Improving Communication Methods for the Minnesota Gopher Football Video Department
We worked with the Gopher Football Organization’s video department to provide innovative solutions to the key organizational problems of hiring/retention strategies, scheduling, and communication. Within the video department, communication between leadership and student workers is lackluster. Ineffective communication in this department affects several factors, including hiring/retention and scheduling. Overall, effective communication within a team is sometimes difficult to achieve, so the main purpose of this project will be to research several methods to improve communication in any way. We conducted a thorough literature search on the subtopics: Hiring/retention strategies, HR methods, vertical/horizontal/transformational/transactional/servant leadership styles, mass communication vs. organizational, communication channels within organizations, and related technologies. We will provide recommendations to our organization based on the research above, where our main solutions will relate to process and product innovations. These findings will be important to our organization and potentially other organizations because it can assist in changing the forms of communication within the workplace. The University of Minnesota’s Gopher Football’s video department is currently faced with ongoing challenges related to communication between their leadership and student workers. More specifically, the communication struggles within the department have led to issues with hiring/retention and scheduling. Thus, the purpose of this project was to investigate innovative solutions to effectively address the department problems related to hiring/retention strategies, scheduling, and communication. Based on an extensive review of both existing research literature and sport industry sources, a number of key sources to inform solutions for the video department were collected. In particular, sources related to hiring and retention strategies; human resource methods; vertical, horizontal, transformational, transactional and servant leadership styles; mass communication vs. organizational and communication channels within organizations; and related technologies for communication were most significant to address the problem. Specific recommendations based on these sources will be provided to the organization, most especially in regard to process and product innovations. These findings will be critical for the organization as they will improve the forms of communication within the workplace