Question

In 100 words state if you agree or disagree with the summary given for the Scenario. PLEASE reframe from using Overuse of ambiguous terms such as it, this, and they should not be used.

Scenario Part 1:

Workplace unrest Environment: You are the Director of a team of employees that do various PA duties. The team consists of 15 employees that are assigned duties in different building locations and collocated with other PA personnel from other directorates in a matrix type set up. Three of your personnel provide project IT (Information Technology) engineering support to another PA program. Your three employees are intra mingled (cubicle environment where each person has a workstation) with four other employees that are not under your control. Most of the employees both those under your control and not under your control have work together for at about five years. The workload is fairly steady but there are times when program deadlines can stress the team. Your boss, the Executive Director, works in Washington DC so you are depended upon to handle all work and personnel-related matters. However, your boss and HR have to approve higher level personnel actions such as promotions and dismissals.

The players:

Jack: Jack has been with the organization for about eight years and is known as a highly competent worker known for his expertise in Agile methodologies. Last year, you made Jack the team lead for personnel that are located in his building. You have known Jack for about 10 years and have a great working relationship but little off work interactions. Jack just turned 40 and has a wife plus two children. Jack can be a little overly aggressive personality wise and is very passionate about his job. He has an outstanding reputation with coworkers and especially customers.

Jill: Jill has been on your team right at one year. When a vacancy came open, Jack recommend her and you hired Jill. Jill is known to be a competent IT engineer. With two children fresh out of college, Jill and her husband just became empty nesters and love to travel. She is not overly satisfied with her this job as her last job involved hands-on IT development work where the current job only involves reviewing development by other developers or IT engineers. Your interactions with Jill have been cordial and positive in nature. If you were to categorize her personality, she is not being overly type A nor passive like a type B.

Tami: Tami has worked in the organization and this section for about six years. She is fairly close to Jack and their families occasionally socialize. Tami provides program management and financial expertise to the IT systems. She is a no-nonsense type worker (does not joke around much) and is very competent. Tami does not like conflict in her personal or professional life. Tami’s husband just retired and she’s a year maybe two behind him.

Situation: You are getting ready to head home from work on Friday when you receive a call from HR. The HR representative states that Jill has filed a complaint against Jack for bullying. HR received a phone call from Jill on how to file a complaint and the HR representative took a verbal statement from Jill. The HR representative stated to you over the phone that Jill feels she is not challenged job wise and her and Jack were not getting along. She considered herself bullied and had enough earlier in the month after returning from vacation where people thought she was sick as she was coughing and blowing her nose a lot. She said she was not sick and Jack wanted to send her home and wouldn’t let up. Jack ordered her into the conference room to discuss the matter in private, which she did not want to do. She also stated that her working relationship with Jack continues to decline and she is not going to put up with his ordering her around demeanor in the work center or meetings. Jill was not sure what to do so she called HR. HR stated that she did not want to come to you first because you are too close to Jack. HR is handling this situation off to you to handle at your level but you are to follow up with a formal report back to HR. They want to know your initial plan by mid-week. Jill is working next week but Jack is on vacation.

Summary:

After reading through the scenario involving Jack and Jill, there are several steps that I, the director, would try to implement my strategy to try and fix the situation. There are a couple of interesting factors that come into play before coming up with a strategy. The first is that me and Jack are said to have a good relationship. I even made him the team lead over personnel in his building because if his hardworking attitude and that he is a good employee. The second is that I do not know Jill that well, however, every time we have interacted has been positive and cordial. Jack has been with the company for about 8 years and Jill right at 1 year. One thing that comes to my attention after HR called me to fill me in is that Jill went straight to HR instead of coming to me. I believe she thinks that I would be on Jack's side since our relationship is better.

Also, the fact that she did not feel comfortable coming to me before going to HR is something I need to look into as to why. I feel the trust in me from her is not there. My strategy to deal with this situation would be to start a communication cycle. My first step would be to bring in Jill and discuss with her one on one what the problems are. This could maybe alleviate some of the anxiety that could be going on with Jill and we could maybe work out the issues that are going on. I would then bring in Jack when he gets back from vacation and here his side of the story and discuss what is going on. Documentation of both meetings and what was said will be made and used as facts if necessary. After meeting with both parties and gathering some information then we can proceed with the getting the unrest fixed. The next step in my strategy plan could be a mediation between the three of us, but I am not sure this is the best practice.

In the textbook, it talks about 3 things needed to have a mediation. These are that both parties must consent to the process, a mediator must be neutral and any mediation being done needs to be looking in the future. Getting Jack and Jill's consent may not be a problem, however, the being neutral may be a problem, especially in Jill's eyes. Jill will more than likely believe that I would be on Jack's side of things since we have a better relationship. The purpose of this mediation would be to help the two of these employees in future dealings with one another. As mentioned above, Jill may not like me as the mediator because she may not believe I would be a neutral party. I think this because she did not come to me before going to HR. If the mediation does not work, then going to arbitration may be the best way to try and fix the problem between Jack and Jill. Arbitration is defined in our textbook as a process whereby a third party makes the final binding decision on the issue, usually after considering each side's position and obtaining the facts. The key to arbitration, in this case, is that the arbitrator would be a third party individual listening to Jack and Jill. The arbitrator would get the stories and facts without knowing their pasts. If discipline is needed to one or both of the individuals the arbitrator will make that decision. Hopefully, the problem would be resolved at this stage, but if not this may be the way to go.

Answer 1

I agree that I should play the role of the mediator in the firsts place and I have to have a neutral mind which is difficult at least in Jill's mind because she did not reach out to me because she felt that m relation with Jack is very close so it is better not to reach out to me. I believe that conflicts in a workplace is completely fine but that needs to be dealt with effectively so that it does not ruin the will of an employee to work. In this case I believe that I need to be very careful because there is a probability that I have a bias towards Jack and it may effect the decisions in the conflict which will be unfair and therefore there is the provision to go for the arbitration and I believe that would be neutral as the arbitrator would be a third party and will judge based on the facts presented to the person. I believe that this will actually solve the issue.