Question

In 800 words minimum. This question focuses on either a current coworker or a past coworker. The coworker should be a real person, as opposed to an amalgam of multiple individuals. Moreover, the question will more easily fit work if the coworker is of a similar hierarchical level to you--as opposed to a boss or a supervisor. The answer should include the following: A. Background - Describe the coworker. Give enough detail that it’s clear why you feel the way you do about this person, with enough specifics that the section “brings the person to life”. Feel free to omit or disguise any details that might be sensitive in nature. B. Explanations - Provide an explanation of why, in your estimation, this employee has low levels of job performance and/or organizational commitment. “Key terms” are words that are bolded in the chapters and that appear in the Key Terms section at the end of each chapter. C. Recommendations - Flowing out of the key terms discussed in the previous section, describe what the top managers or leaders in the company could do, very specifically, to improve the performance and/or commitment of your coworker. Finally, consider the following: Is this employee a “problem that cannot be fixed”? If so, describe what the top managers or leaders in the company could do to avoid similar problems in the future.

Answer 1

A. Description of the coworker: A typical engineering graduate with around 3 yrs of work experience when this person, lets call him X joined the company. He was an above average student and had done relatively good in his previous job

B. Low level of job performance:

1. In my opinion, when you are working on a deliverable, you need to take complete ownership of things. More importantly, no body should be reworking on your module once you have worked on it. I am not considering corrections/ enhancements, but the core work should be error free. This person X failed on both these fronts. People had to rectify/ correct his works more often than not. He made silly mistakes and errors that can be best described as childish, not expected from some one with 3 yrs technical background
2. Lack of communication skills: it was difficult for his coworkers to help him or to work with him, plainly because he lacked essential communication skills to articulate himself. To make matters worse he was a closed person who agreed to everything during meetings/calls only to mess up things completely during deliverables
3. multiple ad-hoc leaves and total disregard to project time lines
4. No effort to help juniors or to even ask for help from peers

C. Leadership action;

1. Leaders can ask these type of resources to join a re-skilling program and until satisfactory improvement shown, should be kept out of critical deliverables/projects
2. Ask for open feedback and communication to help understand the root causes
3. Discuss leave of absences and professionally reprimand for irresponsible behavior

To me this was an employee who was beyond fixing, and that can be mostly attributed to his attitudinal problems. Steps to avoid such mis-hire in the future:

1. Clearly list of job descriptions and role requirements, and then drive the interview to find if the candidate has critical skills to succeed in the job
2. Check for communication skills- a decent level of communication skills are necessary. if any candidate fails to check this box, he/she should not hired, irrespective of his/her mastery over other skill sets.