Zoom is TOPMAN’s Internet Service Provider and on-line retail website. The retail website allows customers to purchase TOPMAN products on-line and also to access many other internet sites, related to entertainment, travel, lifestyle, job searching and many others. Zoom is one of the few organisations in the UK who offer total distance solutions for retailers across both traditional (print catalogue) and Internet-based shopping channels.
Their expertise, gained through working with the best known High Street retail brands enables them to offer a comprehensive range of merchandising, fulfillment services, such as customer services, warehousing and delivery, in addition to interactive and direct marketing services. This enables TOPMAN to offer fully integrated multi-channel solutions under one roof. The Zoom – Internet business department helps TOPMAN to gain more profit. Human resources and Training
The Human Resources department works closely with line managers to support the recruitment, training, development and management of individuals. It is this department’s responsibility to research and introduce the ‘best practice’ in employee relations and the most effective development processes. The human resource department also has a number of specialists who work across the whole company, particularly in the field of Employee Relations and Reward, Management Development and Graduate Resourcing.
The human resources department of TOPMAN has some of the most highly trained training staff in the business, they are passing the expertise onto the TOPMAN sales advisors therefore resulting in customer receiving excellent high quality customer service. Managers have to perform many roles in an organisation and how they handle various situations will depend on their style of management. A management style is an overall method of leadership used by a manager. A business can have as many management styles as there are leaders, the two main styles that mangers use are: * Authoritarian * Democratic Authoritarian
The manager tells the employees what to do, the manager doesn’t listen to what the employee has to say, the overall motivation of the businesses employees is lowered due to this type of management style. Democratic A manager with a democratic approach listens more to what the employees have to say, there is a lot more communication between the managers with this style, using this style employees feel more motivated and feel like they are a part of the group. The managers in TOPMAN try to use the democratic management style when they are managing a team and this approach is also used in the different departments of TOPMAN.
They decided to use this style because they found that it makes the TOPMAN team more motivated because staff have a say in the discussions they feel as though they are a part of the team, when a business has motivated staff it shows though body language, most of the body language that TOPMAN staff show is toward customers so motivating the team will therefore result in the customers receiving good customer service. Using the democratic management style will help TOPMAN achieve its greatest goal (of exceeding i?? 6 million in profit) because all of the staff will be working to the best of there ability.
If the authoritarian management style was to be used then the team would feel left out and they wouldn’t feel like part of the team. Although they try there best to use the democratic management style sometimes the TOPMAN managers have to take an authoritarian approach to managing there team. So TOPMAN uses both Authoritarian and democratic management styles. All businesses have particular attitudes, values and beliefs that will decide which of the businesses objectives they find the most important and whether there are any others that they might consider. This whole process is known as the culture of the business.
Internal communication takes place between employees and TOPMAN itself, the types of internal communication that TOPMAN uses are, Note – this is usually left on yellow post sticks for employees or managers to see, Notice – TOPMAN has numerous notice boards around there store they have them in the staff rooms, the smoking rooms, the toilets, the corridors, all of the Notices tell TOPMAN staff vital information about the business, the information that the notice boards provide TOPMAN employees are things like legal notices, stock loss notice board, customer service notice board, brand information notice board, store information notice board.
Reports – reports are TOPMAN’s main form of internal communication without reports TOPMAN staff would not receive information on how they have done in current events, such as model stores, mystery shoppers, audits daily, weekly, monthly and year intake, all of the above are given to the TOPMAN teams in report form, Internal Magazines or Newsletters – TOPMAN has its own in store magazine its called LADS and supply’s employees with information about current trends, current promotions, current events, current offer, current competitions, Conversation – TOPMAN managers have a team brief every day with every member of staff to brief them on any information that they may need to be told.
Telephone – TOPMAN staff may need to check if the stock room has a certain size, they will ring the stock room and ask the staff if they have the required size, Meetings – TOPMAN call meeting regularly they have appraisal meeting were TOPMAN staff’s performance is viewed and graded, they have manager meetings at the end of the day, this is were all of the managers and deputy managers come together to discuss the daily issues. External communication is were TOPMAN staff communicate with individuals and other businesses outside of TOPMAN.
