Year end was always a busy time for the company: each division was challenged to finalize projects that contributed to the year-end process. The pandemic and the company's transition to work at home had only made an already difficult situation worse.  For the human resources department of this crown corporation, the project was year-end performance appraisals, and the management team habitually submitted those appraisals late. The lateness was a big issue as employee performance appraisals were directly linked to year-end bonuses and pay increases. To compound the problem of habitually late performance appraisals, the employee ratings needed to be approved divisionally and corporately (by the CEO and executive team) before bonuses could be awarded.  All of the writing, submitting, and approving had to take place virtually, and the managers had struggled to conduct reviews in a new, and unfamiliar and, for many, unsettling, virtual environment.

The year-end appraisals were already a week late and only half of the managers had submitted their ratings. The human resources department was now left with only ten days to get the appraisals through divisional approval and on the CEO's virtual desk. The Director of Human Resources called a Teams meeting with her managers to discuss the issue. In attendance were the Director of Human Resources, and the four managers who reported to her: Jenna, Melissa, Beth, and Ryan.

The goal of the meeting was to develop a plan to get the managers who had not submitted performance ratings to get them submitted in the next few days. Some managers offered the director various recommendations ranging from: call the managers, not email, and tell them to do it, to let's reward the managers who have completed their ratings.  Other managers were more interested in the systemic issues: why does this happen every year even before the pandemic, what's preventing managers from doing this, are we going to do appraisals virtually from now on, does this have top-down support, etc.?

The meeting was late getting started as Beth and Melissa had connection issues.  Now their discussion had been going on for twenty-minutes, not counting a 5 five-minute delay while Ryan had to step out to calm his two-year-old crying loudly in another room.  Tensions were high, progress making was low, and all five were feeling the pressure.  Jenna, who had kids of her own at home in virtual classes, was growing particularly frustrated, especially with a problem she knew about that no one wanted to surface.  Suddenly, Jenna stopped the conversation and pointed directly into her camera.  "Beth," Jenna growled, "I have a hard time sitting here, listening to how we're going to get the organization to follow our HR policy, when managers right here in this meeting haven't even submitted their performance ratings. Beth, I think you need to get your own house in order before you start telling others what to do."

 

1. What should happen next in this situation? That is, who do you believe should speak next, and what exactly should that person say?

Note: Write out exactly - word for word -- what the person should say.

2. Why do you believe that your solution to "what should happen next" question is the right solution?