Amy Louisa Riley
Unit 1 Assignment 1 – Team building
Introduction
In business effective teamwork is said to be the secret behind growth and success. Effective
teams are ones that allow team members to be effective and have the ability to perform both
as an individual as well as in a collective capacity with colleagues or employees. It is essential in
order to accomplish the overall objectives and goals of an organization such as increased sales
and profitability, customer loyalty, and an enhanced public image. I have chosen the customer
service team at Next and will first assess how and why this team will benefit the business and
go on to justify how effective that team is overall.
Next PLC is a British multinational clothing, foot ware, and home products retailer. Its
headquarters are in England, it has around 700 stores, 500 of which are in the UK and the
remaining 200 are spread across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Next prides itself as being
one of the UK’s top retail brands with a reputation for exciting, excellent quality and beautify
designed products.
How a customer service team benefits Next (M1)
The obvious benefit of good teamwork within the customer service team is that it increases
the overall productivity of Next. Teamwork allows for the distribution of tasks so that each
person takes care of the tasks for which he or she is best suited. Additionally, it is easier to
avoid work duplication which saves time and leaves more time for the most important things
like serving customers and increasing customer satisfaction and thereby profit. By sharing tasks
and spaces between the team members ideas flow and creativity sores. This means the
performance of the team goes beyond the individual capacity of each person, providing clear
benefits to Next. This has a resulting positive effect on motivation which is another advantage
of effective customer service team within Next. Sharing successes can lift spirits of team
members and can help the team to seek joint solutions to overcome failures and prevent them
from recurring. If each team member knows that they have close support from other members
of the team they can work more effectively for a common purpose. This makes the team more
valuable to next in that it can achieve more than the sum of its parts.
Belbin's theory of team roles created a list of nine roles that every team should have. It was
created in 1981 and is based on the theory that each of us possesses a pattern of behavior that
characterizes one person's behavior in relationship to another in facilitating the progress of the
team. The nine roles listed by Dr. Meredith Belbin that every team should have are Plant,
resource investigator, coordinator, shaper, monitor evaluator, team worker, implementer,
completer-finisher, and specialist. Although there are clear advantages of distributing roles
within a team along these lines there is a clear possibility of the disadvantage that a group can
Unit 1 Assignment 1 – Team building
Introduction
In business effective teamwork is said to be the secret behind growth and success. Effective
teams are ones that allow team members to be effective and have the ability to perform both
as an individual as well as in a collective capacity with colleagues or employees. It is essential in
order to accomplish the overall objectives and goals of an organization such as increased sales
and profitability, customer loyalty, and an enhanced public image. I have chosen the customer
service team at Next and will first assess how and why this team will benefit the business and
go on to justify how effective that team is overall.
Next PLC is a British multinational clothing, foot ware, and home products retailer. Its
headquarters are in England, it has around 700 stores, 500 of which are in the UK and the
remaining 200 are spread across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Next prides itself as being
one of the UK’s top retail brands with a reputation for exciting, excellent quality and beautify
designed products.
How a customer service team benefits Next (M1)
The obvious benefit of good teamwork within the customer service team is that it increases
the overall productivity of Next. Teamwork allows for the distribution of tasks so that each
person takes care of the tasks for which he or she is best suited. Additionally, it is easier to
avoid work duplication which saves time and leaves more time for the most important things
like serving customers and increasing customer satisfaction and thereby profit. By sharing tasks
and spaces between the team members ideas flow and creativity sores. This means the
performance of the team goes beyond the individual capacity of each person, providing clear
benefits to Next. This has a resulting positive effect on motivation which is another advantage
of effective customer service team within Next. Sharing successes can lift spirits of team
members and can help the team to seek joint solutions to overcome failures and prevent them
from recurring. If each team member knows that they have close support from other members
of the team they can work more effectively for a common purpose. This makes the team more
valuable to next in that it can achieve more than the sum of its parts.
Belbin's theory of team roles created a list of nine roles that every team should have. It was
created in 1981 and is based on the theory that each of us possesses a pattern of behavior that
characterizes one person's behavior in relationship to another in facilitating the progress of the
team. The nine roles listed by Dr. Meredith Belbin that every team should have are Plant,
resource investigator, coordinator, shaper, monitor evaluator, team worker, implementer,
completer-finisher, and specialist. Although there are clear advantages of distributing roles
within a team along these lines there is a clear possibility of the disadvantage that a group can
