MEKA
making everyone kommunicate awesomly
Repairing Communication at
BY: Matthew Kuhs Eric Armendariz Katelyn Heckley Andy Ma
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction I: Introduction - Page 1 II: Literature Review - Page 2 - 3
Descriptions III: Description of the sample - Page 4 IV: Description of the organization - Page 4 V: Description of the research methods - Page 5
Findings and Conclusions VI: Research Findings by Focal Areas - Page 6 - 7 VII. Conclusions by Focal Areas - Page 8 - 9
Action Plan VIII: Action Plan - Page - 10 - 12
Major Learnings IX. Major Learnings - Page 13
Additional Information X: References - Page 14 XI: Appendixes - Page 15 - 17
Introduction I: Introduction
For our service learning group project we decided to use the local Jamba Juice organization as our target company. We focused on the communication issues between the management and basic employees. The basic employees felt that the management didn’t know what was going on in the workplace and were not as involved. The management felt that the basic employees were hard to reach and were on the borderline of insubordination. This disconnect and opposing views caused a lot of communication issues among the organization.
The focal areas of our research were supportiveness, credibility, openness, participatory deci-
sion-making, and emphasis on high-performance goals. For the literature review we researched the article “Relationship in Teamwork between Cooperation and Parasitism,” which explained why it is important to have cooperation in a teamwork setting. The second article, “Team Building in Tough Times,” explains how team building can be achieved. By analyzing the content of the interviews and research, we concluded that the management and basic employees needed to learn to cooperate more and work more so as a team.
II: Literature Review Relationship in Teamwork between Cooperation and Parasitism
In the research article about individual cooperation and parasitism, and how to differentiate the
two, it also gives real life examples in the school setting where two different teachers have to help a student create a website with similar subjecta to better understand what is meant by teamwork, cooperation, parasitism, netrualism, amensalism, and competition. The purpose of this article is to sway and provide the readers with reasons why it is necessary to have cooperation in a teamwork setting.
The starting example that the book uses is with a project where students were to create biological
websites covering topics like evolution, genetics, human anatomy, birds and mammals with the help of one of two teachers that were involved in this project (Orgo, 114). The student was required to work with one teacher on this project and have no interaction with the other teacher whatsoever. This simulated isolation PAGE 1
in the workplace where there was barely any teamwork involved. From the experience they found that most of these websites were unfinished or below expectations.
After the experiment with the website project, researchers wanted to ask the question of wheth-
er cooperation would have been a better route. Using ecological analogy we know that a relationship between two species can either result in one benefiting and the other losing or both benefiting. This can relate to the project because if the two teachers cooperated and looked over the other students work they could have given their own insight and experience of how to improve on it. This might have resulted in a higher rate of finished projects and possibly a higher standard.
In the article it mentioned a few relationship types used in nature that relates to the work environ-
ment; first being predation and parasitism which is when one partner benefits and the other loses, with predation the losing partner loses quickly just like when a hunter hunts its prey, it is fairly quick (Orgo, 114) . But with parasitism, this can be drawn on for a long time just as a parasite can be attached to a host for a long period before being noticed. This example can be used in real life with Jamba Juice when a worker slacks off and the other workers do more work to compensate for the slacker. You can sort of call this worker a parasite because in a team environment where everyone has to do their fair share, this one employee does not which means everyone else is working harder while this one worker benefits from their hard work.
Cooperation and mutualism is something that should be used when dealing with any kind of team-
work where everyone contributes and works together to get something done. Mutualism is basically the same thing where mutual parties both benefit from the work. In the case of teamwork at Jamba Juice, if everyone was doing their fair share and if there was more communication amongst the teammates then everyone would benefit from the teamwork. Team Building in Tough Times In this article it talks about team building and how it can be achieved. In this struggling economic time, most people worry about their job security and are in survival mode. But in this global economy very little success can be attributed to one individual, mostly it comes from a team and their teamwork. Teamwork has to start out as a shared concept before it can become an integral part of the culture in the workplace (Ramsey, 4). Robert Ramsey said that it is the first step in building a better team, the second is to understand that it is a step by step process and to get the right people on the team, if they don’t fit, find someone that will (4). He goes on to say that there must be a team language and team voice that must be adopted by the leader of this team which in our case would be the general manager and shift leader. Ramsey also goes onto say that everything that goes on should be considered teamwork such as team training, PAGE 2
team vision, setting team goals, and sharing the praise, credits and respecting everyone for their contributions as a team and also the individuals. If the team is successful Ramsey also said that it is essential that the team celebrate the success by recognizing and honoring team accomplishments (Ramsey, 5).
