Managing people Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Managing people - Article Example To determine a team's effectiveness, it is necessary to take a look at a variety of factors as well. These include the type of organization, type of employee (volunteer or compensated), the objectives of the stakeholders and the personalities that are involved at all levels. Evaluating the team's effectiveness at XYZ Newspapers, Inc., it is possible to identify several key management theories at work even as the team represents several positive and some negative aspects of effective team operation. XYZ Newspapers is a small newspaper chain specializing in small town, local news coverage. As a result, teams are primarily independent of each other, only finding it necessary to coordinate efforts on sporadic larger advertising campaigns or weekly print operations. Occasionally, it becomes necessary for one team member from one office to assist in another office when another team member is ill or on holiday or when several significant events are occurring in one town, such as a heavy sports weekend. Although most team members are compensated to some degree, some are compensated on a contributor basis while others are considered actual employees, paid at a part-time or full-time rate. Because of the unique service these newspapers provide, they are also often considered to be community service to some extent although they are for profit businesses. Frequently, because of budgeting concerns, members of the communities in which the papers operate are recruited to provide voluntary se rvices as well. Team Organization Each team is similar to the others in that they are comprised of typically two 'news' writers, one 'sports' writer, one photographer, two advertising sales representatives and one copy setter. In this particular team, one of the 'news' writers is also the newspaper's editor while the other serves as community representative. This enables the team to work along a loose universal management approach in that many of the job functions are decided based upon the individual's specific position within the team with a built in chain of command that flows from the copy setter at the bottom of the rank to the editor at the top. However, the hierarchy among the other workers becomes somewhat blurred as each works to complete their assignments for the week. Work is divided by job description within this team. For example, while the editor and the community representative are both classified as 'news' writers, the editor is primarily responsible for covering any business or civil news occurring in the town that week, such as city meetings or regional legislation. The community representative, on the other hand, is often most responsible for ensuring news involving various community groups, outstanding individuals or major community events is covered. The copy setter typically works primarily for these two writers as news releases, calendars and police and fire reports come across her desk first. The sports writer typically has no other responsibility than ensuring all sports events are covered, yet must also ensure adequate coverage is given to all sports and pages