Dilemma in the workplace
Henry was a young Associate Consultant working for a Multinational Corporation. Six months after joining the company, he was assigned to take charge of a consulting project. As it was his first major assignment, Henry was determined to perform well.
As a large part of the project involves conducting customer phone interview, Henry hired 4 temporary staffs for the task. He trained each of them for 1 week before getting them to start on the phone interviews. There was a tight deadline to meet as the 1000 interviews had to be completed in 1 month.
Things were going smoothly at first. The temporary staffs were efficient and the quality of their interviews were mostly decent. However, with 2 weeks left before the deadline, Henry realized that the quality of interviews done by the temporary staffs were getting unacceptable. Many questions were not completed and the number of interviews done per day were also much less than the targeted number.
He called them to his office, with the intention to give them a warning on their poor work performance the past few days. Much to his surprise, the attitude of the 4 temporary staffs were indifferent despite Henry's emphasis on the importance of the project.
Finally Henry finally realized the root cause of the problem. The 4 temporary staffs knew that with 2 weeks left before the deadline, Henry would not have time to sack them, hire new staffs and train them again. At the same time, they were not concerned as to whether the project could be completed on time. They seemed to be the one with a larger bargaining power. One of the temporary staffs Mike even argued with Henry that he was pushing them to hard.
This situation put Henry in a dilemma, he knew that these 4 temporary staffs were capable of completing the targeted interviews if they put in effort. He needed to push them to work, but his previous approach had already strain their relationship and the situation would worsen if any of them decided to quit. If he chose to go soft on them, the quality of their interviews may not be acceptable.
As a junior consultant in the company, he did not want to let his managers know that he could not even handle 4 temporary staffs well.
Henry needed a way to work things out with his 4 temporary staffs himself within the next 2 weeks. What should he do?
Hi Ian,
ReplyDeleteInteresting scenario there, but just take note of grammar inconsistencies throughout the post. It's pretty confusing to use a mixture of present and past tense within a paragraph.
"the 4 attitude of the 4 temporary staff were indifferent" can be phrased in "the attitudes of the 4 temporary staffs were indifferent"
There were also some misused articles; "This situation put Henry is in a dilemma" and some missing connectors throughout the blogpost. Might want to take note of these and proofread your post again!
Thats for english. To answer your question, I would;
1. Confront them again, and ask, 'what can I do to motivate you to put in a bit more effort into your job? '
of course, do not just leave it hanging there, throw in some suggestions such as raising their commission % if they do hit their target value. or propose giving them a testimonial at the end of their job which would benefit them in future job searches should they outperform and reach the target.
key idea is to engage them in the discussion and find out "what is wrong" and "what can I do to help motivate them". Personally, I feel that the moment they feel that their ideas and opinions are valued and appreciated, even as a temporary staff, they will definitely put in more effort into their job. :)
Thanks for your comment Aster. You are right, my post does need proofreading again. Will do it soon!
ReplyDeleteHey Ian!
ReplyDeleteVery stressful situation there! I definitely would not want to be that poor guy. Well if I were him I would try to explain to the 4 staffs the situation that I am in. Instead of being professional and holding the tone of authority I would come down to their level and make them realise that I am one of them. In scenarios like these I believe that informal and more personal communication can ease the situation. An increase in pay or a commission based assignment might also motivate them. Rewards always work!
As for language, I think your post was very straight forward and easy to understand. There were grammatical errors here and there but overall it was good!
What an excellent scenario, one with a clear business focus!
ReplyDeleteYou do a fine job of describing the issue, Ian, with a very clear and concise explanation of the background and a good build up to the key question. And what a trying dilemma for Henry!
Like Aster, I see quite a few language issues, but nothing that inhibits understanding. Do take note of her suggestions.
Thanks for the effort!