Introduction of the internship

This report is a short description for my internship in the Tunisian National Tourist Office
(TNTO) which lasted for two months, from 15/02/2017 to 15/04/2017.

I knew from the beginning that going from the student life to the professional life is not
an easy step. So having an internship in such a huge company and more precisely in the
department of public relations, communication and reception is a golden opportunity for
me to apply what I have already learnt through my academic career as a student of
English for communication and also it is an occasion to discover the skills that I already
have.

The first part of my report is the company profile. In it, I mentioned the general
information about the TNTO and its main activities.
I succeeded to gather those information by asking thousands of questions to my
supervisor Mrs Olfa Kamel.
In most cases, she did not just answer but also she asked her colleagues to help me in
understanding how the work is done. However, I was not satisfied by just observing the
work so I asked almost all the employees there to give me tasks to do.
That helped me in writing the second part of my report, which is the “tasks performed”.
The tasks that I have done was various. My main task was writing press releases in
English as well as translating the schedule of events. I did some administrative tasks like
organising folders and classifying files and I had the opportunity to communicate with
foreigners face-to-face, via email and phone.
My internship experience helped me also to understand the PR courses that I have
studied and It gave another perspective of the communication process within a
company. That was the reason why I chose to tackle the field of “Internal
communication”.

My internship report include four major chapter. The first chapter is the TNTO profile,
the second chapter is the activities performed within the TNTO, and the third chapter is
the focus issue where I chose to talk about internal communication theoretically then in
the TNTO and the fourth on the last part of my report if my evaluation of the internship
and my recommendations.

1
CHAPTER ONE: COMPANY PROFILE

I. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPANY

1. TNTO’S PROFILE AND HISTORY
Tunisian National Tourist Office is a non-administrative public institution with a civil
personality and financial autonomy, founded on November 11, 1976.
It is working under the supervision of the Ministry of Tourism and it is administered
by the company’s council, chaired by the Chief Executive.
The TNTO employs 1.311 staff members and they are distributed into 4 departments:
37.22% to the central department, 28.37% to regional tourism, 32.18% to
professional training institution and 2.21% to TNTO representations’ abroad.
2. TNTO’S MISSION
The main mission of the TNTO is to implement the state’s tourism strategy.
The decree 977 of November 11, 1976 lays down the operating procedures of TNTO
which is developing the tourism sector, regulate and control tourist activity, promote
the product, and provide hotel and tourist training.
3. TNTO’S BUDGET
The annual budget for the year 2014 is divided into 3 sections: the operating budget
45.878 MD (39.17%), the equipment budget 64.250 MD (54.85%) and DFCTS
(Development fund of the competitiveness of the tourism sector) 7.000MD (5.98%)
and that gives a global budget of 117.128 MD.
4. TNTO’S SLOGAN
#DiscoverTunisia
5. TNTO’S LOGO

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3
6. TNTO’S ORGANISATIONAL CHART
As shows the chart below, the TNTO’s structure is made up of a general department
which is divided into 4 central departments and 17 other departments, including 5
related to the general department and 12 distributed over the central departments.
Also it is made up of 4 units, 17 regional tourism commissions, 26 information office,
21 representations abroad and 8 professional training institutions.

Figure n°1: The organisational chart of the TNTO

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II. THE ACTIVITIES OF THE TNTO
1. THE DEPARTMENTS ATTACHED TO THE GENERAL DEPARTMENT
❖ Department of legal affairs and markets
This department plays an important role in regulating, developing and surveying
the tourism sector. It focuses on the legal and management issues like: the
examination of the litigations coming to the TNTO and the elaboration of
contracts.
❖ Department of studies and of international cooperation
This department is in charge of extracting and analysing the statistical data and of
conducting periodical researches and studies in regards of the status of the
internal and external tourism sector.
❖ IT department
The IT department is responsible for the integration and the implementation of
the new software programs and applications, and for the maintenance of
computer’s equipment. The IT department is in charge as well of surveying and
updating the website of the TNTO (www.discovertunisia.com) and of translating
it.
❖ Internal audit department
The main mission of the internal audit department is evaluating the internal
control system and ensuring the straightness of the accounting and financial
transactions.
❖ Management control department
The activities of this department are diverse but generally the purpose beyond it
is to activate the exchange of information inside and outside the TNTO and put
the practical basics to regulate its overall structure.

