Brian Gallagher Kate Simcox Business and Organizational Communication March 28, 2012 Waterloo Gardens: An Organizational Audit

Introduction I. A. Waterloo consists of Garden Shop, Gift Shop, Patio Shop, Nursery, Greenhouse, Landscaping, the Business Offices or Customer Service. This directly ties into nonverbal communication, because each department wears a uniform specific to Waterloo, the deep green and khaki pants. But some of these shops, depending on the season, have seasonal uniforms different than the required uniform. B. I have worked at Waterloo for close to a collective 5 years (including being away at school). The relationships that were built there were something that I will always carry with me. In my department, people from many different high schools were represented. Rivalries were dissipated. People get along because we all had common ground, which was Waterloo Gardens. Everyone enjoyed each others company, until you were outside of your department. Other departments didnt care about you. C. Everyone thought his or her own department was better than everyone elses; creating a terrible competitive and negative climate that almost hindered every task that Waterloo carried out. II. A. People running the departments are just as inclusive as its members and the owner of the store, who didnt go to college because he is the third generation in his family to have this business, didnt feel that he needed to go to college to further his business education, contributing to Waterloos plummet economically, due to a poorly run business and the nature of the economy over the past 3 or 4 years. B. Waterloo Gardens achieves good segmented organizational communication and climates within departments, but overall, Waterloo had poor organizational communication that contributed to a negative organizational climate and causes the organization to suffer because of it. Body I. Organizational Anticipatory Socialization, which is defined as the stage immediately prior to entry (Lair, p. 14) didnt really apply to me. I was able to engage with the organization frequently because both my older sister and older brother worked at Waterloo from when they were in high school, so thats how I heard and got plugged into Waterloo. When my brother and sister worked there, all I heard about was how fun it was to work there. My sister worked there from 2001-2007 and my brother worked there from 2004-2011. A. From 2004-2007, the departments were cohesive and everyone got along. The atmosphere was fun and Waterloo was flourishing business-wise 1. Every Saturday in the spring, the parking lot would be filled with cars and cars that came in after that had to park in the outer fields. a. My current boss in my department, Keith, was the boss of Customer Service and then got moved to the Garden Shop to be

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replaced by a woman named Michelle in 2007, the year I came to work at Waterloo 2. Once Michelle started, Customer Service seemed to go downhill. People who were loyal to Keith, who was the head of Customer Service for a long time, quit because he was moved. a. The change of leadership made a deep cut in the relational aspect of Customer Service with other departments. Because Keith moved to Garden Shop to make them more productive, Garden Shop became more efficient, and some of the people who didnt quit and respected Keith moved to Garden Shop to help run things smoothly. b. From 2007-2009, there were 3 managers/supervisors who were in charge until Keith came back in 2009, where he still works today, while also managing the Garden Shop. Also since 2007, there have been a lot of changes to personnel and even company policy. There are many sub-departments to the overall culture of the company and this definitely affects the company in a negative way. I did not get a RJP of Waterloo when I applied/interviewed. The reason I didnt get an RJP was because there was nothing initially real to base this company on, since its been in constant change. A. An RJP is a realistic job preview, which is defined as the 1. Exchange of realistic truthful information during the recruitment and selection process (Baker and Miller, p.6), which will benefit both the individual and the organization affecting job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job performance and turnover. Also, they would contain accurate and complete information about the job, with both the positive and negative elements being shown (Baker and Miller, p.6). 2. I went to hand in my application expecting to leave it there and hear back from the business office an extended period of time later. But, I handed in my application and got interviewed right there on the spot to see if I would be a good fit for the organization. a. Michelle, who was the manager at the time, asked me some basic questions while writing down some notes. She then walked me around the store very quickly; trying to explain a company she had only been employed for only a couple of months. I was hired in the last week of April in 2007, and I then got the second, more official part of my RJP orally and with video on my first scheduled workday. b. There were two new employees, and three girl cashiers who needed to go through orientation again. The whole thing was a joke. Since they knew the person giving the orientation pretty well, they made jokes the whole time and I did not learn one thing in that orientation. Right off the bat, I had low expectations for my experience, which would set a trend for low satisfaction and performance, because this was my first organizational encounter. B. Waterloo Gardens has very poor communication, both within departments and in the company as a whole

1. Waterloo has a tough time communicating both ideas and tasks to its employees and managers. One thing that is very poor is definitely the nature of the top-down structure, or scalar chain of Waterloo. a. There is a distinct line of authority at Waterloo, which means you could only really address someone who is your higher up if you had a problem or needed help. This creates a lot of confusion both within the companys culture as a whole, and within departments. b. Waterloo runs their store very scientifically. Harris and Nelson define scientific management as a classical, hierarchical pyramid of command, (Harris and Nelson, p. 66) and that organizations should have impersonal leadership that would be established through rule and regulations. Administrators would make all decisions according to specific rules, polices, regulations and behaviours (Harris and Nelson, p. 67). c. Bobby, the man who runs the store, does have a lot of rules and regulations and things he wants done in the company, but he gives vague communication on what exactly he wants done. The managers of all the departments dont have a concrete idea. And because they dont have a concrete idea, that makes the people under them have an even less concrete idea of what to do. My first day of work, a part of my organizational encounter was not a great experience. I experienced this poor organizational communication head on. 2. My first task on my first day was to unpack statuaries and move the 200300 burlap sacks they were in up from Loading Area 1 to the front of the store and to put them away in the shed near where all the rest of the loaders stand and wait to help customers. That sounds easy enough. Thats because that wasnt what was said. a. A man who was running the Garden Shop, named Andrew, who was always very bitter and angry, walked briskly up to where all the loaders that Saturday were standing, and said with a snarl whos going to help me out? You. Youre going to help me out. He pointed right at me and started walking even more briskly down to the bottom of Loading Area 1. b. I got down there and he told me to unpack a lot of statuary that the Garden Shop was going to use, and bring the burlap sacks that they were stacked with up to the front Loading area. He never told me where to put the statuaries. He never told me where the sacks were supposed to go. 3. When I was finished unpacking the statuaries, I took every single one of the burlap sacks, which, when compressed together do make up a lot of weight, 100 yards uphill to the Front Loading Area and just left them up there. a. Andrew then found me later and treated me poorly because I didnt carry out the task to his liking. I didnt put away the burlap sacks and I didnt stack the statuaries in the way he would have done it. I told him, with other loaders defending me, that he wasnt clear on what he wanted done, but he didnt care.

