Reference no: EM132873853

Case Study

You are the manager of a department of 10 people that is part of a much larger organization. You have been in your position for more than two years and things have gone quite well during that time. You have not had any significant employee performance problems... until now. Janet has been with your department for almost a year. Her work has been generally quite good. During the last few months she has even asked for more work. In earlier conversations, she has indicated that she is interested in moving up within the organization.

When you hired her, you felt that Janet had a lot of potential. During the first few months she seemed to learn quickly. You were giving her enough work to keep her busy but it was a little less than the experienced people were doing to help her learn the work. In the last three months, Janet has been given a bigger workload. At first, she seemed fine with it. However, you started noticing that assignments were being turned in a little late and Janet was arriving late for meetings. The lateness is happening more and more. The culture in the organization is fairly laid back. People are on time for meetings although there is the occasional late arrival here and there. Up until now you typically haven't said anything to someone arriving late as you were trying to avoid being the "heavy". In Janet's case, you have mentioned her propensity to be late to her a couple of times (it has happened a lot more than a couple of times) and asked her to try to be more diligent and arrive on time. This past Monday Janet arrived 20 minutes late for a department meeting and the work she was to contribute to the project was incomplete. Janet apologized and mentioned something about dealing with unexpected events. At the end of the meeting, you casually mentioned to her again that she needs to be on time. She gave you a rather abrupt "yes sir" and left.

Today is Thursday. You just left a meeting that was chaired by a colleague in a different department that Janet arrived ten minutes late for. You know your colleague was slightly annoyed by the late arrival, but he didn't make a big deal of it to you or to Janet. You are thinking that it is time to sit down with Janet and talk about this issue.

Identify the case facts that are relevant to determining a resolution in this case. For each of the case facts you cite, explain their relevance, identifying key points of analysis that impact the formulation of action recommendations relating to the manager's upcoming meeting with Janet.