Larry Summerss Public Relations Advisor: Case Study

Management of organizations is a difficult task especially when the manager is not on good terms with his subordinates. The manager is required to be critical of the interests of his or her subordinates since failure to address them may lead to them looking for excuses to topple him or her. Before making any key decision affecting the organization, the organization president is supposed to ensure that he considers the implications of his decision to the organization. For Summers, it is important to make decisions that will lead to development in the university. This does not require one to get support from all the subordinates. There are those who are out to use ones weaknesses to pursue their interests. As the president of the University, Larry Summer is not supposed to give in to the demands of his detractors. This is the time he is required to come out clearly and uncover all the inequalities that exist within the university. To avoid unrest in the university, he is expected to approach his subordinates in a way that does not appear to compel their work according to his requests. Explaining clearly his opinions and their effects on the University would help in making his subordinates understand his intentions. He needs to clearly look into some of the demands made by his juniors. Undermining all their demands can appear as being authoritative making his situation more severe. In the case where he is sure of his assertions, he is not supposed to later apologize as this would appear as if he is not sure of what changes he would like to effect in the University. Staff supporting him would lose faith in his leadership making it hard for him to win their support.

The final decision on whether to fire or hire Summers rests with the Harvard Board. One of the major actions they are supposed to do before deciding to fire or retain Summers is to critically analyze his opinions as well as the views of those opposing him and weigh their effects on the University. It is important for the board to understand that both Summer and the University staff may have opinions that would be of benefit to the University. Giving in to staffs demands without proper considerations would appear a betrayal to Summers. Deciding to retain him without addressing staffs demands would lead to increased unrest in the University which may halt operations within the university. After a thorough evaluation of the two conflicting parties, the board can then organize a meeting where they can bring the two factions together and look for the best solutions to the problem.

According to an interview with James OToole, leadership in every organization has to follow certain guidelines. These are the guidelines set by the board of management with an aim of improving the organization. It is the duty of the organization president to follow these guidelines. Some of them include methods of promoting staffs in the University. However, James argues that these guidelines need not to be obstacles to progress in the organization. There is need for there to be room for innovations in the organization (Volckmann para. 3).

Employee relation program is made of numerous components. Some of its constituents are employee assistant programs, conflict resolution and avoidance, policy interpretation and complaint processing for employees and employee recognition program. The main objective of coming up with employee relation programs in organizations is to sustain processes and services established in the organization that are aimed at improving or keeping to the quality of work in the organization (Auburn University para. 1).

There are varied standards that a website is supposed to meet for it to be effective. Some of these include appearance, contents, functionality, usability and search engine optimization. As website is the first impression that meets a potential customer, there is need for it to be appealing visually and look professional. Some of the issues that make a website have good appearance are use of good color, use of text that is easy to read, use of attractive and meaningful graphics and keeping the website simple. Apart from making the website attractive, it is imperative to ensure that information contained in the website is substantial. Many people visit websites to gather information regarding various organizations. The website contents need to be kept short and organized. Organizing information on websites in form of short paragraphs makes it easy to understand. Information need to be updated regularly. People are bored of reading same information whenever they log to a website. This may discourage them from visiting the website (Spritz Web Solutions para. 2).

All components of the website need to function accurately and correctly. Non-functional components within a website frustrate the visitors leaving them disappointed with the company. A good website need to have all its components ranging from hyperlinks, event registration, site search and contact forms working as required. One of the most assumed components of a website is its usability. A good website needs to be easy to understand, navigate and read. Some of the issues that need to be considered to ensure website usability are speed on loading pages. It needs to ensure that it loads all its pages within twenty seconds. The first page of the website needs to have limited number of scrolls. A uniform layout in the website facilitates in its use. Navigation keys need to be logical and outstanding. They need to be placed at the top of the page for them to be easily seen (Spritz Web Solutions para. 4). Examples of websites that meet these requirements are official Arsenal football club website and website if the United States government.

A well developed media kit can be effective in meeting its intended purpose. The media dose not has all the time to go through a lot of papers to get the required information. A good media kit need to have news release, public service announcement and tips on how to use the media. Example of a media kit that that comprises of all the necessary writing principles is the one provided by splashmedia such as Setanta summer of sport (eSplashMedia para. 2).

The current advancement in technology has resulted in growth of numerous online universities. However, this development has and is expected to be confronted with numerous problems in future. The rate at which people are enrolling for online degrees implies that in the next five years a lot of people will require to have online masters. This has not been considered by many and it is likely that there will be constrain in accessing online masters facilities in the universities. Online instructors will have challenges in meeting the demand of enrolled students as they are projected to increase greatly in the next five years. To be able to overcome these challenges, universities need to start offering online masters as early as now. This will ensure that by the time the number of those wishing to pursue it increases, they will have developed the infrastructure to address it. For online instructors to meet the increasing needs of students enrolling for online degrees, they will be required to develop pedagogical skills. They will be required to go through training in online teaching in advance (Kim & Bonk para. 2-5).