It seemed to Duke that Lucinda Furtado, a housekeeping attendant, somehow was a link to the concerns about staff morale. Lucinda, an immigrant from the Philippines, had been working at the hotel for ten years but was becoming a problem for her supervisors and fellow employees. Lucinda acted in ways that seemed to undermine her supervisors and fellow employees – the terms abusive and harassment had been used about her. She developed the reputation of being a “busybody” by tracking work of other employees to the point of leaving her own workstation to question other employees about their workloads as compared to her own workload. She also became known for other non-productive behaviours like making mean-spirited comments towards “harder working” employees. She would send subtle but clear messages about other staff by, for example, obviously changing her language in the middle of conversations when certain housekeepers entered the staff room. It would have been quite clear to those other staff that Lucinda had been talking about them. Much of her negative actions were one-on-one, often by spreading rumours about other staff or the hotel itself. During the period of Duke’s tenure as GM he and the hotel HR manager had met with Lucinda six times for documented performance discussions. When her behaviour was discussed her typical reaction was to claim “my mistake, not what I meant, sorry for causing this trouble”. Furtado also implied that cultural differences were the reason for the misunderstanding; the performance discussions took the same pattern. Lucinda claimed misunderstanding, vowed that her intent was good and brought up other unrelated issues. Lucinda was often at the centre of work-scheduling disputes, which inevitably led to her claims of racism towards her by management and consequent unfair treatment. Lucinda regularly checked the room assignments on the clipboards of other employees that were stored on their service carts. The clipboards indicated the number of stay-overs and checkouts and Lucinda wanted to check to make sure she was not assigned an “unfair number of checkouts”. Lucinda ensured that work scheduling always caused drama and left her supervisor, the executive housekeeper always wondering what was going to happen next. One typical complaint was that she was not treated fairly when she had requested days off. In one instance, two housekeepers had asked for days off on the same day. They had explained that they were flexible with their dates. Their supervisor, the executive housekeeper, allowed this situation to occur because the occupancy of the hotel on that particular day was down and their absence would not have a negative impact on service. On a later date, Lucinda requested a day off but was told that would not be possible because another housekeeper had previously made the request for the same date. She was informed that because that date was sold out, all available staff were required to work. Lucinda claimed to her supervisor that she was treating the “favourites” differently and was rude towards the two staff that had previously taken the days off. These types of actions caused discomfort amongst staff. Lucinda’s behaviour towards her supervisor was filled with tension. Part of the executive housekeeper’s responsibility was to perform room checks and to ensure that cleanliness, speed of work and general hotel standards were being met. Because Lucinda’s housekeeping performance was just average, there were often a number of relatively small issues that the executive housekeeper would have to comment on. In most instances, Lucinda’s response to this feedback was highly defensive and ultimately aggressive with comments such as “you’re picking on me” ending the conversations. Lucinda would also claim that she would had no such criticism from the previous supervisor, a claim that was discovered to be untrue – the previous executive housekeeper had experienced the same issues with Lucinda and had documented several performance-related issues in the past. There were also multiple claims that the supervisor was always favouring others, often with considerable “drama” on Lucinda’s part, claiming that the supervisor was “out to get her” because of her race. In fact, Lucinda often did receive favourable treatment because her supervisor who was generally liked and supported by most staff felt worn down from this abuse and gave Lucinda easier workloads to shut her up. The “good” employees would grow frustrated at this and tensions grew. Lucinda’s behaviours had not gone unnoticed. Problems were expressed to management outside of staff meetings because employees felt intimidated to speak out in front of group for fear of being targeted by Lucinda. The HR manager and both Duke and the previous GM had spoken to her about her harassing and disruptive work behaviour which was not conducive to a healthy working environment. But on each occasion that she was confronted, her reply would either be that she was simply being misunderstood due to language barriers, or she would deflect the critique and attempt to change subject to something about her. Duke’s worry From his perspective, Duke had several concerns. He knew that the hotel owners wanted to increase occupancy rates and that staff interaction with guests would be an important key to this success. If morale became a growing issue, it would likely have a negative impact on staff performance. At the same time, Duke knew of the rumours of unionization amongst the staff and felt this likelihood might not be positive in working towards the business objectives. If he was seen as too heavy handed with Lucinda, this could be the trigger for unionization. But if he did not deal with the issues, there was the risk that Lucinda’s behaviour would have a further negative impact on the hotel staff morale. He knew he would have to act soon – time was ticking away.

Identify the specific question(s) that must be addressed in order to solve the central problem identified. There may be one or multiple. Think of what you would need to know in order to make a decision. Consider internal and external factors that may have influenced the current situation, whether mentioned in the case or not. Think about the functional information required in order to accurately address the central problem. List each question and briefly explain why it is pivotal to solving the problem.

These questions must relate to Organization Behavior