Reference no: EM132765882

Question

Please answer that three-part question before moving on to see what actually happened, by reading the following:

In this case, there's no question of what to do. The company must terminate this salesperson. According to the people who are actually involved in this situation, no company can tolerate stealing on the part of its employees. If you cannot trust the salesperson, his presence with your company will have a corrosive effect on all that he deals with, including customers and co-workers.

The consensus is to confront him. First, confirm that the information is accurate. Show him the evidence, get his response, and assuming the accusations are true, have the per- son surrender all his company account information and leads in return for a quiet termination.

Now, knowing what IWI actually did, what do you think of their response? What, if anything, would you have done differently?

Fire My Best Salesperson?

Greg Johns, sales director for International Widget Industries (IWI) had a problem. He was just told that his top salesperson, Bob Pollock, was stealing from the company. Pollock had been inflating expense reports and exaggerating his sales (by double booking sales orders). He therefore got higher expense reimbursements and commissions than he deserved. The accounting department had proof that Pollock was steal- ing. IWI's CEO has told Johns to either rectify the situation or lose his own job. Johns is in a quandary about what to do. He doesn't want to lose his best salesperson, and he thinks perhaps there might be extenuating circumstances-such as family pressures-that explain Pollock's behavior.