2. CENTRAL DEPARTMENT OF INVESTMENT AND PRODUCT

❖ Department of investment and supervision of promoters
The department supports, since the foundation of the office, the promoters by
framing their investment intentions, in order to reach the goal of diversified
tourist products.

5
6
 ❖ Department of product management
The department is concerned of improving the quality of the products and
services as well as the proper functioning of tourist activities and that is by
making sudden inspections to the different tourist establishments.
❖ Department of heritage and of environment
The main mission of this department is the improvement of the tourism
environment and the protection of the tourist sites, in order to preserve the
aesthetics of tourist areas and to consolidate the position of cultural and
ecological tourism.

3. CENTRAL DEPARTMENT OF COMMUN SERVICES

❖ Human resources department
The department of human resources is in charge of recruiting new staff, of
uplifting the employees in degree and position, of transferring them from one
department or section to another. It is responsible also for the retirement and
dismissal procedures of the employees.
❖ Financial and accounting department
The mission of financial and accounting affairs department is the supervision of
the financial activities corresponding to the functioning of the TNTO.
❖ Budget department
The budget department is responsible for dividing and distributing the global (or
annual) budget upon three major sectors which are the operating budget, the
equipment budget, and DFCTS.
❖ Equipment, heritage and archive department
This department is constituted from two main sections.
The Equipment and Archive section pays attention to all the purchase activities
within the TNTO and the transport section is responsible for managing the means
of transport owned by the office.

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4. CENTRAL DEPARTMENT OF PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES AND OF QUALITY
DEVELOPMENT
❖ Department of professional skills' development
The department is in charge of updating the tourism training programs, of
studying the human resources’ requirements in the tourism sector and of
adopting a good financial and educational management program in the tourist
training centers.
❖ Department of quality promotion
This department deals obviously with the quality promotion of the services that
the office affords. This is why different conventions are signed with different
members and associations that are highly specialised in the field of tourism.

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III. THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT OF MARKETING

My two months internship were spent in this central department and more precisely in
the department of public relation, communication and reception.
The central department of marketing is divided into three sub-departments and a unit.
All of the departments work together in order to reach its main goal which is promoting
for the Tunisian destination outside and inside the country.
1. The tourist markets department
Tourist markets department is responsible for coordinating with the
representations of the office abroad within the frame of promotional activities that
have a huge media impact. It promotes mainly for the Tunisian destination by
participating in exhibitions and fairs outside and inside the country. And it is
responsible also for organising press trips.
2. Public relation, communication and reception department
This department in contrast with the other departments, it is in charge of diverse
activities that is why we can divide it into four main sections.
● Festivals and entertainment section is in charge of organising and sponsoring
cultural and sports events that aims at promoting, diversifying and expanding the
tourist activities inside the Tunisian territory. This support is done thanks to the
DFCTS and to the budget of the marketing department.
● Booking section welcomes guests, who are invited by our representatives, by
facilitating their stay in our country in terms of accommodation and
transportation and also it affords for them, in coordination with travel agencies,
airline tickets.
● Events abroad section has one main activity which is the acquisition of gifts in
order to offer it in special events.
The first type of events is international exhibitions and fairs where the office offer
symbolic and locally made gifts that refers immediately to our country.
The second type is exceptional events that have diplomatic dimensions and that
aims at strengthening our international relationships. In it, the gifts become more
expensive and personalised in regards with the importance of the visitors.
The most important gifts are handcrafted products; that is why the office

9
 encourages the artisans by making them participate in fairs outside the country
and by taking in charge all the expenditures of their participation in those fairs.
● Digital communication section is in charge of communicating about all the
cultural and sports events which are initiated, co-organised or even sponsored by
the TNTO. The role of this division is fundamental because it have an impact on
media and also because it shows the huge efforts that the office devotes in
favour of the tourism sector.
The work in this division is distributed into 2 sections. The first section is
responsible for writing press releases about coming soon events in Arabic and
French to attract people to participate in those events.
The second section is responsible for publishing those releases in the website of
the TNTO (www.discovertunisia.com) and in the social media.
3. NATIONAL ADVERTISING AND PUBLISHING DEPARTMENT
The department of national advertising and publishing is making a huge effort in
order to promote for the stunning modern Tunisia. It is divided into two main
sections: national advertising and publishing.
● The national advertising section is in charge of preparing marketing
strategies in order to attract more tourist to visit Tunisia. Those strategies revolve
around the different digital campaigns, which are made by communication
agencies.
● The publishing section is in charge of designing and printing brochures
about Tunisia in eight languages. Also it is in charge of making pictures report
about the regions, the products and the tourist themes.

