Week 3 - Delivery Bad News Tactfully and Effectively

“You are a department manager in a mid-sized company that provides technology support services.  You have ten employees who are required to maintain a high level of technical expertise and deliver excellent customer service.  One of your employees, who has been with the company for two years, is performing at a substandard level and you have received numerous complaints from customers and coworkers.  In addition, this employee has displayed confrontational behavior which has created a hostile environment.  You must now meet with this employee and deliver an ultimatum regarding the need for immediate improvement or dismissal.”

Dealing with inadequate employee output can be a very delicate subject, especially if the employee in question is known for being confrontational.  Luckily, you have evidence on your side.  The first and most important thing to address is the customer dissatisfaction.  After that, employee conflict is a necessary topic to address, as it affects morale and productivity in the workplace.  Be prepared to keep your cool because you can expect from experience that this employee is going to lose his.

First, call the employee in to talk immediately.  Do not let the employee know you want to talk in a few hours, as this will give him a chance to work up a counter-argument.  Explain that there have been formal complaints from customers against the employee.  Have these complaints prepared so you are not paraphrasing or giving the gist.  It’s important to have the evidence in front of you and read it to the employee, word for word.

You can expect that employee to immediately try to defend himself and deflect the accusations.  In this situation, any argument is irrelevant.  No matter what the employee says to back himself up, the fact remains that customers are dissatisfied with his behavior.  The customer is always right and this employee is not seeing that.  Keep your calm and do not let your temper flare.

The next topic to address is employee complaints.  This is a relatively more delicate subject as most cases will require a certain level of anonymity.  The purpose behind this is to protect employees from confrontation or retaliation that may come from the employee you’re having a problem with.  Avoid going into too much detail about what was said and when.  Instead, try to summarize all the employee complaints.  This will prevent any one person from being singled out.

You can expect the problem employee to argue back and attempt to accuse others of poor behavior.  Listen carefully to what he has to say, but refrain from using any specifics in regards to how others will be dealt with.  Remind the employee that this meeting is about his discipline, not about the discipline of others.  How the behavior of others is dealt with is not his business.  The employee in question is the common denominator in the issues, so the problem starts with his behavior.

Explain that the employee’s behavior is unacceptable and explain why.  Customer service is the first and most important priority for a business and this employee is failing to meet the standard.  Employee conflict creates an unpleasant environment which is systemic and leads to much bigger problems.  The employee need not explain his actions or apologize, simply change his behavior.  Tell the employee you’ll talk to him in a month as a follow-up to this meeting, during which time you can discuss any new issues that have arisen or, hopefully, not arisen.

The importance of patience cannot be overstated, here.  This is an employee who is known for handling conflict poorly and you should expect that.  Do not let tempers get the best of you and rely as heavily as possible on concrete information from complaints.  Avoid speculation or opinions.  This tactic will keep counter-arguments to a minimum, or at least make them easier to diffuse.  Keeping your calm will keep you from making any decisions you feel pressured into.  This type of person uses their temper as a defense mechanism.

Week 2 - Media Technology

This week’s assignment was to discuss various forms of media technology. I chose four that are of varying degrees of relevance. Let’s do this thing.

The Internet – The internet is currently the most relevant technology. Through the web, one can send a message that is received instantly and globally in, literally, seconds. As an example, this blog is an assignment for school. All of my classmates can view this blog, demonstrating the potential for exposure that online publishing offers. This example also brings to light the fact that the audience is vast. My classmates come from all over the country and many students I’ve worked with are stationed overseas with the military. Some are younger, some are older. In general, the elderly do not use the internet nearly as much as younger people. As far as advertising demographics are concerned, the elderly are not widely targeted online. Media on the internet is relatively affordable, as well. Creating blogs (such as this one), e-mail newsletters, newsgroups, and online communities are generally free. For the most part, messages on the internet must be easily digestible. Part of this may be attributed to the vast quantity of information on the web. In an environment like this, your message must be succinct enough to be seen and taken in. This can also be attributed to mainstream websites that bring media quickly and easily (YouTube, for example). The internet is also high mobile. It’s available on phones, laptops, kiosks, etc. and many locations offer free access to it.

Television – The television is still relevant, but less so than it used to be. A large part of its waning relevance can be attributed to the rise of the internet. Any information that can be transferred through a TV, can also be broadcast on the web. Television is instant and global (for the most part), as with the internet. Some restrictions apply to time zones and providers, but more importantly, less people access television than the internet. There is a vast spread of age groups that access television. The immobility of television is a restriction, as the audience needs to be in front of a television to receive the message and can’t easily take a television with them. Getting a message on TV will be much more expensive, as one must go through a provider.

Radio - Radio is becoming less and less relevant, but still has a place. This is a bit of a personal subject for me as I am a radio DJ. I am, at least, aware of its place in popular media and attempt to integrate it with other technologies (specifically, the internet) as much as possible. Media on the radio is a bit different because it only digested aurally, which can be difficult to cater to a specific audience. The lack of visuals can prove to be an obstacle for some messages, but it can also be perfectly suited for others. For example, my radio show is strictly music. Sometimes DJs will perform stunts on the radio that simply don’t translate well to a strictly aural media. Radio can be very affordable. Most areas have a public access radio station or, with the right equipment or access, accessing and broadcasting on the radio can even be free. A big drawback of radio is the limited broadcast range. One can only transmit as far their equipment will allow and the FCC mandates the power of said equipment. The audience can be any age. Radio is mobile, due to the nature of soundwave transmission, but again, the limited range proves an inconvenience.

Newspaper - Newspaper is rapidly becoming obsolete due to the above technologies, especially Internet. Most print publications have an online version, and several have moved into digital printing exclusively. This is mostly due to the fact that printing demands physical delivery or retrieval by the audience. The perceived burden of picking up a newspaper and carrying around with you is seen as an overall inconvenience, especially when there is a much better way to do this. Where the other technologies can be delivered electronically and almost instantly, print takes time to publish and deliver its message, resulting in it being left behind the other technologies. Newspaper is mostly received by an older audience, and mostly out of habit or exclusion from other forms of media technology.

I think the most appropriate closer I can provide to this entry is a video from comedian, Louis C.K. In this piece he touches on the evolution of communication and technology and how it applies to our generation. Enjoy.

First Post

So, my first assignment for my Communications class was to create this blog. This has always been a sort of difficult thing for me as I don't like to talk about myself, especially to strangers. I generally find blogs self-serving and ineffectual, mostly due to the author's misguided sense of how interesting they are. But the purpose of this blog is to demonstrate my learning from previous classes, so I suppose going into this with a goal should keep it from getting too far off track.

I used the template that I found most immediately attractive for the design aspect of this blog. I'll poke around a bit more and see if I can't improve that.

The audience for this blog will be my classmates, which should be unique as we will all be looking over each others blogs in comparison to our own.

Should be interesting.