The types of external communication that TOPMAN uses are E-mails – TOPMAN staff and managers can e-mail other departments or other businesses to discuss certain issues, they may e-mail suppliers to discuss the delivery information or they may e-mail another store to see how much they made in that day, Telephone – TOPMAN staff can use the telephone to contact the main warehouse to check for stock availability, also TOPMAN mangers go on conference call every week to discuss certain areas of the business with there area manager. Formal and Informal Communication Most types of communication tend to be formal. The main informal method of communication is rumor or grapevine. This is were the information may be overheard or passed on by someone who hasn’t heard the full story, sometime it may be made up to create unrest or fear to those who hear it. TOPMAN doesn’t really use this type of communication because rumors are lucked on as bad. Upward and Downward Communication
Information that TOPMAN’s employees pass to there managers is known as Upward communication, TOPMAN uses this type of communication to, Identify Problems – That employees may encounter whilst doing there job, Requesting advice or help – TOPMAN staff contact there managers to gain certain advice that they need, Requesting information – A TOPMAN employee may need information that only the TOPMAN managers can get hold of so they may contact them to get the required information, Expressing dissatisfaction – If TOPMAN employees aren’t happy with a way a certain thing is run on the TOPMAN sales floor they can express there dissatisfaction to there managers.
Information that is passed from TOPMAN managers to employees is know as Downward communication, TOPMAN uses this type of communication to, Give Instructions – Give instructions to TOPMAN staff on what is expected of them on that day or week, Warnings – TOPMAN managers can give warning to there staff regarding current or future issues, Advice – TOPMAN manager give advice to there staff on how to do certain things, Information – TOPMAN managers give the staff information on the businesses maybe what changes the business is undergoing or current promotions that are available. Open and Restricted Communication Communication can also be open or restricted, open communication is available for all of the TOPMAN staff to see were as restricted communication is only available to certain people. TOPMAN uses open communication by showing all of its employees the results that they have gain in recent events, were as TOPMAN will not give information about dismissals or disciplinary out to employees. TOPMAN uses ICT to communicate with employees within the business and with people and other businesses outside of TOPMAN.
TOPMAN uses ICT to communicate with its employees by offering a Computer Access Management System (CAMS), which is a system available to employees which includes information about any certain employee, this system is only available on request and is not available to all of TOPMAN’s staff. TOPMAN uses ICT to communicate with people and business outside the business by, e-mail suppliers to arrange deliveries, e-mail area managers or other managers with information they may require. The introduction to ICT made working for TOPMAN a much easier task because before ICT TOPMAN had to write down all of its information in letter form to send to the relevant people but now you can just put that information in an e-mail and send it using ICT. Without ICT the communication process that TOPMAN uses would be hard and time consuming so the introduction to ICT was much needed.
TOPMAN’s mainly depends on the use of ICT because the tills in TOPMAN are all operated by ICT without the tills transactions could not be made between TOPMAN and its customers therefore resulting in TOPMAN’s profits plummeting. TOPMAN’s most recent form of ICT was there introduction to the version 5 touch screen till system, this was now one of TOPMAN’s biggest strengths because the new till system was much faster, compared to the old version 4 till system, with the TOPMAN tills being faster the staff could serve more people in a day resulting in higher profit turnover. Not only was the version 5 till system a strength but it also created a weakness, when the till system was first introduced for the first 4 weeks there were a lot of problems with them, they started, working extremely slow, declining most cards that customers wanted to pay with, freezing.
All of the above problems caused TOPMAN to loose a lot of customers, when these problems happened the till had to be re-booted which took on aerage 10-15 minutes and customers used to get fed up and leave. Communication in TOPMAN is highly important when it comes to meeting there objectives, because TOPMAN has so many departments that are spread out all over England it is extremely hard to communication with everyone, but it is important. TOPMAN has developed several ways to effectively communicate with all of them departments whether it’s through e-mail, or telephone TOPMAN has a way to communicate with every person in the business at any time. So the communication in TOPMAN is very effective and helps TOPMAN achieve all of its objectives by providing every member of staff with the option to communicate with anyone they need at any time.
