Personal Work Environment

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PERSONAL WORK ENVIRONMENT

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Communication in the Virtual Workplace

COM 470

GRETA DEININGER

Aug 30, 2007

PERSONAL WORK ENVIRONMENT

A company's ability to develop plans that can deliver strategic value effectively will latch on to a competitive advantage. The ability to plan is an important function of management in the 21st-century. All actions of management and a company's workforce must be geared toward accomplishing goals that encompasses objectives for a company's success in the here and now, and in the future. All available assets for planning should be considered--economizing effort. In Management: The New Competitive Landscape authors Thomas S. Bateman and Scott Snell talk writes, "Now and in the future, delivering strategic value is a dynamic process in which people throughout the organization use their brains and brains of customers, suppliers, and other stake holders to identify opportunities to create, seize, strengthen, and sustain competitive advantage." Let us also consider this: without effective communication throughout an organization the strategic plan become useless and the organization will lose its competitive edge. A company that does not know how to use all forms of communication be it virtual or in real-time--it is like climbing the tower of Babel; the higher you climb the more incoherent everyone becomes.

Communicating the Plan

The plan is laid, so now it must be set in motion. Management's ability to effective Organize is crucial to setting the wheels in motion. So how do the big wheels turn? Well its starts by getting highly competent capable people, and placing all the critical resources that are needed in the appropriate areas--structuring resources. At the cornerstone of structuring in my organization is communication (Boring & Galindo, 2005). We effectively utilize email via Microsoft Outlook, we have department wide meetings, we utilize voicemail via our telephone system (Avaya), we send and receive letters, and we send and receive faxes to disseminate information throughout the entire organization that is spread out in 39 different states and about 40 different countries. If a company can establish an organized entity is will become a force to reckon with. Good organization will coordinate the efforts of all forms of communication and its assets to maximize success; it will bend and flex back to adapt to the situations it faces. However, we could not if we were not effective with both virtual and real-time forms of communication. Our mixed forms of communication all our company to continue to expand its shares in the market place demonstrating far-thinking and they can also be far-reaching, if communication globally is on solid footing too.

Communication Goals

Now goals must be accomplished and manager must ensure that they are, so they must guide its workforce. Bateman and Snell, discusses that leading "involves close day-to-day contact with people, helping to guide and inspire them towards achieving team and organizational goals." In other words, they must create an environment for teamwork, helping teams and the organization generate synergy from each echelon. There are many contributors to leadership that managers must be cognizant of and must know how to employ them--communication must be mastered (Boring & Galindo, 2005). In my organization, each work group has diverse members with many different backgrounds, so our mangers possess great interpersonal and organizational communication skills, which becomes evident in department meetings and team meetings. We utilize one-on-one communication when other forms of communication need to be conveyed. For example eye contact, facial expressions, tone and inflection of voices, or frowns and smiles.

Mixed Forms of Communication

When I meet with one of my employees for a performance review, I conduct this in a formal one-on-one meeting. This allows for both of us to be on a more personal level. If it is unfavorable and I offer to assistance I want my employee to know that I am sincere. I want them to be able to read me. I have been with some of my team members over two years and they have become quite at reading me. Upon the conclusion of our one-on-ones, I always follow-up with what we discussed in writing, which will become a part of their official personnel file. This is an important process, so all managers must be proficient in performing one-on-ones--raises and salary decrease are at stake so we must be accurate in the accounting of all performance measures. We use many different internal systems that are tied to the intranet. Therefore, we can obtain minute-by-minute, hourly, weekly, monthly and quarterly snap-shots of employees' performances in a matter of minutes. Thus indicating