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Background Information
World Wide Conference Center, Inc. (WWCC) is a large telecommunication company specifically in business for the purpose of providing video conferencing for clients around the world. You are the supervisor of the internal local area network section of the IT department. There are numerous opportunities for advancement within the company for all but the highest ranking employees.
You are in charge of fifteen employees, all of whom are technicians responsible for keeping the company’s internal network functioning properly. There are employees with many levels of experience–from brand new employees just out of college to employees with ten years of experience within the company.
You have recently noticed that Sarah, who has worked in your unit for six years, has been having difficulty finishing work in an appropriate amount of time. You have had two meetings with her about this issue and have been unable to determine the problem because Sarah has become defensive in both meetings. Her specific response is usually along the lines of, “I’ve worked here for a long time and never had any problems. Why are you harassing me now?”
Tim, a new employee, has begun working for you. He has no experience except what he gained as a college student and is eager to become a competent and ideal employee.
It is time for you to meet with Kelly for her quarterly performance review. You are not sure what her goals or interests are. The one real performance issue you have noticed during the review period is that she is sometimes abrupt with internal clients when she is assigned to answer the “Help” line. In fact, you have received complaints from other departments that Kelly speaks to them in such a way that they feel stupid for having called.
Other than this, her general performance is slightly above average. Kelly volunteers to help fellow employees with solving problems and implementing new programs in the network. She completes her assigned tasks more quickly than most other employees and her work is almost always error free. When an error is found, she is gracious in her acceptance of feedback.
Marilyn is a supervisor for the Internet section of the IT department. She oversees fifteen employees and is having some difficulty in documenting performance. She uses nothing but computer-generated statistics in her performance evaluations. She has come to you at the suggestion of her supervisor, also your supervisor, who has informed her that your performance documentation is exactly what the company is looking for.
During a performance review meeting with Joseph, one of your subordinates, he tells you that he is interested in supervision and would like to take whatever steps are necessary so that he will be considered in the next promotion. His current performance is below average for your department, although it is not below the company’s performance standards referenced in the performance evaluation forms.
QUESTION:
You’ve decided that you must take some action in order to remedy this problem. What is a detailed assessment of the best way to handle this situation with Sarah?
What are the detail steps in which you will take to ensure that Tim is given the opportunity to become the best possible performer?
What is a detailed statement on handling the performance review meeting with Kelly and any follow-up action?
What is a critical assessment of the key features of evaluation documentation?
How would you help Joseph to achieve his goals?
Expert Answer
2. Tim is an enthusiastic newjoinee but he lacks experience. It is the responsibility of supervisor to guide him properly and to give him better opportunity to upgrade his skill set and enrich him with professionally required knowledge. A career guidance path can be designed for him which helps him to understand and go through the experience of many departments in the first few months and then can concetrate on the department where he has more skills.
3.Kelly is a very boradminded employee and very gracious in accepting her mistakes. Thus she can be assigned proper training to upskill herself and to make her a better professional based oin the requirement.In the performance review discussion with Kelly should be regarding the issues she is facing in the process, areas which she has to be concentrated on and how things can be done better etc.
4.Evaluation documentation should comprises of all the details of employees with their current band, their assigned goals, how much they could able to achieve, their concenrs, their strenght and weakness, and should also contain the evluation criterias such as customer satisfaction, zero defects, zero escalations , on time delivery etc., Guide map should be there to improve their performances.
5.Joseph being an experienced professional should work hard on the skill set required to be asupervisor. Along with that he has to prove management about his capabilities. Thus should work hard on the area where he is lagging behind ( improve communication skill, technical knowldge, colloborative skill and leadership qualities). On every quarter self evaluation and one to one discussion should be done with his line manager and set his target goals based on the prospective supervisor requirement so that he can concentrate more on such responsibilites right now itself.