This article can benefit the Jamba Juice team because we feel there is a lack of communication
and team work which results in lower performance. This article is great for showing the leader that they need to step up to the plate and hold that team leader role and excel it in. There is no exact formula for creating the perfect team but by following some of the suggestions that Robert Ramsey suggests, it might holster higher performance.
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Descriptions III: Description of the sample For this study, we wanted to ensure we could have a large sample size. We were lucky to have the General Manager, Shift Manager, three Team Leads and three Team Members agree to meet with us. All interviews were conducted under the condition of anonymity, to ensure their privacy. For this reason, we have agreed to change their names. General Manager: Chantel – has worked for Jamba Juice for just over one year and was hired externally.
Shift Manager: Stacy – has worked for Jamba Juice for over five years and was hired as a Team Member who has worked her way up to SM. Wants to be a GM.
Team Leads: John – has worked at Jamba Juice for over two years. In college. Paige – has worked at Jamba Juice for over two years. In college. Wants to be a SM, and maybe someday a GM. Mark – has worked as Jamba Juice for one year. Hired as a team member, recently graduated college, no plans to move up within the company.
Team Members: Coryn – has worked at Jamba Juice for a few months. In college, unsure about future plans within the company Nancy – has worked at Jamba Juice for six months. Still in high school. Francisco – has worked at Jamba Juice for 10 months. This is his second job. Not in school.
IV: Description of the organization
Jamba Juice, originally named Juice Club, first opened its doors in San Luis Obispo in 1991. Since
then it has grown into an internationally recognized smoothie chain. With over 500 stores in the United States and locations in over 10 countries, Jamba Juice strives to deliver its customers with more than just a great in-store experience. With a strong emphasis on customer satisfaction, a Jamba Juice employee is thoroughly trained to deliver on all aspects in dealing with the public. Many Jamba Juice managers are homegrown employees, having started as Team Members and working their way through the corporate ladder to General Managers, District Managers and even corporate employees.
The Jamba Juice location chosen for our study is located in a busy shopping center in San Jose, CA.
We chose this location based on its locality. Many of us also consider ourselves “regulars” of this location, having had both positive and negative experiences at this particular Jamba Juice. This location has one General Manager, one Shift Manager, three Shift Leads, and 14 Team Members. Being close to SJSU, many college students work at this location and even more college students frequent this location. We believe PAGE 4
this organization is worthy of our study because of how busy they can be. If an organization has a strong customer base, we believe they must also have strong in-store communication skills as well. What we found out through conducting our interviews is quite the opposite.
V: Description of the research methods The second portion of research we conducted for this project was a series of interviews conducted at a single Jamba Juice location. We chose to do a single location because we can examine the inner relations of the staff members and specific communication issues and strengths between these people. We interviewed the general manager, shift manger, three team leads and three team members. This gave us coverage of all levels of management and also gave us a fairly good snapshot of the intercommunication relations between these different levels of management. The interview consisted of twenty questions, five of which were demographic questions. The fifteen primary questions were broken into one of five focal areas of the SCOPE acronym. Scope stands for Supportiveness, Credibility, confidence and Trust, Openness, Participatory Decision making, Emphasis on High-Performance Goals. The SCOPE acronym describes the ideal supportive climate when considering a company’s communication environment. Supportiveness focuses on how supportive the company, management and individual employees are to each other. This is usually characterized by respect and constructive evaluation. Credibility, confidence and trust focuses on the fact that management must have credibility, confidence and respect in order for employees to approach them comfortably. Openness refers to the context of relaying information between parties in an open manner, instead of withholding information. Participatory Decision Making relates to employees opportunity to impact the organization in some sort of meaningful way, in that feeling like they matter and contribute to the success in the company they have a closer relationship to the company itself. Lastly, Emphasis on High Performance Goals focuses on the notion that providing a strong company goal that focuses on achieving will be more conducive to the overall development of the organization. After conducting these interviews we then compare the responses for any consistent themes or topics that may be represented across all of the interviews. We do this by reviewing each question and assigning a general topic or theme to the question. We then compare all of the themes and topics across all of the interview responses for each question and determine the most meaningful finds for each question and each focal area. This will give us a general overview of the company’s climate at one particular location and give us an idea if that particular location has a supportive climate or not.
