Winter Sports festival; this has been a favorite yearly event for many of us, and this year was particularly enjoyable thanks to all the snow! I hope you’ve had a chance to browse the many photos on our social media channels and tagged yourself and your families, if you choose to do so!
With the 2022 festival behind us, longtime coordinator Elena Prince has told us that she will retire after an impressive thirty-year career with the parks. As you probably know, Elena conceived and launched the first festival in 1995, which had an immeasurably positive impact on our organization and the community. Plans for a retirement ceremony are underway and you will receive news on this soon. In the meantime, please tell Elena “congratulations,” and “thank you,” the next time you see her.
As Elena takes her well-earned retirement, we’ve had to make some tough decisions about the future of the festival. Although every year has brought joy and pride to the parks organization and to the community, it has faced declining participation over the past few years, a trend we noticed even before the pandemic. Declining participation has resulted in fewer volunteers, and unfortunately the needs are the same, so it has been increasingly difficult to maintain the quality experience our community deserves. As such, we have decided that 2022 will be the last year of the festival. Since Elena’s title was festival director, this means we will not be filling her very big shoes. Instead we hope to dedicate our resources to the daily activities and offerings of our parks, where demand has continued to be brisk. Note that for now this is internal news only, if anybody asks about 2023 and beyond, just tell them that plans are underway. Obviously we will have an announcement as soon as possible. If you have any questions, you can direct them to me.
That is all for now, and it’s a lot of news for one day! Thanks again for a fabulous festival and thanks especially to Elena for all her contributions over the years.
Best wishes,
Stuart Dent, Parks Director