IV. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

❖ Ministry Of Tourism And Crafts 1 avenue Mohamed V – Tunis

71 341 077
Number

Fax 71 332 635

❖ Tunisian National Tourist Office 84, avenue de la Liberté – Tunis

71 105 400
Number

ontt@ontt.tourism.tn
Email

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 www.discovertunisia.com
Website

https://www.facebook.com/DiscoverTunisiacom/
Facebook

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Byf7CiZwJPUHKNGLIeIRw
Youtube

https://www.instagram.com/discover_tunisia/
Instagram

https://twitter.com/DiscoverTUN
Twitter

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CHAPTER TWO: TASKS PERFORMED

I. Communication
1. Press Releases

The mission of the TNTO, as was mentioned before, is promoting for events and
festivals that will help in developing the tourism sector on the internal level. One of the
most powerful communication tool that helps in reaching that goal is writing press
releases and then publishing it on the official platform of the TNTO.
In order to reach that goal, the press releases should be written in a coherent way and it
should contain all the necessary information that the reader needs and that will
encourage and excite him/her to attend those events.
In order to write a press release, I should first do a full research to have an overall idea
about the event. Then I should take notes of the important information like: the date of
the event, how long it will lasts, where it is going to take place, the main guests and its
purpose.
Then I should gather and classify all those information in order to obtain a coherent text.
In fact, what grabs people’s attention is not just the amount of information found but
also the vocabulary used. Therefore, if we are promoting for something good, we should
use positive, optimistic and passionate words that will spread happiness among the
readers and that will excite them too. And since press releases are directed to common
people, I should pay attention to the structure of sentences, which should be simple,
coherent and easy to understand.
To sum up, writing a press release should go through three major steps. First, gathering
information; second, choosing the right vocabulary; and finally being methodological
while writing to create a natural and coherent flow of information and ideas.
Using this method really helped me to write successful press releases that you can find in
the appendixes like “Douz festival”, “Tunisian-Chinese cultural days” and “Let’s Wear
Tunisia Everywhere “. Those press releases were my contribution to the TNTO because I
was the only person in charge of writing the English version.
(See examples in appendix n°1)

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 2. Face to face communication

I consider myself lucky because, during my internship, I had the opportunity to

communicate directly with tourists from different countries and that is by participating
for the first time in my life on the International Tourism Market (MIT), which took place
from 5 to 8 April 2017 in the exhibition centre of Kram.
My main mission in the MIT was to distribute brochures that contains information about
Tunisia to the visitors.
At the beginning, I just kept watching how the host welcomes people and how she
responds to the different questions that the visitors asks. And after having a general
overview about how the conversation should be, I started talking to people.
The conversation goes generally through 3major steps.
1) The first step is welcoming the visitors. I should:
➢ Keep smiling
➢ Talk in a formal way
➢ Introduce myself
➢ Introduce the office
2) The second step is treating the request of the visitor. I should:
➢ Listen very well to the question asked
➢ Answer the question in a brief way
➢ Verify if the visitor have further inquiries about it
In case I did not have the right answer, I should just apologise by saying “sorry I
am not able to answer your questions. Would you mind to wait for a second until
I call my supervisor?”
3) The third step is finishing the conversation. I should:
➢ Give the brochures while mentioning its content
➢ Thank the visitors for their valuable questions
➢ Smile

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 3. Communication via e-mails

Communication via emails is the most used method to communicate inside the office. It
is so effective, so quick and it is reliable tool to exchange information.
Since the office did not provide me with a desk nor with a computer, I did not have an
email account that enables me to communicate with the employees using my name that
is why all the emails that I wrote; were sent using my supervisor’s name.
I learnt thanks to Mrs Olfa how I should write a formal email. First, the email should be
concise. I need just to mention the most important information briefly in a short
paragraph with a clear language to avoid misunderstanding.
I should also use the right salutation at the end of the e-mail.
Finally I should mention the “object” of the email in order to classify or to give an idea
about my email’s content from the beginning.
(See example in appendixes n°2: an email sent to our director Mrs Leila Tkaya)