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Findings and Conclusions VI: Research Findings by Focal Areas Focal Area 1: Supportiveness Q1: Do you practice constructive criticism at your workplace? Examples? We found that the a large portion of the employees at this location either have difficulty expressing constructive criticism or are scared to do so. The upper management tends to express their feelings regarding the effectiveness of the team members but some, like the general manager does in more aggressive and harsh means. Criticism tends to reside between higher levels of management. Q2: How does a supervisor or manager relay duties to the associates ( order them around or ask them nicely etc.)? The team leads work with the team members in a constructive way, nicely asking or requesting. On the other hand the shift manager and general manager tends to bark orders and expect things to be done with little instruction or explanation.
Q3: Do you feel like your coworkers are genuine and supportive of each other? The team members seem to be genuine and support of each other, as being younger and part time they seem to be more “friends’, while the upper levels of management ie. team leads, shift managers and general manager seem to be more disconnected with each other. The team leads with their teams appear to supportive, so the levels of management are split.
Focal Area 2: Credibility, Confidence, and Trust Q4: When you think of your manager, do words like “confidence” and “trust come to mind? why/why not? For the team leads and the shift manager the response is fairly consistent, the team leads and team members feel that they are confident and competent. As for the general manger every across the board agrees that she is incompetent and untrustworthy, mostly because she does not work long shifts so she does not know what happens on a day to day basis. Q5: Do you feel respect in your workplace? How can you improve on that? Overall all of the employees feel respected at a basic level, some beleive that they success or work is not appreciated as much as it should but generally they are respected. There was mention that the general manager on the other hand can come off indifferent as she doesnt not care about the people that work there, they are just minions.
Q6: Do you feel your manager is credible? why/ why not? This question does not have consistent responses, some believe that their mangers are credible as they have worked there for some time, but at the same time others believe they can do their managers job. The general manager was mentioned a decent amount of times as not being credible as she is not always present at the location. Interestingly enough the general manager questions the credibility of her employees as if they are not doing their jobs to her standard.
Focal Area 3: Openness Q7: Do you feel that it is often difficult to express your feelings regarding work to your managers and why? The consensus is that people withhold their feelings as they feel they are either people don’t care or will take some offense to it. Some try but say they get attitude. The word used commonly was hostile, a non welcoming environment.
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Q8: Do you feel that it is often difficult to express your feelings regarding work to your coworkers and why? For the most part the employees feel fairly open to express their feelings to their fellow coworkers. There are one or two that feel that they cannot speak to their coworkers regarding personal matters but this may be more of a personal factor compared to an environmental factor. Q9: Do you consider your work communication environment to be hostile or friendly/open, and why? As a result of the openness displayed in the previous question the overall workplace environment can fluctuate from friendly to hostile depending on the moods of individual people. Fairly consistent with other questions in previous sections lower levels of management, especially team members experience less hostility when with each other, but when the general manager enters the equation it tends to become more hostile.
Focal Area 4: Participatory Decision Making Q10: How involved are you in the organizations decision making process? Whether this is a result of the current general manager’s management style or the corporate landscape is a different story. The younger and newer team members don’t particularly care about being involved in the decision making process as they are just working here to make money, it’s just a job. The older, more experienced employees want to make improvements by feel they can’t.
Q11: How do you believe employees can become more involved in the decision making process? The answers here were fragmented, it appears by management level. The team members suggested using a suggestion box and speaking up more. The team leads either felt that there was no real way of making a change or that people needed to speak up more. The shift manager and general manager stated that there were systems in place but the team leads were not properly working with the team members to use these systems, the fault lays on the people who are unwilling to speak their minds. Q12: When you have a suggestion how is it relayed to the management? Suggestions are carried upwards, from team members to team leads, from team leads to the shift manager and from shift manager to general manager. This appears to be a problem because each level determines whether they perceive the current complaint or request to be worthy of communicating further. This means that a large amount of complaints can be lost or forgotten.
Focal Area 5: Emphasis on High-Performance Goals Q13: What goals do you have in the workplace? The responses to this question are cut and dry. Their goals are to meet selling expectations, increase sales and make the business money. No mention of personal goals or general improvement goals. Q14: How does the management relay these goals to the employees? They use something called a weekly “walk-on sheet”, it has top 10 goals, cost of goods, labor requirements and such. It is posted by upper management ie. shift manager and general manager. Q15: How are these goals achieved? As the perceived goals are different among management levels the ways in which they achieved them are also very different. The general manager and shift manager have a very strict policy for following the weekly directives and goals and believe that the right amount of fear is good in overall output. While the lower levels believe their goals are achieved by just doing the basics of their job.
