The Company Community

Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.

  Communications Management   Knowledge Management   Lessons Learned   Talent Management  

The workplace has changed over the years. Do you remember lounges or similar places with bulletin boards? I mean, the real ones with cork surfaces and thumbtacks? There used to be photographs of employees posted on them sometimes…do you remember photos, real photos? With everything so digital nowadays, it’s a wonder we have anything tactile around, even to sit on.

Sarcasm and cynicism aside, does your company have a way in which new or existing employees can introduce themselves so that people know their role in the company, let alone what they look like? Have you experienced any meet-and-greet project get-togethers where you remember a crowded room with people shaking hands and learning what area they represent or skills they bring to the organization? If you’ve gone to a real room in recent years and actually had a decent number of living, breathing people in attendance, then consider yourself fortunate.

We’ve come a long way with business and technology, but we’ve also found new ways in which to distance ourselves from our fellow man and fellow woman. We come in earlier, leave work later and even sacrifice our lunches and vacations to stay involved. We operate from remote offices and connect in virtual meetings. We telecommute and perform our functions from home or on the road. The face-to-face that used to be the norm in the …

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