II. Translation.

Though the TNTO is a huge company that is specialised in the tourism sector, it just uses
French to communicate. And since there is no one specialised in translation in the
department of public relation, communication and reception, I was giving some
documents to be translated into English like the “schedule of events”.
I found it difficult at the beginning to translate from French to English because I do not
really like the French language. However, since it was my task, I did my best to translate
the document properly and my main support at that time was a French-English
dictionary that helped me a lot in finding the right translation of words in the different
contexts that I encountered.
(See the translated document in appendixes n°3)

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III. Administrative work
1. Purchase order

As I mentioned in the 1st part of my report, the TNTO in coordination with its
representations abroad invites journalists in order to visit our country, discover it then
write press releases and articles about it.
Our representatives abroad send the programs of those trips to the department of
tourist market where make a purchase order is made.
The purchase order is coupon, which is filled out with information about the program of
the trips, and it aims to facilitate the work and to classify all the trips according to its
genre.
To fill in a purchase order, I should first read accurately the program and then extract or
highlight the necessary information and finally put it in its right place.
The information that I need to extract are:
● The sponsor name
● The market
● The operation
● Benefits requested
● Recipient
● Period of execution
● Attachment file(s)
After finishing that, the markets department send the purchase order to the department
of PR, communication and reception and especially to the booking section to treat it
deeply.
(See appendixes n°4)

2. Booking

Based on the purchase order, the booking section starts booking for the hotels and the
restaurants mentioned in the program of the trip.
The booking task is done using emails. The emails should be concise and brief and it
should contain some basic information, which is different from hotels to restaurants.
When I book for a hotel, I should mention three major things: the number of days

15
intending to spend, the pension (half pension- full pension) and the number of people.
However, for restaurants, I should just mention the number of people and the time
(breakfast-lunch-dinner).
Then after sending those emails, I should wait for the confirmation email to make sure
that the mission is accomplished.
(See appendix n°5)
3. Mission order

The booking division is responsible also for making mission orders based on the purchase
order and the trip program.
The mission order is a command from the TNTO to its drivers or guides in order to escort
or accompany the visitors from their arrival to Tunisia until their departure.
To write a mission order:
➢ I should first start by numbering the mission according to a copybook in which all
the missions are ordered with successive numbers.
➢ I should precise the flight in which the visitors are coming in order to welcome
them in time. ( the same procedure for the departure)
➢ I should precise also the means of transportation needed and for how many
people.
➢ After that, I should mention the theme and the route (or the path) of the mission.
➢ Finally, I should precise its duration.
After filling all those information, the mission order becomes ready to implementation.
(See appendix n°6)

4. Sponsoring

The TNTO receives always sponsorship requests from different Tunisian associations.
The sponsorship file goes through two major steps.
The first step is studying the file in terms of documents. I should make sure whether the
file contains all the necessary papers that proves the legal frame of the association.
The required documents that I check for its existence are:
1) The memorandum of the association, a copy for the declaration of the legal
establishing of the association, a list of its directors and documents proving

16
 their qualifications.
2) A list of its branches and its regional offices if it exists, and the name of its
directors.
3) A report of the auditor or auditors of accounts indicated for the year prior to
the date of submission of the request and that for associations whose annual
resources exceed one thousand dinars.
4) Copy of the last report to the accounting department in relation to the
associations that obtained a previous public funding in accordance with the
provisions of Chapter 44 of Decree No. 88 of 2011.
5) The last literary and financial report approved by the public session.
6) A copy of the record of activities and projects and the record of aid,
donations and wills, provided in Chapter 40 of Decree No.88of 2011.
7) A copy of the report of the last electoral session of the assembly
management structures.
8) Documents proving the safety of the status of the association towards the
Manage billing and social funds.
9) Documents proving the restriction of the association by the provisions of
Chapter 41 of Decree No. 88 of 2011 concerning the organization of
associations in the form of receiving pledges, contributions or foreign aid.
10) A document of commitment that is withdrawn from the administration of
the concerned public structure that shall be defined by signing it. It contains
The obligation to return the public sponsoring file in case it obtained a
parallel funding from another public structure on the same project or the
same activity.