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VII. Conclusions by Focal Areas Supportiveness: From our findings we realized that the supportiveness of this particular Jamba juice location varied from person to person and from management level to management level. For example the lower levels of staff and management, ie. the team members and team leads seem to have a fairly strong supportive attitude. They work well together and they are willing to provide their opinions and criticism when necessary. But this changed as you go up the management ladder. The general manager’s attitude and overall presence stifles any significant supportive attitudes that may be present in lower staff members. This means that when the general manager is present at the location the overall vibe at the location changes because of the perceived expectations of the manager and the team members feelings toward the manager. The theory that we feel best explains this is the Networks theory where communication can either go upwards, downwards or horizontally. The network communication for upwards needs to be strengthen. Credibility: Our findings show consistency between the supportiveness questions and the credibility questions in the sense that alot of the work dynamic depends on the particular people working at the time and which levels of management are present. Like supportiveness the lower levels feel comfortable with each other so they feel that these people are fairly credible. As the general manager is rarely at the location lower levels of staff feel that she is not as credible as those who are there more of the day. In this case credibility is determined by how often a particular person is present and the relationship to that person. As the team leads are more present for the team members the leads are usually regarded as being more credible than the general manager. The relationship between the team lead and the team members is also inherently stronger by virtue of the time spent with their teams. Thus contact is important for maintaining a credible rapport. The theory that we feel best explains this is the “Lead by example� theory in which the management conducts themselves in a way where they only ask of their members what they are willing to do themselves it increases credibility and trust.
Openness: Generally speaking relationships between the team members and team leads are open and friendly. Sometimes this openness can lead to drama and emotional confliction but this is typical of any close business relationships. The relationships between the shift manager, general manager and the lower levels of staff is PAGE 8
characterized by fear. As the general manager is often hostile to all of the employees, these employees fear getting in trouble for things they may not intend. This results in distance and closed relationships with upper management and lower staff levels. The theory that we feel best explains this is the “Open Book” theor when all members of an organization share their thoughts openly it increases productivity. Participatory Decision Making: Overall the decision making is restricted to higher levels of management and corporate. Because Jamba Juice is a franchise a large portion of the specific elements of business operations, menus, marketing and location look are standardized to keep the experience consistent across all locations. For this particular location (given the actual range of possible decisions that can be made) the General manager makes all of the decisions without consulting the shift manager or team leads. She makes decisions in a vacuum. The shift manager and team leads realizes this problem but understand they have no actual power in making any change. This sometimes causes them to become indifferent toward goals or change. The part time employees are not particularly concerned with any business related problems as they primarily only care about make a paycheck. The theory that we feel best explains this is the No “I” in “team” theory in which employees feel responsibility when their opinions matter Emphasis on High-Performance Goals: This particular Jamba juice location lacks the essential atmosphere and environment to focus on high performance goals. While the expectation is that employees work at a certain rate to provide the customer with a drink within a reasonable time, there are no personal or business oriented goals. This category focuses on the notion that by providing personal and company goals to employees and promoting effectiveness the atmosphere will in turn be creating, driven and overall supportive. Performance is valued at this location but not in the same sense. The general manager and team leads respectively assume and demand that team members work at a basic standard to provide the customer with their drink, beyond that there are not many other goals. A large percentage of the interviews showed that employees do not particularly have goals, do not consider this a job to have goals or believe that their goals are unachievable or not worth it. This produces a stale atmosphere that breeds indifference and just getting through the day. The theory that we feel best explains this is the human relations theory in which recognition and non-critical observation suggests employees are driven by motivation beyond a paycheck
