Question

First Day on the Job Discussion

Please read the case and answer the questions at the end. Please respond to two of your peers. Do you agree or disagree?

Malik's first day as a new manager ended up more challenging than he expected. While having to adjust to a new workplace and new colleagues, he had an interesting management challenge thrown at him. Toward the end of the day, one of his employees came to him, looking frustrated and exhausted. Malik had heard that this employee was going to be one of his best, a high-potential employee who would be a great asset. On this day, the employee did not look to be an asset to anyone.

Without providing much history or detail, this employee explained to Malik that she is planning to quit her job. She is exhausted and frustrated, she explains because the work seems to be at once too much and too little. She feels overworked, but at the same time, she does not feel any excitement about her work. She doesn't feel she is being challenged to learn skills that will help her to reach the ultimate goal of owning her own business.

Unfortunately, Malik has to leave for the day before you can get more information. What should he do? Answer these questions, and formulate a plan of action.

Questions:

1. What might be the factors that are causing this employee's dissatisfaction?
2. Which of these factors could be addressed with improvements in the way the organization handles development as described in this chapter?
3. What should Malik do tomorrow with regard to this employee?
4. What long-term changes should Malik suggest for this organization, if it appears that this employee is not the only one with these complaints?

Answer 1

1. The factors of employee dissatisfaction, in this case, can be that she has bee overburdened with the same type of work for a long. This monotonous work does not give her the chance to learn or develop and with being more she does not get time to do anything other than it. She feels her work is not challenging which doesn't motivate her to give her best performance while doing it.

2. These factors can be addressed by reviewing the job duties of the employee and making changes in it such that it seems more challenging and innovative. The employee can work on a different structure than her regular one. She can be given more responsibilities and decision-making power than overloading her with the same tasks. For example, if her job is to make a weekly sales report and submit in the meeting every week, she can be told to make a presentation suggesting ways to improve the sales. Such change in her monotonous work will give her something different and new to do which can be challenging for her and beneficial for the company too.

3. Malik should have a one-to-one discussion with the employee asking her grievances in detail and understanding how and where the changes can be made to change the situation to employee satisfaction and productivity. He can think over her issues and give her the possible solutions to choose from. He can show a positive and welcoming attitude which will bring positivity in the employee to work over her current situation rather than quitting.

4. The long term changes that Malik can make in the organization to improve employee satisfaction are- he can review the job descriptions, HR policies, wor culture and procedures and make innovative changes which can bring motivation and interest in the employees. He can build teams to do the work collectively instead on burdening individual employees with one type of work, he can make the work environment more open to communication where employees can interact to each other and with seniors about ideas and issues more openly.

He should follow the practice of appreciation and rewards for the good performance which is a very motivating factor for employees. Attaching rewards to targets will encourage employees to work better on them. He can implement flex hours where the focus is not doing the work on time but with own schedules. Having conversations with employees in person and in weekly meetings will help in understanding the changes to be made and how well it is being implemented. He can make the work culture more employee centric than work centric to increase employee satisfaction as well as productivity to benefit the company.