Gen Y in the Workforce Case Study

MGMT 3120

Professor Walsh

Gen Y in the Workforce Case Study

3/16/15

Charles Abramson & George Gabinashvili

Facts

• Rising Entertainment is one of the top three multimedia production and distribution companies in the world.
• Currently placing focus on marketing strategy for upcoming movie Fire force Five: Reignition.
• Rising Entertainment has hired younger employees who are being managed by their veteran managers.
• A training session by HR had an unintended effect on the managers by influencing them to “sugar coat” criticism or not give any at all.
• Josh Lewis is a new and young employee who is not getting what he hoped to get out of this job.
• As a result, Josh Lewis is doing mediocre work for his manager Sarah.
• Josh is also attempting to get recognition for his ideas by going above Sarah’s head and suggesting ideas that go against her marketing plan.
• Sarah is not criticizing Josh’s obviously mediocre work, instead she is giving unearned praise.

Issues at Hand

1. Boss sugarcoating feedback

This issue is assigned to our class to help us understand why sugarcoating your feedback can be a bad thing for business and your employee-boss relationship. Sugarcoating feedback will just lead to continuously poor performance from the employee.

• Higher expectations
• Don’t except work that doesn’t meet your standard
• Criticize the underperforming Employees

1. Bypassing Boss

This issue was brought up to us to show us why you shouldn’t go behind your boss’s back to his boss because if you do in the long run your boss is still your boss and he will start to treat you bad since he can’t trust you. You may have impress the big boss in the short run but you’re career may be done for the long run.

• One-one meetings
• Weekly department meetings
• A suggestion box

Solution for issue one:

1. Have weekly meetings with boss and each employee

+ Everyone is able to voice their opinions freely

• Very time consuming for the boss takes away from his work time (especially if it’s a big workplace)

1. Have weekly meetings with all the employees and the boss

+ Not as time consuming as having one on one meeting people can voice opinions

• If a boss likes one employee over another he may allow him to talk more and listen to his opinion more than others, if the meeting isn’t long enough not everyone may be able to speak

1. Have a suggestion box that the boss reads weekly

+ Everyone gets the say what they’d like anonymously so no possible favoritism from the boss

• People may start saying nasty things about the boss or other employees causing drama in the office

We will go with solution two we will hold weekly meetings with the boss and his subordinates the meeting will be held in the conference room.

Recommended Strategy:

We will be going with strategy two we will hold meetings once a week were the Sarah will be present and will listen to any comments, issues, or opinions someone may have. Even though the Sarah may be bias toward one person or another, the whole department will be there no matter how important so if the idea of let’s say Josh (an employee Sarah may not like)  is something that the other employees think is a good idea they’ll agree with him putting the pressure on the Sarah. We will also have a time limit for an amount of time that each person can speak and if they didn’t get a chance to speak this week they will be first next. We will build on the positives because we will be allowing the employees to speak to the boss and voice their opinion which will potential increase the communication between the boss and employees and raising the relationship between them. This type of approach will make the employees feel like they’re part of a team and that they have a voice.