After I study the file and I make sure that all the required documents are submitted, I
start a second treatment for it but this time in terms of the event’s content and this is
the second step that the sponsorship file goes through.
The events sponsored by the TNTO should have a relation in a way or another with the
tourism sector.
While treating the file I should detect the purpose of the event, its effect on the tourism
sector, and whether it aims at diversifying the tourist activity or not.

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(see example in appendix n°7)

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CHAPTER THREE: FOCUS ISSUE

During my internship, I was eager to have a good relation with all the employees of the
Tunisian National Tourist Office but the integration process at the beginning was a little
bit difficult since I have no clue how they already communicate with each others. That
pushed me to do more researches about how the relation between the employees
should be in general, then I tried to figure out how the employees of the TNTO and
especially of the department of public relation, communication and reception,
communicates on the internal level.

That was the main reason beyond my choice to talk on my focus issue about internal
communication in general first then in the TNTO.

I. CORPORATE COMMUNICATION
1. DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION
Communication is a process whereby information is enclosed in a package and is
channelled and imparted by a sender to a receiver via some medium. The receiver
then decodes the message and gives the sender a feedback. All forms of
communication require a sender, a message, and an intended recipient; however,
the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate
at the time of communication in order for the act of communication to occur.
Communication requires that all parties have an area of communicative
commonality. There are auditory means, such as speech, song, and tone of voice,
and there are nonverbal means, such as body language, sign language,
paralanguage, touch, eye contact, through media, i.e., pictures, graphics and
sound, and writing.

2. DEFINITION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION

Corporate communication is the communication process of an organisation. It is
responsible for the dissemination of information, the execution of corporate
strategy and the development of messages. Moreover, it have a management
function which is overseeing and coordinating the work done by communication
practitioners in different specialised fields such as media relations, public affairs,

19
 reputation management, corporate responsibility, investor relations and internal
communication.
This definition shows that corporate communication regroup two main types of
communication: external and internal communication but the quote above will
give us a hint about the difference between those two types
● “External communication is key in building the organisation, while internal
communication is fundamental in strengthening the organisation.”
This quote shows clearly the importance of internal communication within a
company and that makes us wonder about what is internal corporate
communication precisely.

II. THE INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

1. DEFINITION OF INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
Internal communication (IC) is the transmission of information between
organisational members or parts of the organisation. It can take place through
speech, phoning, radio, email (intranet), paging (exchanging web pages), fax,
closed circuit TV, and internet connections.
The existence of IC in a company have a huge impact on the general atmosphere
(conditions) of the work since it is vital for increasing individual and organisational
performance.
2. BASIC RULES OF AN EFFECTIVE INTERNAL CCOMMUNICATION

IC is a two-way process; in it, the employee should feel free to express his ideas
and to give his feedbacks concerning anything that have direct or indirect relation
with work. In return, the manager or the director have to accept those feedbacks
leniently and take it into consideration.

In order that a company succeed in this process, it should follow the three basic
rules of an effective IC. Those rules are interrelated and complementary and aim
all to reach one goal, which is reinforcing and solidifying the relation between the
employees and the managers thus strengthening the organisation.

❖ Principles of employee communication

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 The first basic rule is underlying the principles of employee communication.
The managers or communication practitioners in the company should know that
every single move they do in favour of internal communication could influence
the work atmosphere. Thus if the managers are expecting a good behavioural
attitude from their employees, they should be the example to follow.
In order to have an effective internal communication strategy, the company
should provide a set of attitudes, beliefs and values that relates all its members.
The basic principles that it should rely on are honesty, loyalty, credibility and
trustworthiness. When the managers really do believe in those principles, it
becomes easy for them to control the workflow in their company and to involve
their employees the maximum in the work. However if the employees feels that
those kind of “slogans” are just a camouflage trick to manipulate them and that
beyond it lays hypocrisy and mendacity, then all this process becomes useless
because the employees will not be able to believe what they are being told and
they will not be willing to communicate anymore.

❖ Leadership involvement in IC
Leadership involvement in IC is really an important rule for having an effective
communication because leaders can boost or decrease the levels of IC in their
company. Accordingly, for a leader to be successful in communicating with his
staff, he should first be willing to communicate. He should be inspired and
motivated to strengthen his relation with his subordinates and he should
express his willingness in order to involve and encourage them to be part of this
process.
Moreover, a successful leader should acquire some basic communication and
leadership skills that enables him to understand received messages and to
deliver clear messages. He should be a good listener, a good speaker and he
should know how to coordinate and share information with others in a
responsive manner.
Finally, a successful leader should acknowledge his responsibility and should
develop his personality and his behaviours in order to be actively involved and
to take the lead in the IC process.

