“You are a department manager in a mid-sized company that
provides technology support services. You have ten employees who are required
to maintain a high level of technical expertise and deliver excellent customer
service. One of your employees, who has been with the company for two
years, is performing at a substandard level and you have received numerous
complaints from customers and coworkers. In addition, this employee has
displayed confrontational behavior, which has created a hostile
environment. You must now meet with this employee and deliver an
ultimatum regarding the need for immediate improvement or dismissal.”
Given the
situation stated above, I would follow the “Five Steps of Principled Reasoning”
as found on http://www.ethicsscoreboard.com/rb_5step.html.
I would first clarify what the situation at hand is with the employee. I would begin by stating exactly what the
issue is, “John, I have received some complaints from both customers and
coworkers. Is there something going on that I need to know about?” Depending on the employee’s response, either I
would work with them on the issue or if they did not tell me, what the issue
was, I would move on to the issue at hand. To help explain why there is an issue,
I would have some of the employee’s recorded calls on hand to play back so he or
she could listen to them and I could explain what was wrong with the call.
I would then state what options are available.
“These are your options, you can take a training course provided by our HR
department on one of these days…and be re-evaluated next week, you can take a
course through the local college and show continuing improvement starting
immediately with a re-evaluation at the end of next week, or we will have to
let you go.” I would then try to explain
that I would want this to be a collaborated effort, him or her making an effort
to change and to learn new techniques in customer service and me making an
effort to help them by giving constructive criticism. (Abigail, R.A., Cahn, D.,
2011)
I am sure
the employee would show signs of agitation and anger, and possibly be hurt and
resentful. I would assure the employee that he or she would have a fair
opportunity to rectify the situation given their willingness to do so.
Then, I
would follow through with his or her decision. With the HR provided course, I
would evaluate the course assignments/tests given and listen in on calls sporadically
throughout the evaluation period to evaluate his or her progress. If they chose
to take an outside course, I would follow up with the teacher and evaluate
calls for progress.
At the end
of the time given, I would then call the employee in for a re-evaluation of the
situation. I would ask what he or she had learned in the course and how they
feel they have improved. I would also ask for feedback on the course to make
them feel like the company wants their opinion on how the company can improve
as well. This action can create feelings of goodwill towards the company.
After the
evaluation, I would take into consideration the employee’s willingness to
change their attitude and to learn new customer service strategies. I would
also take into accord their actions and attitude on their customer service calls
and the attitude with which they received the criticism of their calls throughout
the evaluation period. I would then call in the employee and explain my decision
with examples of why I made that decision.
References
Abigail, R.A. and
Cahn, D. (2011) Managing Conflict through Communication. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Pg 56.
