TEXT A. A Small Office Versus a Big Office

ДОКУМЕНТОВЕДЕНИЕ

UNIT I

OFFICE WORK

Section I. WORD LIST

Sесtiоn II. READING MATERIAL

TEXT A. A Small Office Versus a Big Office

Task: read the text and do the tasks that follow.

According to social surveys many people who work in small offices feel quite content with their lives. They have opportunities to learn from their co-workers. They particularly like a special sense of community. Everybody feels like a true member of a team.

Team work, learning opportunities and increased intimacy are all big elements in a small office culture. It’s a distinct environment that creates a work life that is much different from that of a large shop. A small office offers such benefit as support for an individual who is a newcomer or the one who has got personal problems. People around you know you so well, that if you are having a hard day, a nice little surprise may appear on your desk sometime during the day.

On the other hand, some people may not like it, because under these circumstances¹ everybody knows each other’s business. But the majority would appreciate this sense of community. A close-knit atmosphere can be an extremely powerful motivator. An informal dress code and a friendly office environment help push work along.

Working in a small office has certain limitations too. Some people who used to work in a small office at earlier stages of their career do not regret that they have left working in a small office. Now they have a whole infrastructure of people to help them with tasks that they would have had to do themselves in the past. They are free to focus on their careers. If you feel you need to go to a conference or on a special training program you are free to go. Work life is a little less personal and there’s more process and bureaucracy in a big office.

But, on the other hand, if you are working in a small office and the collective energy is negative, it’s very difficult for an individual to get away from it. Working in a small office is like having a family. If one person has a headache, then suddenly other members have a headache too.

Surveys show that workplace happiness has less to do with the size of a shop or industry and has everything to do with office atmosphere and human relations – with your immediate boss, co-workers, and customers. These relations form an office’s and corporate culture. The idea of corporate wellness is to match the needs and values of employees with those of the company to find a balance that help the individual and corporation get ahead.²

Notes:

¹under these circumstances – при таких условиях

²get ahead – преуспевать; добиться успеха

EXERCISES

Ex. 1. Pronounce the international words correctly. Mind the stress.

Ex. 2. Analyse the morphological structure of the following words:

N → Adj Adj → Adv

V → N

Ex. 3. Transform as in the models:

Model 1: to create work places – the creation of work places

to appreciate a business work; to motivate activity; to limit benefits; to form a company;

Model 2: the employees of the company – the company’s employees

the decision of the team; the order of the director; the office of the company; the values of employees; the opinion of the co-worker.

Ex. 4. Match English and Russian equivalents.

Ex. 5. Choose the right word or word-combination.

1. People who work in small offices have opportunities to learn from their …

a) immediate bosses b) co-workers c) newcomers

2. What people particularly like in small offices is …...

a) career prospects b) a formal dress code c) a sense of community

3. A ….. atmosphere can be an extremely powerful motivator.

a) close-knit b) formal c) relaxed

4. An informal dress code and ….. help push work along.

a) negative energy b) bureaucracy c) a friendly office environment

5. Work life in a small office is a little …...

a) less personal b) more personal c) more private

6. Workplace happiness has everything to do with office atmosphere and ….. relations.

a) public b) trade c) human

Ex. 6. Complete the sentences.

1. According to social surveys many people who work in small offices feel …... 2. Big elements in a small office culture are …... 3. People around you know you so well, that …... 4. Some people may not like this sense of community, because …... 5. If the collective energy is negative, it’s difficult …...
6. The idea of corporate wellness is …...

Ex. 7. Insert the right word:

(limitations, team, working, immediate, to focus, customers, support)

1. Everybody in a small office feels like a true member of a …. 2. A small office offers such benefit as … for a newcomer. 3. Working in a small office has certain … too. 4. Some people who used to work in a small office do not regret that they have left … in a small office. 5. They are free … on their careers. 6. Workplace happiness has everything to do with human relations – with your … boss, co-workers, and ….

Ex. 8. Review the following statements and mark them true (T) or false (F). Correct the statements which are false.

1. Many people who work in small offices do not feel content with their lives. 2. People who work in small offices particularly like a special sense of community. 3. People in a big company are free to focus on their careers.
4. There is more process and bureaucracy in a small office. 5. Working in a big company is like having a family. 6. The idea of corporate wellness is to match the needs and values of employees with those of the company.

Ex. 9. Answer the questions on the text.

1. What opportunities do people in a small office have? 2. What are the big elements in a small office’s culture? 3. What benefit does a small office offer? 4. Do all people like the atmosphere in a small office? 5. What helps push work along? 6. How does work life in a big office differ from work life in a small one? 7. What relations form a corporate culture? 8. What is the idea of corporate wellness?

Ex. 10. Give a brief summary of the text.

TEXT B. Office Layout

Task: scan the text to find the answers to the questions that follow.

The word office has various definitions including a place of business, clerical or professional activity, the personnel working in such a place, a position of authority. We are mainly interested in the office as a place of business, clerical or professional activity.

The main purpose of an office environment is to support its employees in performing their job. With different people performing different tasks and activities, however, it is not always easy to select the right office spaces. To aid decision-making in workplace and office design, one can distinguish three different types of office spaces: work spaces, meeting spaces and support spaces.