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 ❖ Shared vision
Establishing a shared vision requires a well-defined employee communication
strategy that disseminates high quality information between all the members of
the company, with the capability of being receptive to the views of the
recipients. 
In order to establish a shared vision, the company should first define its vision
and spread it all over the company to receive feedback. Then based on the
feedback received, it refines it. Finally, the company effectively communicate
this refined vision with all the organisational levels. Like that, the employees will
share the same objectives as their company, and they will be more eager to
contribute in achieving it.

3. BENEFITS OF HAVING AN EFFECTIVE IC STRATEGY

A formal internal communications strategy can help the company reach its
overarching goals and share its mission, values and vision with its employees. It can
boost employee productivity, improve employee satisfaction, create a sense of
community and solidify employee loyalty and trust.
❖ Engagement and Commitment
An effective IC strategy make the employees more concerned and engaged in
the company’s work since they feel that they are important and valuable
members of the team. Moreover, a good IC strategy can build a sense of
community in the company; can strengthen the ties between employees and it
is capable also of creating a better environment to work in.
❖ High performance
Having a solid internal communications strategy allows for a more defined and
less restricted flow of information between employees. Communication is “the
thing” that gets employees the content they can use and share.
❖ Reaching the organisational goals
When the employees feel that their contribution have an impact on the
company and that their efforts are valued and praised, they will believe that
they fit in the company and that reaching the organisational goals is their duty.

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23
 III. INTERNAL COMMUNICATION IN THE TNTO

During my internship in the Tunisian National Tourist Office, I noticed that the office
have a good external communication strategy and that it is succeeding in promoting for
the Tunisian destination abroad thanks to the amazing team of the central department
of marketing. However, I was not able to detect if the central department of marketing
and especially the department of public relations, communication and reception, where I
had my internship, have an equivalent internal communication strategy.

In order to identify how the internal communication is going on in the PR,

communication and reception department, I decided to make a survey about it and I
distributed over the department to fulfil it by the employees.

(See the survey on appendix n°8)

1. THE RESULTS’ ANALYSIS

Based on the results that I found, I am going to do a brief analysis of each question of the
survey to examine the different aspects of IC inside the TNTO.

1. Have you ever received a training on the theme of

communication?

40%
YES
NO

60%

The pie chart above shows that the majority of the employees in the department of PR,
communication and reception have already an idea about the theme of communication.

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 2. Overall, what would you say about communication?

80%

70% 70%

30%

20%

0% 0% 10% 10% 0% 0% 0% 0% 10% 0%

in your company with your hierarchical superiors with your colleagues

very dissatistfied dissatisfied neutral satisfied very satisfied

The bar chart above shows that 80% of the employees are dissatisfied of the
communication in their company while 20% of the employees thinks that the
communication is satisfying and very satisfying. Also concerning the communication with
their colleague, the employees have almost the same satisfaction level, with 70%
dissatisfied, 20% satisfied and 10% neutral.
Whereas concerning the communication with their hierarchical superiors, the
employees’ opinions range between 70% satisfied and 30% dissatisfied.
Those results shows that there is a satisfaction about communication just with the
hierarchical superiors but concerning communication in the company and with the
colleagues there is a huge amount of dissatisfaction.

3. Are there specific internal communication plans in your

department?
NO
100% of the employees whom we asked, replied that there is no internal communication
strategy or plan within their department, which make us wonder how they manage to
communicate and coordinate between each other!!

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 4.Overall, if you were to give a satisfaction mark out of 10 to
the quality of information within the company, what mark
would you give?
9 0
8 0
7 0
6 0.5
5 0.2
4 0.2
3 0.1
2 0
1 0

Satisfaction rate about the quality of information

The satisfaction mark, concerning the quality of information within the company, range
between ‘3’ and ‘6’. The half of the employees that we have asked gave ‘6’, 20% gave
equally ‘5’ and ‘4’, and 10% gave ‘3’. That gives an average mark of ‘5.1’ that proves that
the quality of information is passable.

5. What are the most important themes on which you should

receive communications?

Quality, Safety, Health, Environment

(policy, objectives, etc. . .)

