Question

Define the problem:

At the company I currently work for communication is a huge issue. No one seems to directly communicate and oftentimes things are missed or people’s feels are hurt. There are three marketing departments that work on separate projects, but oftentimes have to work cross functionally together. There is often times where one department head will tell me one thing and then another one something else. This usually has to do with an assignment I am working on and how they should be done. Communication is bad between departments, but it is also bad within specific teams. There was an employee on my team who was not doing well. Clients were constantly complaining about her and she had no idea. She truly believed that she was being professional and doing a good job. She went into her yearly review and got ripped apart and she was completely blindsided. Her argument was how was I supposed to fix something if I did not know I was doing anything wrong. The head of the department had expected the manager under her to address the issue, but she thought the department head would. No one communicated and it lead to an unhappy employee and many client complaints. This is not a good way to run a business when client interaction and satisfaction is so important. There is a lot of travel in this company so people are constantly out of the office and it makes it hard to meet face to face.

All possible solutions:

• Fire the employee because she should have known better

• Issue a strong warning to the employee and keep her

• Have marketing departments meet up once a week to update one another on projects

• Before any decision is made, department heads should make a collective decision, even if it’s a last minute decision

• Teams should also meet once a week to update one another on project developments within their team, whether or not there’s a new goal or objective

• Heads of department should always be cognizant of followers’ performance and give quarterly reports to the overall boss and discuss how best to assist followers who are not performing well before the official annual assessment of employees

• Everyone should be encouraged to watch the other person’s back so as to correct any mistake in performance before it becomes a serious problem

• Have monthly reviews or quarterly reviews instead of yearly reviews with everyone on the team

• Have monthly meetings with the managers about them and the people they manage

• Have skype team meetings that are required even if people are out of the office; this should be scheduled so that people are aware of when these online meetings will be held

• Department heads should state what you expect from their teams and how they should interact with clients

• Get new clients if the other ones have problems

• Give clients perks due to the failure on the organization’s part to have a smoother relationship with clients.

Identify necessary resources and consequences for each possible solution

Answer 1

• Fire the employee because she should have known better

This will not be the solution in the long run. If the new employee has the same issue then it will affect the business growth. She will know better if the manager clearly communicates the customers' problem with her and hear her take on it. By doing so there will be transparency between the company and the employee improves and affects the company positively (Erik Berggren, Rob Bernshteyn, (2007).

• Issue a strong warning to the employee and keep her

The company should understand she was doing her work, the way company wanted to. If the customer has the problem then it should be communicated clearly. The company should balance customers and their employee (Schneider, Bowen 1999).

• Have marketing departments meet up once a week to update one another on projects

This will be an excellent solution to this problem. By doing so the employee will get updates from the customer and the employee can work as per the customers' satisfaction. (Karen Mishra, et al. Driving Employee Engagement: The Expanded Role of Internal Communication 2014)

• Before any decision is made, department heads should make a collective decision, even if it’s a last minute decision

Since the work is based on traveling the departmental head will not be knowing the employee better. Consequent of this will be the department head will get a clear understand of the employee. This will help in making the correct decision.

• Teams should also meet once a week to update one another on project developments within their team, whether or not there’s a new goal or objective.

As earlier mentioned, regular meeting is always better. Since its a travel-oriented job. It is difficult to have a meeting regularly. It is always better to have a Skype meeting between the teams or an online chat group to update the team.

• Everyone should be encouraged to watch the other person’s back so as to correct any mistake in performance before it becomes a serious problem

If everyone in the company watches the other persons back, there won't be any control in the team. The team may try to bring down the other person. This will affect the business.

The boss is the right person to observe the performance of the employee.

• Have monthly reviews or quarterly reviews instead of yearly reviews with everyone on the team

The review should be done yearly. The monthly review will be very time consuming if the company is big. The monthly review will not help the company to know an employee better. The performance of the individual depends on the customers and every individual customer will have their own preferences. Hence it is very difficult to get a conclusive judgment of an employee in a month.

• Have monthly meetings with the managers about them and the people they manage

The monthly meeting will help the manager to know the employee better. But reviewing should be done yearly.

• Have skype team meetings that are required even if people are out of the office; this should be scheduled so that people are aware of when these online meetings will be held

As mentioned earlier Skype team meeting will be an excellent idea. Since this business requires traveling it is difficult to meet in the office. Skype team meeting will help the team to update themselves.

• Department heads should state what you expect from their teams and how they should interact with clients

This should be done before handing over the project to the employee. This will help the employee to get a clear picture of the business and add their creative idea while handling the project.

• Get new clients if the other ones have problems

This will affect the business negatively. As a business, we should always think that clients are always right. However, any service related business first objective of it is to keep the clients happy.

• Give clients perks due to the failure of the organization’s part to have a smoother relationship with clients.

This should be done when the employee does serious damage. It is always better to avoid giving perks because this will affect the reputation of the company and also affects the profitability of a company (Chen, Donghua and Li, et al. Do Managers Perform for Perks? 2009).