Workplace Communication File
Your post should respond to the question(s) listed below and reflect an understanding of how the weekly readings and videos apply to the topic.
(1) Initial discussion post must be at least 300 words per question.
(2) Reply posts to classmates must be at least 100 words for each reply.
(3) Your entire initial post must contain at least (2) textbook references AND (2) external sources. APA guidelines apply for in-text citations and references. If you are not familiar with how to properly cite using APA, refer to the LSUS APA Guidelines provided in the course.
READ THE CASE STUDY ON WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION. PROVIDE RESPONSES TO THE (3) FOLLOWING QUESTIONS PRESENTED AT THE END OF THE CASE
1. Separating our personal and professional lives is increasingly difficult, especially if you are a salaried employee. Many organizations provide employees with cell phones and laptops to work while traveling and work fro home. Discuss your view when it comes to working after hours. Do you routinely send and respond to after hours emails? Are you able to turn work off after hours like some of the companies in the article?
2. Burnout is leading to serious medical conditions. Individuals who are unable to manage stressful jobs coupled with stress in their personal lives suffer with serious illnesses like high blood pressure, anxiety, and insomnia. Discuss at least two (2) strategies that you would recommend to your employees to improve their work-life balance. Consider ways in which you would encourage them to disconnect.
3. Refer back to Chapter 7 of the textbook. In your own words, what is Emotional Intelligence (EI)? Select two (2) of Goleman\’s major dimensions of EI and discuss why they are relevant in the workplace. Why do you think EI may be more important than IQ for an effective manager?
Please make your initial posting by 11:59pm on Wednesday of Week 4. Check back often this week and read your classmates\’ postings. Reply to at least two (2) classmates posts by 11:59pm on Friday of Week 4.
MADM 701 – Organizational Behavior
Case Study # 2 – Workplace Communication
INSTRUCTIONS: As we study communication in the workplace, read the
following Wall Street Journal article. At the end, answer the three (3) questions
listed.
Article
Sunday Night Is the New Monday Morning, and Workers Are Miserable
Some employers are banning weekend and late-night emails to prevent employee burnout
July 7, 2019, by Kelsey Gee for www.wsj.com
Like many bosses, Chris Mullen found the final hours of the weekend ideal for decluttering an
unruly inbox, sharing stray thoughts with staff on projects and requesting status updates to prep
for the week. His colleagues felt otherwise. All those emails were pulling them into the
workweek the evening before, he said, triggering the pre-Monday dread many working
Americans call the “Sunday Scaries.”
“I asked my staff, ‘How come you keep answering my emails late at night, when you’re probably
out with friends or relaxing at home?’” said the former college administrator. He recalled one
employee’s response: “Because you’re the one sending it!”
Workplace experts say such job creep has become a prime contributor to burnout—a
phenomenon getting renewed attention since the World Health Organization included a more
detailed description of it in the most recent edition of the International Classification of Diseases
in May. Though the WHO stops short of calling burnout a medical condition, it describes it as a
syndrome brought on by “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”
The proliferation of smartphones and workplace communication apps has created unrealistic
expectations of how easily—and often—workers should be able to switch from personal to
professional tasks, researchers say.
In an April survey by Chicago-area mental-health center Yellowbrick, 62% of 2,059 working
adults between the ages 23 and 38 said they felt pressure to be available around the
clock through email, Slack and other work-communication channels. A recent study by
researchers at Virginia Tech, Lehigh University and Colorado State University found that even
the expectation of checking work emails on weekends and after-hours triggered anxiety and
other harmful health effects among workers.
A 2018 analysis conducted by Microsoft Corp. researchers of the Sunday-evening email habits of
tens of thousands of managers at U.S. companies suggests why: Every hour a boss spent online
translated to 20 extra minutes of work for his or her direct reports outside of normal business
hours, the study found. The study used anonymized data from Microsoft’s email and meeting
services and information from human-resources departments across several large companies.
Even dwelling on work in the waning hours of the weekend can cause anxiety—a phenomenon
so commonplace it has spawned the popular hashtag #SundayScaries. In a LinkedIn survey of
more than 1,000 working adults last fall, 80% said they experienced a surge in stress related to
their jobs on Sunday nights. Among millennials, the share was even higher, at 91%.
Some employers are addressing off-hours work creep. At telecom company Bandwidth Inc. in
North Carolina, a vacation-blackout policy bars employees from attending to business during
time off—forcing its 700 employees, including its chief executive, to pause projects or equip
colleagues with the resources to cover for them, if necessary.
Health-care consulting firm Vynamic created an email tool to divert messages sent after 10 p.m.
into an electronic queue, to be delivered the next day at 6 a.m. The system, called zzzMail, goes
dark Friday evenings until Monday morning. CEO Jeff Dill said Vynamic’s 140 employees
almost always stick to the ban. “When you’re in an environment where there’s time for
structured disengagement, you’re able to gauge more clearly if something can wait until the next
morning or after the holiday,” he said. “And 99% of the time it can absolutely wait, we’ve
found,” he said.
Mindy McGrath, a health-care industry adviser at Vynamic, said she initially thought the email
policy wouldn’t be feasible. Many colleagues had joined from consulting firms where the
communication norm was “having a phone in-hand all the time, like it’s an appendage,” she said.
Ms. McGrath said it took her a few months to get used to ignoring her work devices after hours.
One Saturday, she accidentally fired off an email she had intended to save as a draft.
“As soon as I sent it, I thought, ‘Holy smokes, what did I do? I have to get it back!,’” she said.
Her boss texted soon after with a gentle reminder that she was free to unplug. Now, Ms.
McGrath said she even deletes her work email from her cellphone on Fridays to ensure a screenfree weekend.
Still, some argue there is a case to be made for off-hour work emails. After a New York City
councilman proposed legislation last year that would make it illegal for private employers to
require workers check and respond to electronic communications after normal business hours,
the bill was met with opposition from business groups and stalled.
Technology has made it easier for people to work whenever and wherever they want, blurring the
divisions between personal and professional time, said Bryan Lozano of the trade association
Tech:NYC at a January hearing on the proposal. It is no longer practical for many employers to
set hard limits on when staff should be reachable, since business is being conducted around the
clock, often by colleagues across the globe, he said.
Mr. Mullen, the former college administrator who is now a director of the human-resources
consulting arm of workforce-management software company Kronos Inc., said the exchange
with his former colleague prompted him to change his Sunday email habit. Though he still
occasionally drafts them after putting his four children to bed, he waits to send them until the
morning. “There’s a power dynamic at play,” he said. “If I’m still sending you emails at night, as
someone in a position of power over you, the team is going to feel the need to do the same.”