Question

Getta Grant is director of development at a medium-sized nonprofit that provides a range of services to adolescents from disadvantaged urban communities. She reports to the executive director. The organization receives some government funding but is also reliant on foundations and individual donors. Getta's responsibilities include staying informed about foundation interests and giving patterns, and working with the organization's three program directors to identify foundations that may be prospects for support of their programs and projects. She drafts letters of inquiry and, where appropriate, meets with foundation officers and writes proposals. Getta has been with the organization for five years and was hired by the previous executive director, who always gave her “excellent” (the highest rating) on her annual performance reviews. The current executive director has been in her job less than a year. She inherited Getta from her predecessor. When she had just arrived, it was already time for Getta's annual evaluation. The new executive director read a couple of proposals that Getta had written, thought they were good, and continued her “excellent” rating without much further thought. Getta seemed pleased to have her high rating continued.

When Getta writes something, it is generally of high quality. But over the past year, the executive director has become unhappy with the amount of work Getta produces and with her inability to meet deadlines. Since her last review, Getta has produced only a handful of letters and two proposals. The executive director gave her positive feedback on that work, which was indeed good, thinking that would motivate her to work harder and faster. But Getta has continued to produce relatively few proposals, and in some cases, they have taken so long that she missed foundation deadlines. She is coming up soon for her second evaluation with the executive director, who is now quite frustrated with her performance.

The executive director met with Getta recently and explained that she is unhappy. She warned Getta that her next performance evaluation might not be so positive this year. Getta seemed shocked. “But you said my proposals are good,” she protested, “and you gave me an ‘excellent’ rating last year!” Since that meeting, Getta has missed several of days of work, calling in sick or saying she was “working at home.” And the executive director has seen almost no additional work.

QUESTIONS:

1. What psychological need(s) might each staff person or volunteer be trying to meet?

2. What new approaches or strategies might the manager consider addressing the problem?

Answer 1

1. After a thorough analysis of the above-mentioned case extract, I think the most important psychological needs that each staff person or volunteer would try to meet is the Self-esteem needs. In this case, Getta Grant is a staff person who lacks good self-esteem quality as she got intensely hurt when her ability was questioned by the executive director for the very first time.ALL these years, she was a good performer, and once her ability was criticized, she couldn't bear . Another need is the Need for Competence where every employee would like to develop and show their capabilities and efficiency to increase the productivity of the firm they are part of.

2. I think the manager might consider a good counseling session for Getta Grant as she is mentally hurt along with her developing a mindset that she's good for nothing forgetting behind all the good reviews she used to get before.

Another strategy is to introduce a 360-degree appraisal system where the entire staff and peers could rate the performance of an employee and hence the employee can improve the weaker section mentioned by the majority of the people.

Also, the strategy to motivate the employees both extrinsically (financial benefits) and intrinsically (appreciation, encouragement )is also a very effective approach to tackle the minds of employees to make them more efficient.

Hence the answer.