You just received the following email from Patricia Reese, your District Manager:

Hello, Thank you for your recommendation for providing interim store manager coverage. I appreciate the thought and consideration you put into this decision. This situation provides some opportunities for our staff to pull together and demonstrate their strengths and abilities. We also want to ensure we communicate to our teams so they understand what to expect. We should also encourage them to step up to help as they are able. As we have established, with the absence of a full-time manager in the district, we will need to work together to fill in the gaps for store coverage. Since your team is providing the store manager coverage for Store B, I would like you to head up this planning. Please work closely with Johnathan and his team, as well as your own team and the team at Store B, to determine how we can best utilize our current staff to ensure excellent service at all of our locations. I appreciate your work to pull this all together, and I look forward to going over your plan.

Regards,

Patricia Reece

Thoughtful communication skills lead to enhanced interpersonal relationships at work and can result in increased employee engagement. Collaboration allows teams to work together toward a common goal.

Instructions:

Think about what you have learned this week about communication and collaboration. A proposed plan to address the following:

• How will you communicate the current situation to the teams to invite collaboration and encourage everyone to contribute?
• What forms(s) of communication will you use?
• What tactics can you employ to invite collaboration within the teams?
• What are some potential advantages/disadvantages of using a collaborative planning process?