Question

Over the past few months, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused drastic changes that have impacted our lives and environment. Businesses have needed to adjust their plans to accommodate these changes. You also had to adjust your university studies in this situation. Task: Spend some time reflecting on the situation before answering each question. Write each answer separately, and label appropriately. Each answer should be approximately 300 words. Please use appropriate theory to support your answers and use APA referencing to cite academic material used. The APA referencing is not included in the word count. Questions:

B1. A manager’s job requires a range of skills (ie. conceptual, human and technical skills). Considering how Covid-19 has impacted on businesses, which skill(s) do you believe is critical in this situation? Please explain why. (10 marks)

B2. With the imposed restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, there was increased reliance to use technology for communication. Discuss how the dilemmas of teamwork might be intensified in a virtual team. What dilemmas do you feel when you have to do class assignments as part of a team? (10 marks)

B3. Finally, identify the most important learning you have acquired from this course. How do you intend to use this knowledge to help you in your business career? (10 marks)

Answer 1

Answer B1:

By taking into consideration the impact of COVID 19 on the business, the skills of the manager that is critical in this situation is human and technical skills. Since, most of the business processes are being carried by using the communication technologies that allow the workers of the company to communicate on the virtual tools, managers of the company must have technological knowledge to effectively carry out the various business processes by using various technological tools so that the work being carried out by the workers could be monitored virtually. Moreover, managers are required to have human resource management skill sets. In view of COVID 19 where businesses are not allowed to call their employees in the facility of the company, businesses are required to allocate the tasks to their employees on the virtual platform. In such situation, it is very essential for the manager to have human management skills so as to monitor the works that are being allotted to them.

Answer B2:

In virtual communication, there are the limitations that are imposed on several aspects of the communication. During performing the projects in virtual team, one cannot clearly communicate with each other if the meeting is held between larger groups. It usually creates chaos and does not lead towards the conclusion of the discussion. Moreover, the communication process on the virtual technology involves a threat of stoppage of the communication process as a result of technological failures. Team cannot effectively share their progress in the written form nor can they successfully share the message by involving the non verbal communication. Most of the communication part gets distorted as a result of the lag in technology which may lead in misinterpretation of the message by the listener. During completing the class assignment as a team on virtual networks, some of the team members face technological failures which lead in distortion of the communication process. Some of the team members face network problems in the internet which restricts them from using the virtual communication tool. Some of the team members fail to interpret the messages delivered by other team mates.

Answer B3:

This course teaches us that we need to have the complete knowledge of the virtual technology so that in the drastic situation like that of COVID 19, we can effectively carry out our works without losing the important works.