Addressing_Challenges_of_Group_and_Teams

Addressing Challenges of Group and Teams LDR 531 August 8, 2011 Desert Communication Strategies Desert Communication Inc. is a major wireless telecommunications organization. Desert Communications’ net profit has declined because of changes in the communications industry and as a result they have has begun a strategic movement to reallocate their resources to capitalize on the added services of the communications industry. Examples of such include phone insurance, additional minutes, roadside service and so forth. The customer-service call center of Desert Communications Inc. is structured with a manager overseeing a unit of up to 10 employees. The manager oversees the operational output of his or her team including providing customer service, responding to service inquires, and answering billing questions. Employees are encouraged to offer additional services to help maximize the profit of Desert Communications but are currently not required to. The purpose of this plan is to outline the appropriate operational changes needed to implement in the customer-service call center of Desert Communication to increase profitability. Methods to present the operational change In the last decade Telecommunication industry changed a lot, and these changes affect the existing business negatively, to survive, Desert Communications has begun a strategic movement to reallocate their resources to capitalize on the added services of the communications industry. Organizations thrive on improving employee satisfaction, communication, and retention in teamwork; by expanding on its products and services, for examples phone insurance, additional minutes, roadside service and so on. As well as applying, and then implementing, concepts and ideas that is formulated from different societal backgrounds. Through diversity we are better able to understand the demographics of the marketplace as it can serve and better equip the company that has more limited range of employee demographics. As we are fully aware of the concerns surrounding Desert Communications Inc.’ venture to ensure teamwork and communication remains at forefront of resolving for an effective multicultural workforce. Training plan for the employees Desert Communications Inc. will be adding a new training program to assist in the allocation of their new services of add on s, it will now be offering. Every manager that is currently working for Desert Communication will be required to participate in the new training program which will be designed to increase profit for the company. Desert Communicates realize that any change to the company’s current manager style or workplace environment needs to be handled in a way that is understood by all employees. The purpose of this training is to help all mangers understand what is needed from each of their units and how to apply these new methods to the workplace. Desert Communication realizes that it has a diverse group of individual and will develop training to reach all of them. Desert Communications Inc. understands no two people learn in the same way, this is why the training program will utilize different forms of communication to help get the message across. All mangers will be giving a written outline of what the training will be covering as well watching a short video. The video will just be re-enforcing what was already written in the outline. In the video it will demonstrate how to offer add on services of phone insurance, additional minutes, roadside service and so on. After watching the video all mangers will break off into teams and do some role playing activities. One person will play a customer while the other person plays the service provider. This role playing method will help make sure the team is on the right track and that training program was successfully communicated. How Group and Team Collaboration Will Facilitate the Success of Training In today’s workplace, the most successful leaders are not the one who compete for individual employee’s advantage, but those that build and ensure involvement, bridge differences, and facilitate collaborative solutions. Companies with successful training programs achieve such success by incorporating several disciplines in the training process. In order for Desert Communication Incorporated to ensure a successful training program managers and employees must collaborate and participate as teams and groups in order to make it a reality. Team C’s recommendation for such success would be that the company implements after activity reviews and open discussions to foster dialogue and interaction. This after activity session would allow for collective analysis as a team and collaboration (Robbins & Judge, 2011). These sessions would be as interactive as the team and facilitator allows. During these sessions team members and facilitator would meet to discuss the activities in detail as it relates to what went well and processes that could be improved to ensure improve future performance. The discussions could include the objectives of the training plan, the disciplines involved, the decisions arrived at and the opportunities that exist. Desert Communications Incorporated decision to reallocate its capital is a significant undertaking and according to Robbins and Judge (2011) it would be useful to conduct progress review sessions at convenient and deliberate check points to monitor success and limit problematic occurrences. Tactics to minimize conflict The phrase multicultural workforce refers to the changing age, sex, ethnicity, physical ability, race and sexual orientation of employees across all types and places of work in the United States. To minimize the conflict between team members and management, and in environment like the calling center it is important to welcomes a multicultural workforce and encourages teamwork. This helps the workers establish credibility and maximize the efforts of being part of a team as well as build communication. Today, many companies are becoming global corporations with customers around the world. A multicultural workforce changes in the essential patterns of values, and attitudes of employees. The company needs to understand and become familiar with the diversity of their multicultural workforce; therefore, they need to understand how value differences across national cultures can influence human behavior at work. Employees need to be aware of how they deal with multicultural teams in the workforce; by developing and enhancing their styles of leadership, their decision-making, and planning practices, how they motivate the teams, and their organizing abilities (Robbins & Judge, 2011). Collaboration to successfully implement operational change Desert Communications will be looking to management to lead their units through this operational change. The managers will need to take on an even stronger leadership role within their teams showing them that the change is an improvement to the company. By having the managers embrace the changes that are going on within the company this will increase the employee confidence in Desert Communications. All managers will work one on one with their team members to insure that they are comfortable and understand the importance of add on services. Explaining to each team the benefits of offering phone insurance, additional minutes, and roadside services will increase the company’s profits. With the company’s profits increasing this will allow run for pay increase to employees that show the most growth. It will be up to the management to be a where of any negative employees that are opposing change. Negative employee during this time of change can poison the team. The managers will need to take those employees and change their attitudes to be positive to keep the workplace environment running smoothly. Extra training maybe needed for those employees showing negatively toward the change. At this point cross training of teams may be needed to handle the difficult employee’s, so that another manager might be able to get through to them. Use of work teams The customer service call-center of Desert Communications Inc. is currently structured with one manager overseeing 10 employees. It is very difficult for one manager to effectively manage 10 employees at one time especially with the importance of the necessary changes. The recommendation is to divide the 10 employees into two teams of five employees with a team leader responsible for five employees including himself and accountable to the manger. This change in command and control will allow each team leader to influence his team into effectively implementing the operational changes. Tasks will be assigned through the managers to the team leader and their perspective teams. The tasks will be assigned to a specific person with deadlines for completion to ensure that they are completed. Managers will be evaluated on the success of their two teams. Team leaders will be evaluated based on the success of their individual team. Team members will be evaluated on their contribution to the team. A scoreboard will be designed to measure the success of the organization. The scoreboard will keep track of the important metrics that will include the key leading indicators for the results Desert Communications is attempting to achieve. The scoreboard will be updated on a weekly basis and distributed throughout the entire organization so that all employees can understand how well that they are performing in comparison to their peers and the company’s objectives. The scoreboard will allow the mangers and team leaders to communicate with their direct reports on a weekly basis and allow them make changes as necessary. Conclusion In order to ensure job satisfaction and retention among employees, it is imperative that employees feel that their leader is motivating and values their input. Employees will perform at their optimum when they are provided with the training and other tools necessary to prepare them for any task assigned. When leaders communicate clearly and candidly and adapt to changing environment this will also encourage employees to embrace change, trust in teamwork and work together to accomplish any goal set before them. References Robbins, S.P., & Judge, T.A. (2011). Organizational Behavior (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Yuki, G. A. (2010). Leadership in organizations (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.