Two Tough Calls (A)

Submitted by
Group 4- Section C
 About the Company
• The company is an online merchant selling a wide range of consumer products
• Started by ex-Microsoft people from which explains the company policies and culture
• Revenue was around $25 million and pro forma earnings were around $300,000
• Performance rating system was followed
• When an employee receives a 2.5, as four being the highest, that employee is subjected to
performance improvement plan (PIP) which is really a venue for firing off an employee
• The company also implements a bell curve system in evaluating employees, where a 30-40-30
sharing is enforced
• The manager has a dilemma about the two weakest links in her group, namely Terry and Phil
 Structure
Product development was divided into electronics, soft goods, and other types of
products Program
Manager
It had about 85 people
Team Lead
Each product development team was headed by a program manager

Program Manager had to coordinate the entire project between test, development, Individual
Contributor
planning, design, third parties, operations, and finance

There were various tech development leads reporting to the program manager Individual
Contributor

Program manager reported to VP who in turn reported to CEO

 About Terry
• Terry is a poor performer and a poor contributor in her group
• In addition, Terry does not have any analytic skills as needed in her group
• However, Terry was easily hired due to his connections with the company’s top management
individuals for being their scuba instructor
• The hiring process requires five approvals of different department heads. However, Terry
received not a single recommendation to be hired but was still hired.
• In addition, she was being questioned for her management skills as a result for Terry’s poor
score
• The speaker is concerned on the reasons why the top management is questioning her which will
result to poor records for hiring a failure employee
• Another concern was that the speaker knew that Terry keeps a gun in his car as a sport
• The speaker manager plans to give Terry a 2.5 mark but got a lot of comments from top
management for the given score
 About Phil
Phil was also a poor performer due to his background as a call center manager from the previous company that was brought in

The speaker’s group is technical in specialization and Phil struggles to perform in the group

However, the speaker feels that Phil was not completely hopeless which she originally plans to give Phil a 2.5 on the next review

In addition, the speaker’s boss has a personal vendetta against Phil, due to a number of times Phil inappropriately challenged the speaker’s
boss

In an unforeseen scenario before the review period, Phil was diagnosed with liver cancer Phil was confined to a hospital and was supported
by the speaker’s group

By the time Phil recovered and went back to work, his performance just got worse

Then there was this policy in the company that if an employee don’t gets promoted for three years then that employee is fired, but Phil was
already six years in the company and does not have any promotions

Phil expects form the speaker that he will be promoted in the next review
Identification of Symptoms
Both Terry and Phil are poor
performers due to non alignment
of skills and job requirements in
the speaker’s group even with the
supervisions and counseling of the
speaker
The speaker is having a hard time
One of the reasons for the non
in firing Terry and Phil due to the
alignment of skills to the job
knowledge of their personal life
requirement of Terry and Phil was
and the possible scenarios for the
due to flawed hiring policy of HR.
firing them.
 Problem Statement
What should the speaker of the case do to Terry and Phil’s current poor performance in her group and what could be done in

improving the current flaws in the HR practices of the company

Ethical Problems

 The company is not fair in the hiring process of employees and is influenced by associations and connections as in the case

of Terry.

 The company is not fair in designating employees to their proper job specialization due to company acquisitions; as in the

case of Phil.

 The boss of the speaker is not fair in recommending a poor performance only due to personal reasons; as in the case of Phil.

 The speaker is commendable in knowing the personal information and issues of her employees such as Terry and Phil, but

must not be completely affected indecision making.

 Recommendation
•“The speaker must give both Terry and Phil the necessary formal trainings in order to develop the
necessary skills needed in the speaker’s group”, is the appropriate solution for the case problem
•The formal training will be the better performance measure to the flawed systems in hiring both
Terry and Phil.
•The result of the formal training will be documented and can be used as an unbiased reference for
the future of the two employees.
• In addition, the formal training will be considered as a second chance for the two.
•The formal training will be the compensating and correcting program for the flawed hiring system
of the company.
•However, a certain amount of time and resources will be needed for the formal training of the two.
 Recommendations for Individual
PHIL
Talk to him separately about his subpar performance
Assure him it is not due to his recent health developments to avoid legal complications
Talk to the HR to see if there is a position for him elsewhere in the company
If not rate him 2.5 and convey to him the skills(technical or otherwise) he needs to learn to make a place
for himself in the company
Terry
Terry is an AoMo (Ability – 0, Motivation – 1) person
These kind of people need to either be isolated if they are connected to high profile people in the company
or fired
Here Terry has influential connections but the protagonist wants to be honest, so he can try to talk to Terry
and see what his role in his previous company was and if a similar role exists for him in the company
If it doesn’t exist he can go ahead and give 2.5 to Terry in the performance review
Thank You