CASE STUDY
Sushma works in Infosoft solution pvt; td. She works there as a project leader. occasionally her job demands coming early for her duties or stay late till evening hours. Once she was handling two projects simultaneously and on one such day she had convened a meeting with her team members regarding project delivery. She had called her team members at 0800 hours. Sushma is a disciplinarian and generally she follows duty timings strictly. Discipline starts with me, was her firm principle.
She had made a habit of coming five minutes early at least. However on that day she could not make at the scheduled meeting time of 0800 hours and she was worried that her reputation could be at stake. Time was 0805 hours and she reached main gate of her company. Hurriedly she swiped her card and rushed towards board room. That time few housemen were doing cleaning. One of the housemen had spread soap solution on the floor. Unaware of what is on the floor, she continued to rush to the board room. The floor was made of marbles and soap solution was sprinkled over it. Sushma could not control her balance on the slippery floor and fell down. Slippery floor dragged her a couple of feet further. The impact was so strong that she wailed loudly. Her team members rushed to help her. Somehow she could get up and she was taken to the hospital. It was discovered that her hip bone was broken. As a result, she was immobile for about two months because of the injury. Later in investigation, it was revealed that the housemen who was cleaning the floor has not put the sign board “CAUTION: FLOOR is WET.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Bring out the importance of nonverbal communication in the case.
Q2. Do you think sushma is responsible for whatever happened? Explain.
CASE STUDY (20 Marks)
The TelstraClear team wanted the tools to appear visually interesting and attractive, and to keep the text firstperson and friendly. The exception to this is in emergency situations when messages and commands require more immediacy. In these instances popup templates have been designed that relay the situation using ‘emergency’ colours of oranges and reds. A series of visual templates have also been developed for specific audiences, as well as sets of screensavers (customer profiles and staff benefits, for example) so each has a specific look and feel. TelstraClear recognized from the start that the tools, particularly the screensavers, need to be current and change regularly to maintain their impact and interest. SnapMags are now being adopted by various business groups across the organization to target specific information and news to their teams, and popup alerts are also starting to be used by project teams. They can see the valueadd the popups provide with instant messaging and fewer emails. Also, there is added value in being able to track who has – or hasn’t read – the popups. We’ve now go to the point where teams are coming to us and asking “can we use SnapComms too…” The bright, fun and colourful screensavers have met with overwhelming appreciation and staff are enthusiastic about new ones. They are simple to execute and are immediate and impactful.” Head of Communications, Diane Robinson
Answer the following question.
Q1. Why TelstraClear have found screensavers invaluable? Explain the benefits of screensavers.
Q2. Comment on the Head of Communications, statement “They are simple to execute and are immediate and impactful.”
CASE STUDY (20 Marks)
Virgin Mobile UK is a mobile phone service provider operating in the United Kingdom (UK) and part of Virgin Media, the first provider of all four broadband, TV, mobile phone and home phone services in the UK. It operates 80 stores, employing 550 staff in retail outlets and a further 200 in “Lite” popup locations. Sarah Arthur is the Retail Communications Manager at Virgin Mobile UK. The Retail Communications team is responsible for employee communications across all Virgin Mobile retail outlets. The team needs to ensure that key internal messages are delivered to retail staff in a timely manner and that they can access operational information — new packages and special offers, company news, IT notifications, internal campaigns and requests for feedback — regardless of location or desktop environment. Virgin Mobile was relying on email and its intranet for communicating with retail staff. They needed to continue to work with their existing employee communication channels and systems but they also wanted to explore ways of delivering push communications which their core systems couldn’t do. Virgin Mobile implemented the SnapComms internal communications software in 2008 and is using Desktop Alerts, Desktop Tickers, Staff Surveys and Internal Newsletters. Arthur confirms that “SnapComms is a key tool for sending information to stores.” It is now their main retail communication channel and vital to operations, as the information it conveys to staff enables Virgin Mobile to trade very day. Arthur explains that “store staff on the shop floor needed something that popped up in whatever tool they were using and SnapComms gave us that ability.It is the tool we use to push information to store staff.” The desktop alerts have been used in a wide variety of situations such as to notify staff when support centers are closed, advise the time and nature of IT systems changes, provide updates about tariffs and exclusions and communicate sales incentive campaigns. While each of the SnapComms’ employee ommunication channels that Virgin Mobile is using can be used in isolation, they do integrate seamlessly. For example the staff survey is used to get feedback and views from stores and can be distributed in combination with a desktop alert, directing employees to further information and the link to the survey. Store managers are very supportive of the staff surveys and understand their importance in getting information back from the stores to head office, and it’s not unusual to achieve 100% response rates from these. Stores have reacted well to the tools and it’s simple and easy for them to receive information. This has been achieved through the Retail Communications team controlling the level of communication so that staffs are not bombarded. They have ensured that the tools are not overused and that they do not step outside users’ expectations.
Answer the following question.
Q1. What are the main functions of Virgin Mobile UK.
Q2. What are the functions of retail communication team? Explain
CASE STUDY (20 Marks)
Psychologists have long accepted that semantics (the words we choose and the meanings they connote) can have a big effect on the psychological state of both individuals and groups. Businesses certainly take wordchoice seriously, some going so far, it seems, as micromanaging word use within their companies (e.g. discouraging the use of the word “problem” and replacing it with the word “challenge”.) Words falling from favor: • weaknesses • back office • offshore Increasingly popular words/phrases: • room for improvement • business support team • regional experts In addition, since the advent of globalization, businesses have realized more and more that the intercultural communication style of a particular region can dramatically affect their employees’ internal communication and, in turn, levels of harmony and cooperation. There’s masses of research on the topic of intercultural communication but the model I prefer distinguishes socalled Low and High Context cultures (a term first used by one Edward Hall). At the risk of massive versimplification, a High Context culture tends more towards the implicit, the nonverbal, the unspoken whereas a Low Context culture tends towards the explicit, the spoken or written, the literal. One is not better than the other. They just distinct. At the risk of still greater oversimplification, the image above gives an idea of the “distribution” of High and Lowcon text cultures across the globe. And the relevance? Well, for example, one region’s employees might communicate in a High Context manner with family at home (i.e. a manner that implies rather than states explicitly), but may well struggle to communicate effectively with colleagues at work from Low Context cultures (i.e. more direct, more explicit and so on).
Answer the following question.
Q1. “Semantics (the words we choose and the meanings they connote) can have a big effect on the psychological state of both individuals and groups” comment.
Q2. What are Low and High Context cultures? Debate.