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b. This communication is definitely not strategically ambiguous. Harris and Nelson say in Chapter 4 that communication is used to enhance task accomplishments through task ordering (Harris and Nelson, p. 106). Waterloo would accomplish so much more if Bobby learned to communicate to his managers better so that they could communicate better to us what he wants. It is not effective communication, because, although most times, big projects do accomplish their goal, a lot of things get lost in translation. Its confusing not clear and vague not specific. A common joke that goes around our department is that even after many years of working at Waterloo, no one really knows what they are doing. c. This directly ties with listening. Because the communication is vague, listening continually gets poor. But a lot of the poor listening on behalf of customer service and myself, attitudinal biases come into play. Workers tend to get their back up because they know how poor the communication is. Waterloo does not use update to date technology, which greatly hinders the company. A. Waterloo still uses Windows 98, and that greater hinders the companys ability to work quickly and as efficient as most companies today. 1. This is very problematic to the cashiers, because the computers constantly crash when they try to do sale transactions. This frustrates both the employees and the customer. 2. Also, since the computer crashes frequently, the printer when the cashiers try to print the receipt for the customer frequently jams because they are as old as the computers. B. For department-to-department communication, Waterloo only recently went to big and bulky corded phones that can clip on your belt. 1. Waterloo used to use walkie-talkies. These walkie-talkies hardly ever worked and wouldnt be in the range of each other because the store is over a lot of square feet. 2. For the most part, Waterloo isnt very media rich, although they are trying now. It took awhile for Waterloo to get on updating their website with videos and better graphics to help draw in customers. A big part of Waterloos media communication is mailers. Waterloo is trying to use Twitter and Facebook to gain recognition, but to date; they only have 1,000 likes and 450 followers. Waterloo Gardens has a high rate of workplace romances that affects the company negatively. A. Quite honestly, Waterloo is a mess when it comes to romantic relationships. 1. Over my time at Waterloo, these are the workplace romances that I have experienced or heard about. Bobby, who has been married 3 times, is now married to a woman who runs the Gift Shop, who definitely acts as Bobbys tattletale. Keith met his wife at Waterloo when he was my age. Andrew, who I talked about early, was engaged to a girl who also worked in the Garden Shop, and they are now married, but dont work at Waterloo anymore. Another worker in the Garden Shop was engaged to a girl in the business office, who is now married and still work there.

2. My supervisor, who is 26, was dating a girl in Garden Shop for 5/7 years, and then cheated on her for Bobbys daughter, causing his girlfriend to break up with him, and then got back together only recently. Between cashiers and loaders, there have been a lot of people dating around, so there are countless of romances there. B. There is always constant drama surrounding these workplace romances, making it hard for departments to work together now, because there is so much baggage behind each department. 1. Probably the most significant was a man who worked in the business office, who had an affair with one of my intern managers, Stef. She managed my department after Keith left, and she didnt last too long in that position. Only a couple weeks into her new job, she started having sexual relations with a man in the business office, who was married and had 3 young kids. This definitely does not maintain professionalism. That incident definitely changed the company after that, and it hasnt been the same. 2. These romances either work very well, or something goes terribly wrong, and each time something goes terribly wrong, it affects the culture of the company. Currently, Waterloo has no policy on workplace romances. V. Congruency Model A. When it comes to the congruency model, I would definitely have to consider myself a loner. I always dreaded going to work because I knew that I would either be bored out of my mind or doing mundane tasks that would probably have to be done over again anyway. I am looking forward to not having to work there this summer for the first time. Conclusion I. Overall, my experience at Waterloo Gardens was and still is negative. A. How effective or problematic is the organization? 1. I feel Waterloo is very problematic. Waterloo Gardens is struggling economically and a lot of that has to do because of the way its run. Bobby does not use effective communication, and a lot of tasks are left undone or not done well. Leadership continues to suffer due to poor communication and the scientific structure of the company. RJPs have to change because mine werent serious or even realistic. Waterloo has to do a better job of presenting their company in a realistic light. Waterloo needs a policy on workplace romances. They have been detrimental to the companys climate and it will only continue to affect the environment. B. Specific recommendations for improvement? 1. Since Waterloo started a family business, it will die a family business. Bobby will always be the leader of Waterloo, unfortunately. If he continues to run this company like the way he is, this company will surely go under with a negative culture, low satisfaction and loyalty to a company that was once so great.

Works Cited Baker, and Miller. "Recruiters Realistic and Traditional Previews." International Communication Association. Web. 3 Apr. 2012 Lair. Rethinking the Organizational in Organizational Socialization Research. International Communication Association. Web. 3 Apr. 2012. Harris, and Nelson. Applied Organizational Communication. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.