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Action Plan Supportiveness: The employees at Jamba Juice feel like they do not work in a supportive atmosphere. They have expressed much frustration about the management and issues that arise. The management is usually not very responsive to employees concerns The employees at Jamba Juice feel like the morale is not as high as it can be. They feel like they are often talked down to and do not get much acknowledgement when they are doing a good job. 1. Colflict Resolution Policy– The purpose of a conflict resolution policy is to provide a quick, effective and consistently applied method for a non-supervisory employee to present his/her concerns to management and have those concerns internally resolved (SHRM, 2012). By creating a conflict resolution policy and educating the employees about it, the employees can follow the procedure to resolve and clarify the issues. 2. Incentives Program – Employees who participate in incentive programs say they feel more valued (85%), are more loyal to their companies (65%) and get better results (60%) (SHRM, 2012). A structured incentives program, which rewards employees for meeting performance-based goals, would help employees set, meet and exceed goals, and help Jamba Juice attract and retain valuable workers. Credibility, Confidence, Trust The employees at Jamba juice feel like they cannot always trust the management. Upper managment is not considered credible as they are not involved with the day to day apsects of the job. 1. Team-Building Exercises–Team-building exercises can be an effective way to unite a group, develop strengths, and address weaknesses. The employees at Jamba juice feel like they cannot always trust the management. One exercise example to build trust is called the Human Spring (SHRM, 2012). In this exercise two teammates stand facing each other and walk along a line with their only support being the opposing weight of their teammate. This exercise forces the teammates to rely on each other. There are multiple team-building exercises meant to improve communication, eliminate stereotypes, and build trust. 2. Increase GM Involvment – The GM needs to increase their level of involvement. She should change their work schedule so they work at least once for each. This is important so the GM can work during shifts that she usually doesn’t. This will allow her to see how each shift operates. This will create more credibility PAGE 10
Openness The employees at Jamba juice feel that their environment is not particularly open. They feel comfortable with coworkers at their level but as you go up the management ladder, openness decreases, especially the general manager 1. Hold open forum staff meetings–These staff meetings would allow all the employees to speak openly about their opinions and concerns. The management should lay down the ground rules and let the employees know that they can share their opinion and concerns without fear of reprisal. This open forum would also allow the staff to come up with ideas and solutions as a team. An object, such as a ball, can be passed around and the employees would only be allowed to speak when they are holding the object. This would allow the employees to speak without being interrupted. 2. Make a suggestion box – The suggestion box would allow for employees to voice their opinions without fear of reprisal from the management. The management should let the employees know that every suggestion would be taken into consideration. With the suggestion box employees would write down their suggestion on a card and put it into the box anonymously. Participatory Decision Making: A working and functioning participatory decision making model can be a huge success for any organization. It will produce constant communication by upper management that will have a trickle down effect to lower management and even team members. We have formulated two participatory decision making action plans for Jamba Juice that will help the organization to better communicate with each other. In turn, we believe these models will provide the store with better working relationships that will benefit not only themselves, but also customers and shareholders. 1. Management meetings – There are three shifts that management is needed to work at Jamba Juice: open, mid, close. Many times the opening manager will never see the closing manager. Thus, they very rarely find time to communicate with each other. We believe that if the entire store management team (GM, SM, TL’s) scheduled time to meet once a month to discuss in-store relations and company demands, it would strengthen management morality. Management meetings will allow every part to voice their opinion, raise concerns and as a team they can discuss what will work best for the store. 2. Employee comment box – Since it is too labor demanding to schedule regular store meetings, we believe that by implementing an employee comment box, that will give an immediate outlet to employees to communicate their feelings. This box can be anonymous and one person can be in charge of reading comments. To test the success of this box, the management team can discuss various comments at the management meetings. This will help ensure everyone feels a valued part of the team, and has a hand in making important decisions for the store. PAGE 11
Emphasis on High-Performance Goals: A high performance goal means exceeding the company’s expectations and raising the standard for results. We believe that in an organization, not one person can be responsible for successfully completing these goals; it must be a team effort. All team members need to feel a sense of responsibility for these goals. Right now that is not happening at this location, many team members we spoke to have no idea what the current store goals are. 1. Daily goal chart – This location has a weekly walk-on sheet they use to communicate with employees, that lists weekly goals. We don’t think that is enough because the employees don’t necessarily understand the goals, or know what they can do to help meet them. By implementing a daily goal chart that explains the goals and how they can be met, employees will feel more compelled to meet such goals. This chart can be broken up by day-part (open, mid, close) and list all employees working that shift. Once this location has begun meeting daily goals, we believe the next step is to initiate a weekly and monthly goal chart to start seeing the bigger picture. 2. CONTESTS! – Jamba Juice is a fun place to work, and many of the employees are younger who are likely driven by competition. We think that if this location tied in their daily goal chart with an employee contest, it would emphasize performance goals. Because of the goal chart, employees now know exactly what they are working for, why not provide an added bonus by offering movie tickets, or free smoothie cards to employees to help drive their motivation.
