Leadership Case: When employees are unhappy…
Read the case and answer the questions that follow the case.
You are a manager at a mid sized company and supervise 15 people. The company has had a slump in sales that seems to be worse than many of the company’s competitors. As a result the company is struggling and the stockholders are not happy.
Recently a new CEO was hired to turn the situation around. A budget freeze was the CEO”s first move. This means budgets are now very lean. A short term hiring freeze was the second action. As a result in some departments, including yours, there are fewer people doing the same amount of work. The third announcement was that until the company improved its position and finances, most people would get very modest raises – smaller than in the past; only the top 10% would get the level of raises employees were used to, and only if they consistently exceeded all their performance targets. Nobody is happy about that, although the most recent management meeting laid out the numbers and there really are few choices with respect to that. The money just isn’t there right now. Rumors are that there will be no layoffs, that jobs will be redesigned to make the company more “efficient” and “lean” (you suspect that means doing more with less but have kept your opinion to yourself), however no one can answer the question of what will happen next. Employees, including you, are understandably concerned.
Despite the recent problems, this company has been a great place to work. There have been reasonable policies, good benefits, salaries are somewhat above the industry average, employees are committed to the mission of the company, the company’s culture is positive and people generally get along – all of which means that most employees will likely stay rather than look for another place to work despite the current situation.
Last week your supervisor, Chris, asked you about what is going on in your department. Chris is concerned that the performance of several employees has recently slipped, especially Skyler’s performance. That concerned both you as Skyler has been considered a rising star. Recently Chris overheard Skyler complaining to a co-worker and appeared to be really unhappy. You had noticed Skyler, recently seemed less motivated, has slacked off some, on occasion exhibited a mild attitude problem and about once a week misses one or two performance targets – something that had not been a problem in the past.
Concerned that this is a mild criticism of you, you tell your supervisor that employees are worried about all the impending changes. You state that since little information was being released it is hard to reassure you’re the people in your department. The problem is especially acute when the local news was a better source of information than the company with respect to what was going on and what might be on the agenda for the future. You tell your supervisor that this is causing the people in your department a lot of anxiety. Your supervisor agrees with you about the issues and told you there would be a meeting for all managers sometime next week to give them more information about what is going on, what the plan is… come prepared with questions.
You decide to individually talk with everyone in your department about their concerns. That would give you concrete information, rather than speculation, to work with. If you were lucky there might even be things you could fix.
In talking with everyone, what you were told was mostly what you already suspected. People were worried about the impact of the changes on them, their jobs, their future with the company, the actual future of the company (would it go bankrupt, be changed in a way that it was no longer a good place to work…?)… They were upset about all the secrecy that seemed to surround the entire process. Several mentioned that they wondered how high performers were going to be rewarded since it was now less clear what criteria was going to be used.
Your conversation with Skyler, with whom you have a good relationship, was enlightening. To paraphrase what Skyler said:
“I work hard but don’t feel that my hard work is being appreciated even though you have said that hard work is being rewarded by higher pay – and this is even before the new CEO came on board. I don’t see this happening for me, in fact there doesn’t seem to be much of a connection between hard work and higher pay. Plus I think I am being underpaid compared to some people who don’t work as hard as I do. That isn’t fair. I work harder and do a better job than most people and I should be paid more than they are being paid. Also I have worked here longer than a lot of people, I have good performance reviews yet several people who haven’t worked here as long have already been promoted. I don’t think that is fair either.
Also why did you move my office away from where almost everyone else is? Sure I have a more private space but now I am cut off from all my friends and am socially isolated. I hardly see anyone any more. (You had thought Skyler would like not being in the “bull pen” and had thought that more privacy was a reward. You didn’t realize that was not something Skyler wanted).
And I have done my job for so long now that it is seriously boring. I do the same thing over and over and over and over…and now there isn’t even anyone around to commiserate about this with. I have to make an excuse to go to the bathroom and drinking fountain if I want to see anyone and let off a bit of steam so I can get motivated again to get back to work. Plus then when people make lunch plans I am not there to hear about them and get left out.
Also no one even tells you that you are doing a good job anymore, even if you close a good account. Everyone is so stressed out about all the changes that I guess no one even notices stuff like this anymore.
All this makes it really hard to be motivated to work hard. Will things ever go back to how they were when this was a nice place to work were we were appreciated for doing our best for the company? When will all this change? “
Then you started the hard part of the conversation. You gently brought up the occasional missed performance targets. You mentioned that these goals are important, and reminded Skyler that these are partly what are used to determine performance evaluations. Skyler then argued that the CEO changed the goals and so now it was hard to figure out exactly what it was they were required to do. Skyler wanted to know what, exactly, the criteria were for being in the lucky 10% who were going to get raises. Because he believed he was underpaid compared to others he also thought it would not be fair if he wasn’t in that 10%. As pay rates are not public information and Skyler is not underpaid compared to others, you wonder why Skyler believes this. Fairness appears to be a recurring theme with Skyler.
You ended the meeting stating that Skyler was a valued employee, you have appreciated all the hard work done in the past and that you hoped Skyler would take under advisement the need to meet the performance goals despite being unhappy and concerned about the changes.
After Skyler left the meeting you realized that some of what was going on was not the fault, per say, of the employees – nor Skyler, rather all the changes had something to do with this. And to be honest, some of this was your also your fault. You now realize you need to, as their manager, make some changes to address the issues brought up by your employees.
The problem is what to do. What is most important? How could you accomplish what you need to do without the ability to spend a lot of money to do so? What could you do to keep Skyler on track? This was going to take some thought…
Questions to answer:
In this case assignment you are being called in as a consultant to help the manager figure out what to do. You need to identify 2 problems that you will suggest recommendations as the consultant. You will discuss one problem at a time (so you will answer each question twice, one for each problem). You are welcome to write your case solution in question and answer format. You need to do the following:
1) Choose TWO problems that you think are the most important to solve and that the manager has the power and resources to solve. Describe the two problems in detail and why you think they are the most important ones to solve.
2) For EACH problem pick ONE theory or concept in the book that is relevant to the cause of that particular problem and would give some guidance with respect to how to solve that problem. You have two problems you will be discussing so you will be choosing two different theories/concepts; one for each problem.
3) Describe the theory/concept in your own words-cite as needed for relevant support content.
4) Relate the theory/concept to the problem and, in general, what a theory says needs to be addressed to solve this kind of problem. When you do this it might help to think about how the problem is an example of someone not doing what the theory/concept says should be done. Be specific and make sure you use examples from the case.
What does the theory/concept say should be done so that a manager or company does not have the problem? What does the theory say, in general, needs to be done to solve the problem? You are not creating an action plan in your answer here (that is question 5), rather you are describing what the implications of the theory/concept is for a manager when trying to solve problems like this (and similar) ones; how the theory guides the manager. (See the example below).
5) Create a specific action plan for the manager to use to solve the problem. As “proof” that this solution will work, you need to justify your plan based on what the theory/concept says needs to be done. You should make the connections for the reader and not expect the reader to take what you said earlier about the theory and make the connections for you.