8% Training offered by the company

4%
27%
Company's products and services

27% Organization of the company

15% Financial results

19% Posts proposed to internal mobility

Other

The pie chart below shows that, 27% of the employees wants to receive communications
mainly about the quality, safety, health, environment (policy, objectives, etc. . .), 27%

26
also want to know about the organization of the company. 19% the employees wanted
also to receive communications about the company's products and services, 15% about
training offered by the company, 8% chose other theme like Government, legal affairs,
HR and corporate culture and finally 4% chose posts proposed to internal mobility.
However, no one was interested in receiving information about financial results.

Questions number 6 & 7

In the sixth and seventh questions, I asked about the tools of communication that the
employees are using and what is the most effective one in their opinion.
According to what the employees said, here is a descending order list from the common
used tools to the non-used tools.

1) Mail and phone

Used by all the employees
2) Courier
3) Intranet/internet
4) Annual activity report
5) Seminar
6) Guide or handbook (or docking procedure) / Periodic meeting / Internal display
7) Periodic internal newsletter or journal / Suggestion box / Expression group
Non-used tools
From this list, the employees agreed that the most effective tool is Mail.

8. Do you think there are enough meetings within

your department?
NO
All the employees agreed that there is not enough meetings within their company and
that shows that there is no face-to-face communication, in return there communication
level will degrade through time.

9. How do you describe the social climate in your company?

The employees in this question used negative adjectives to describe the social climate in
their company. They said that it was unsatisfactory, harsh to productivity and
innovation, not stable and sultry. All that proves that there is a bad social climate within

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the department of PR, communication and reception.

10. Do you think there are enough individual interviews with your
supervisors? NO

In this question, all the employees agreed that there is not enough individual interviews
with their supervisors and in this case, the company will suffer from the inefficiency and
the low performance because the superiors are not building strong ties with their
subordinates.

11. Does the company plan to go further in the field of

internal communication than the current operation?

40% YES NO

60%

Sixty percent of the employees said “yes” about the future intention of the company to
go deeper in the field of IC, which is a good initiative to change the general atmosphere
of the work and to create a new favourable environment to communicate better.

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 12. What changes would you like for the coming years in
terms of internal communication in your company?
More commitment from senior
management
More financial and technical
3% resources
23% Recruitment of staff assigned to
23% communication
Better collaboration supervision
Better participation, membership
and involvement of staff
10%
23% Other

19%

Based on the chart, we remark that the employees want to submit changes almost on all
the levels of communication and mostly on the level of participation, membership and
involvement of the staff, the level of financial and technical resources, the level of
commitment from senior management and also on the level of recruitment of staff
assigned to communication.

13.what are the main obstacles or difficulties to good internal

communication in your company?

The geographical breakdown of

services
4%4%
The lack of financial resources
19% 15%
The unwillingness of senior
management
Lack of human resources

19% 27% The separation between services

The non-recognition of internal
12% communication
The separation between internal and
external communication

According to what 27 % of the employees said, the most important obstacle to IC in the
department of PR, communication and reception is the unwillingness of senior

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management. After it comes the separation between services and the non-recognition of
internal communication with 19%. Those are the major three obstacles to good internal
communication in the company.

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2. THE REASONS BEHIND THE DYSFUNCTION OF IC
The survey results proved that the TNTO and especially the department of PR,
communication and reception is suffocating from the low level of internal
communication. As well the employees of the TNTO are suffering from the absence of
communication with their colleagues and with their superior hierarchical. This
dysfunction have plenty of reasons behind it.

The main two reasons are:

❖ Insufficient amount of information

The employees of PR, communication and reception are not receiving so much
information concerning the vision of their company and concerning the different
activities of the other departments, as a result there are not up to date about is
happening around them.

In addition, the TNTO do not use different tools of communication, it is just limiting
itself by using modern technologies like phone, email, internet which may cause
information overload and which is not sufficient as well to maintain good
communication skills.

❖ The absence of face-to-face communication

In order to save time, the company resorted to use new tools of communication that
facilitated the workflow, but that affected an important factor of communication,
which is face-to-face communication.

The face-to face communication is an important tool to make sure that all the
employees are well informed and to receive their feedbacks about the work.

❖ Hierarchy
When hierarchical superiors do not pay attention to the importance of
communicating with the staff, they will lose their employees’ commitment to work,
their willingness to contribute in the company and their high performance while
doing their work.

