Schoenman and Associates Is a Successful Advertising Company - Essay Example

Schoeman and Associates Affiliation Introduction Schoenman and Associates is a successful advertising company that employs over 104 people. The agency covers a large operation space where it is located. The employees originate from different cultures and it respects all regions. Majorly, the company deals with tours, travel and hotel management operations. The organizational culture is so solid that the employees bill this advertising agency as an international outfit. Numerous national hotel outfits are its clients and their services are popularly regarded as the best in the industry. With this in mind, the company has put in place a far-reaching organizational system that is aimed at serving all the significant stakeholders. These stakeholders are their clients, the employees and the management (Coghan, 1994). The company’s executive has for a long time appreciated the essence of employee’s peace of mind in the success of its fortunes. The Structure of the Agency The company is structurally delineated in terms of the creative section of the business and the commercial side of the enterprise. This clear demarcation prevents unnecessary pressure and employee politics as they strive towards achieving the company’s goals. The creative department of the organization is tasked with developing and releasing advertising schemes and templates. The other business section is mainly in charge of managing the administrative and monetary issues of the company. Of importance is the easy nature of association and collaboration through which the two sections proceed with their duties. There are clear and formal guidelines that ensure that the system runs smoothly. In addition, there are informal aspects and acceptable behaviors in the company that add to the general morale of the employees. The employees have a great deal of freedom in their work operations as long as deadlines are met. Moreover, the company is hierarchically divided between around 56 non-professionals who include service staff, clerical employees, interns and secretaries. There are 50 experts in different fields such as directors of art, account managers, executive managers and executive vice presidents. Majority of the senior executives have been around for a long time and the company seems to have an informal culture of retaining their experts. They also tend to accept them back in case they had left. There are lots of pressures to deliver work on time. The head offices are decorated in colors like mellow maroon and plant green and the furniture is dominantly wood veneer. The other symbolic aspects are beautiful plants in the offices managed purely by floral experts (Sinclair, 1993). Another important aspect is the freedom with which the company employees are allowed to adorn their offices with family pictures. There is also a heavy presence of office politics and it is a normal source of conversation in the entire agency. Corporate Culturism Corporate culturism seeks build consensus by managing the culture via which the staff’s values are developed. Its focus is in the construction of employee commitment to critical corporate values. The objective of corporate culturism is to influence both the mind and heart of the employ and as such inspire dedication and trust to company policies and way of life. It is this that rituals like the Christmas party seek to achieve. By giving the freedom to employees to indulge and make unimaginable fun of their employers, the space of comfort and trust is enhanced at Schoenmann and Associates. The Christmas Party The Christmas party is an important ritual and symbol of Schoenman and Associates Advertising agency. It is widely known together with other symbolic occurrences like annual picnics, annual sales gatherings and many more (Willmott, 1993). These parties are designed to integrate the self and the corporate entities of an individual. The Christmas party integrates home and company systems and creates an environment where the employees can freely interact with their bosses without any repercussions. By institutionalizing fun as a critical aspect of the organization, the company manages to increase the morale of the employees. Fusing work, fun and play therefore constitute the fundamental aspect of the outside parties. The party happens on Friday, a day associated with fun and merriment. People have the freedom to have a long pleasure-filled weekend with their friends and families. Activities that include night dinner, drinking, dancing and the creative skits reign in the party. These activities serve to encourage moral relations and also translate to organizational bonding (Rossen, 1988). The Christmas party ultimately excludes the spouses of the staff. It is also not optional as memos are circulated requiring people’s sole attendance. The requirements include leaving your family behind for the weekend. Other than eating and drinking, the staff is usually required to dance with one another and participate in the skits. The theme of the party states that a person’s work is his or her life and that fellow staff are their friends and family. The party symbolically fuses together the core relationships that are expected of jobs and ethical, communal interactions associated with nights out and leisure. The party integrates matters like alcohol, sex, thrills, dress, dance, food and music into a social drama that targets the staff and consciously gives them an identity in the field of social relationships. The Christmas party therefore comes out as a culture that is critical to the organizational structure of the company. Elements and Roles of the Christmas Ritual There are several rituals that accompany the Christmas party. There is the party redux that is a huge piece of paper with the night’s jokes and skits printed for everyone to see and enjoy. There are countless instances of jokes and skits. A form of easiness and joking relationship is established between the hierarchies of the organization. The joking association is unique combination of staff friendliness and antipathy. Jokes are offered; teasing done and no staff should feel offended. The managing director is most ridiculed humoredly but there is no retaliation expected. The skit phase has an inverted nature. The joking relationship helps breaking the sociological strain that is achieved by the inversion of the arrangement of structure. It breaks the limitations of rank and positions. All these rituals have the effect of empowering openness in the company profile. The efficacy of a ritual is not easy to assess when it comes to long-term effects. Organizational rituals show the presence of social interactions that are usually not visible. Rituals are used to objectify relationships, values and staff ideas. The party has explicit purpose. It also makes visible an ideology or a segment. The purpose is to portray the agency not just as a work place, but also an entity where someone is loved and appreciated. When the executives are shown as human, intimacies are felt in the rituals and people have fun together as one team, this can be translated into the daily operations of the company. Conclusion According to Wilmot, success in the organization is also dependent on the interpersonal relations of the staff; the power to self-determine how easily one associates with the other, especially in an organizational set up. These issues must be given cognizance including the use of cultural intelligence in accepting people as they are. All these are aimed at forging a concrete success culture in which individual aspects or preferences are fused together. This modus operand leads to coherence of purpose and unity in organizational objectives. References Coghan, D., 1994. Managing Organisational change through teams and groups. Leadership and Organisation Development, 15(2), pp. 18-23. Rossen, M., 1988. You Asked for it:Christmas at the bosses expense. Journal of Management studies, 22(2380), pp. 463-482. Sinclair, A., 1993. Approaches to organisational culture and ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 12(1), pp. 63-73. Willmott, H., 1993. Strength is ignorance: slavery is Freedom: Managing culture in modern organisations. Journal of management studies, 4(30), pp. 515-555. Read More