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Major Learnings
The first major learning we have gleaned from doing this project is that personality drastically ef-
fects the workplace. We feel that this notion is often forgotten or looked past but unfortunately it contributes to a large portion of business and communication problems. A workplace is constituted of a series of unique and differencing personalities, who are required to work together to achieve some common goal. Often times these personalities conflict and cause problems, drama and sometimes serious issues. We feel that is important to just understand that people are different from us, they think differently, communicate differently, express themselves differently and have different goals and expectations . Understanding that will force us to potentially say things differently depending on the person or be more understanding when a disagreement occurs.
The second major learning we found is that a team’s effectiveness and workplace environment
depends on the management’s role and attitude towards their employees. This became apparent after our interviews with the team leads and the shift manager. The general manager bread hostility and fear within all the people she worked with. This drastically changed the environment in which these people worked in and effected their productivity. If the manager was not as hostile and more friendly the people that works under them would have a different view of their job and the people they work with. A team is defined by the leader
The third learning we found is that learning that how to communicate is often times more import-
ant than know to communicate. Everyone knows that communication is important for almost all elements of life, but many people do not know how to effectively communicate given the situation. A large portion of companies focus on telling their employees that the need to communicate more, but do not give them help on how to properly communicate. For every situation there are a series of appropriate ways to communicate depending on your desired outcome, many people do not know which one as if they are new or have not experienced this particular situation. So knowing how to communicate is more important than know you need to communicate.
Our fourth major learning is that sometimes it takes an outside perspective to see issues that are
overlooked. As on outside observer to this Jamba Juice it was easy for us to notice the problems that existed. But being a part of the situation, being in the middle of it people often do not see what is right in front of them. So sometimes it takes an outside observer’s perspective to properly understand and improve your organization.
The last major learning is that a cohesive team depends on all members working together equally. It
goes back to the phrase “the weak link breaks the chain”. You cannot have a strong team when one member decides not to participate. All of the members must participate and have a common goal to work towards. That way they operate as a unit, not a collection of individuals. PAGE 13
Additional Inforamtion
X: References
Orgo, Andrej, and Dagmar Logar. “Relationship In Teamwork Between Cooperation And Parasitism.
” International Journal Of Instructional Media 33.1 (2006): 113-118. Communication & Mass Media
Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
Ramsey, Robert D. “Team-Building In Tough Times.” Supervision 73.11 (2012): 3-5. Business Source
Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2012
SHRM. Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Conflict Resolution: Conflict Resolution Policy
and Procedure. March 2012
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XI: Appendixes
INTERVIEW GUIDE Purpose The purpose of this interview is to examine communication issues at a chosen organization and to thus produce an action plan to help reduce the found issues.
Topic The topic of this interview is the Interpersonal communication issues between managers (general manager, shift managers, team leads) and employees (team members) at Jamba Juice.
Focal Areas The questions we will ask will constitute the five following focal areas: Supportiveness, Credivility Confidence & Trust, Openness, Participatory Decision Making and Emphasis on High-Performance Goals
Duration The interview will last approximately from 10-15 minutes.
Anonymity/Interviewer Privacy This interview is completely anonymous. No names or identifying information will be used or shared.
Thank You / Final Notes Thank you for your participation in this interview. If you would like a copy of this assignment emailed to you please let us know.
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Focus Questions 1. Do you practice constructive criticism at your workplace? Examples?
S
2. How does a supervisor or manager relay duties to the associates ( order them around or ask them nicely etc.) 3. Do you feel like your coworkers are genuine and supportive of each other? 4. When you think of your manager, do words like “confidence” and “trust” come to mind? why/
C
why not? 5. Do you feel respect in your workplace? How can you improve on that? 6. Do you feel your manager is credible? why/ why not? 7. Do you feel that it is often difficult to express your feelings regarding work to your managers
O
and why? 8. Do you feel that it is often difficult to express your feelings regarding work to your coworkers and why? 9. Do you consider your work communication environment to be hostile or friendly/open, and why?
P E
10. How involved are you in the organizations decision making process? 11. How do you believe employees can become more involved in the decision making process? 12. When you have a suggestion how is it relayed to the management? 13. What goals do you have in the workplace? 14. How does the management relay these goals to the employees? 15. How are these goals achieved?
Focus Area Key S= Supportiveness C= Credibility, Confidence, and Trust O = Openness P = Participatory Decision Making E = Emphasis on High-Performance Goals PAGE 16
Demographic Questions 1. What age range would you place yourself 16-20, 21 - 30, 30-45, or 46 to 60? 2. Are you male or female? 3. What is the highest level of education you have completed? 4. What is your current marital status? 5. What is your religious affiliation? 6. What is your race? 7. What is the title of your current position?
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