➢ The absence of IC strategy

All those reasons, for non-effective communication within the company, are the

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 consequences of the absence of good IC strategy.
When there is no internal communications strategy in place, things can start to
quickly unravel.
● Employees may withdraw and isolate themselves without the appropriate
open dialogue.
● The employees will be less accessible to other members of the team and
unconsciously they will cause an interdepartmental split in the company.
● There will be a non-productive processing and distributing of information,
which is essential for the growth and success of the company.
● The employees’ engagement will decrease and the misunderstanding in the
workplace will increase.
● . Productivity and efficiency level will decline.
● Time may be lost as instructions may be misunderstood and tasks may have
to be repeated.
● The employee will be frustrated and there will be an unnecessary tension in
the workplace.
Those are the reasons why IC strategy is fundamental in any company and why its
absence is a disaster.

3. RECOMMENDATION
After evaluating the level of IC in the TNTO its time now to five some recommendations
to the managers that will help in strengthening the communication process between the
employees.

● Make employees participate into the teambuilding approach.

● Dedicate adequate time in your agenda to teambuilding.
● Determine the assessment tool that is right for you.
● Ask participants to complete individual assessments in advance and share the
results.
● Reward your employees and appreciate their loyalty and commitment to
work.
● Create a safe space in the meeting to discuss individual styles and group

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 dynamics.
● Find opportunities throughout the planning process to refer to what you have
learned about your team and how it is informing the work.
● Increase the number of periodical meetings with your employees (at least
once per week).
● Create a suggestion box in which employees can put their ideas and
feedbacks about the work, then read the suggestion and try to evaluate it
according to its efficiency.
● Write the goals or the tasks of the week on a board to make sure that at the
end
● of the week your objective is reached

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 CHAPTER FOUR: EVALUATION & RECOMMENDATIONS
I. EVALUATION
1. Advantages of my internship
The fact of being an intern in a huge organisation like the TNTO is a challenge in
itself because the office already have many employees who are doing their work
perfectly in a professional way. That gave the impression that I am going to be a
useless member, but fortunately, this feeling vanished when I had the courage to
ask for work. My supervisor gave me what I wanted and instructed me as well
through the whole internship with pleasure and with a charming smile and
breath-taking kindness.
Moreover, I was lucky to start my professional career in the TNTO and especially
in the department of PR, communication and reception because it gave me the
opportunity to implement what I have learnt during my academic studies in
different courses like “corporate culture”, “business communication”, “public
relations”, “English for specific purposes” and even translation.

2. Drawbacks of my internship
Even though I was satisfied of being a trainee in the TNTO, I should mention the
drawbacks that I encountered.

The first struggle for me was the use of the French language that I did not use
since I was in high school. All the employees of the office uses, while writing
documents, while sending emails and while talking; French and that made me
uncomfortable to communicate with them at the beginning.

The second struggle was not having my private space to work in. I worked on the
same desk with my supervisor, which was not comfortable at all.
Those struggles really bothered me at the beginning but at the end, I managed to
overcome it.

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II. RECOMMENDATIONS
1. To the company
Though I liked working on the TNTO, there was things that I wanted to change.
I advice the TNTO to provide its trainee with a desk to do their tasks and a phone to
help them coordinate with the employees and a computer to do his researches about
the office.
I highly recommend the TNTO also to benefit from its trainees, because it is good to
give the trainees what they need without asking anything in return but it is better to
show them the work and make them participate in it.

2. To the institute
For me if time goes back, and I was asked again “where I want to study” I will surely
choose the higher institute of languages Tunis.

My university is the place where I discovered who I am and what I am capable of

doing thanks to the amazing staff of the administration and thanks to my beloved
teachers who taught me during my academic studies.
However, I have some recommendations to my university based on what I noticed
during my journey as a student of English for communication.
I recommend that the university reduce the amount of the theoretical lectures and
try to implement new method that helps the students apply what they have learnt
each year.
I also recommend that the university add new courses like marketing, digital
advertising and press because those will be useful tools for us in our professional
career.
In addition to that, I think courses or training programs for “public speaking” will be
beneficial for improving the quality of its students.

Finally, what I highly recommend is the urge to use modern technologies while
studying, in order to be up-to-date and to increase the motivation of students to
learn.

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