Work spaces in an office are typically used for conventional office activities such as reading, writing and computer work. Meeting spaces in an office are used for such interactive processes as quick conversations or intensive brainstorms. Support spaces are usually used for secondary activities such as filing documents or taking a break.

The ways of arranging the space in an office vary according to function. Choices depend on the number of people working within the same room. At one extreme, each individual worker will have their own room; at the other extreme a large open plan office can be made up of one main room with tens or hundreds of people working in the same space. Open plan offices put multiple workers together in the same space, and some studies have shown that they can improve short term productivity. At the same time, the loss of privacy and security can increase the incidence of theft and loss of company secrets.

A type of compromise between open plan and individual rooms is provided by the cubicle desk which solves visual privacy to some extent, but often fails on acoustic separation and security. Most cubicles also require the workers to sit with their back towards anyone who might be approaching; workers in walled offices almost always try to position their normal work seats and desks so that they can see someone entering.

1. What definitions does the word office have? 2. What is the main purpose of an office environment? 3. How many types of office spaces can we distinguish? What are they? 4. What does the way of arranging the space in an office depend on? 5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of open plan offices? 6. What is a type of compromise between open plan and individual rooms provided by?

TEXT C. Meetings

Task: go through the text and summarise its main points under the following headings:

a) the role of the chairperson;

b) the purpose and formats of the agenda;

c) the purpose of minutes.

All offices have meeting rooms where meetings are held. Meetings are very important for effective office work.Business people spend quite a lot of time in meetings, and meetings come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from formal committee to informal one-to-one meetings.

The larger the meeting, the longer it may take to reach a decision. There seem to be ideal sizes for meetings, depending on the purpose. A meeting where information is being given to people can be quite large and questions may be asked by a few individuals on everyone else’s behalf.

The way a committee operates often depends on the chairperson: he or she may control the proceedings very strictly, or let everyone speak whenever they want. An effective chairperson should be flexible. In some committee meetings the members have to take a vote before a decision can be made: formal proposals may have to be tabled, seconded and discussed before a vote can be taken. Other meetings may require a consensus of the members: everyone agrees with the decision – or at least no one disagrees.

Most meetings have an agenda. For a formal meeting, this document is usually circulated in advance to all participants. For an informal meeting, the agenda may be simply a list of the points that have to be dealt with. The purpose of an agenda is to speed up the meeting and keep everyone to the point. The agenda for a formal meeting must be organized in logical order and usually has this format: 1) minutes of previous meeting; 2) matters arising; 3) items; 4) any other business (AOB).

Taking minutes, and writing them up later, are special skills. Minutes usually report details of the time, date and duration of the meeting and the names of those present, but the content of the report itself may be detailed or brief.

Even one-to-one or small informal meetings are structured (usually with an agenda) and planned. They are different from chance conversations in a corridor or over coffee. Small informal meetings may also take place or continue during a meal.

TEXT D. Paperwork

Task: skim the text to get the general idea about the rules of managing paperwork effectively.

If your desk is piled high with letters, faxes, memos, reports, and print-outs, you might believe all this paperwork is a sign of how busy you are. But cluttered desks lead to lost information, distractions and high stress.

Declan Treacy founded the Clear Your Desk Organisation and organises the annual International Clear Your Desk Day. His arguments for uncluttered desks are strong. “We pile between 300 and 500 pieces of paper on the desk at any one time. It is unfortunate that the cluttered desk is the accepted norm in most organisations,” he says. Treacy holds seminars to help companies organise their own Clear Your Desk days, when everyone from the senior managers to secretaries learn how to tackle paperwork more effectively.

At the beginning of the 1990s office workers around the world were using more than 15 million miles of paper every day. Over two billion business letters are posted daily worldwide. Computer printers produce over 2, 5 million pieces of paper every minute, and 60 million photocopies are made every hour.

While a large proportion of this paperwork is important, most organisations are suffocating under mountains of unwanted paper. The average British worker hoards 40 hours of unfinished paperwork at any one time; each piece of paper on the desk will distract us up to five times a day.

So what is someone to do if they have paper mountain on their desk? “Dump it in the bin,” says Treacy. He suggests following four simple rules, and dumping the stuff is number four. Rule number three is file it. Number two suggests passing it to someone else; number one is the rule no one will like: act on it.

Unfortunately, most executives believe the myth that an empty desk is the sign of an unproductive mind. Hours of valuable time are wasted in searching for vital pieces of paper when we should be devoting time to more important work.

Project

Get ready to speak about your vision of an ideal office of the 21^st century. Use any sources available.

Section III. LEXICAL-GRAMMAR TESTS

Grammar material to be revised:

1. Word Formation. Word-forming suffixes.

2. Verb. Tenses in the Active Voice.

3. Sequence of Tenses.

4. Indefinite Pronouns.

5. Functions of the Pronouns “it”, “one”.

6. Modal Verbs and their Equivalents.

TEST I

I. Read and translate the text into Belarusian/Russian. Do the translation in writing.

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