Human Resource: The E-Mail Firestorm

The E-Mail Firestorm It is indeed the responsibility of managers to ensure that the employees under their authority do perform their duties. The performance of any duty assigned to any employees ought to be done effectively and diligently as per the performance contract signed by them during hiring. That being said, it is my opinion that the manager is ultimately responsible for the actions of the workers under him. The back stops with managers and so we in management ought to guarantee that the actions of our workers, which directly reflect on us, are in the long run beneficial to the whole organization.

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THE E-MAIL FIRESTORM 2 Parking lot issue The provision of parking space for Cerner employees is a positive gesture on the part of the company and all employees ought to see it this way. One way of determining the presence of personnel in their work stations is without doubt reflected by the number of cars in the parking lot. However, the productivity of our employees ought not to be pegged solely on the density of vehicles in the parking lot. Being a manager of the cafeteria section, most of my employees arrive a bit late and often leave before the company stipulated time. The nature of the duties of my workers permits this as we work on a shift basis. Most of them will arrive to work at 9 a.m. and leave by 4 p.m. so as to allow the other group to come in. Unlike other employees, my employees do not have the luxury of a coffee and lunch break as by definition of their duties this is their busiest time.

I was defensive in reacting to the CEO’s message because a blanket conclusion on the productivity of all employees based on one parameter does not do justice to employees of some sections of the company. In some duties, performing tasks within stipulated time and adhering to standards should be the measure of employee commitment (Sharkey & Davis, 2008). While I appreciate the position of the CEO who on periodically seeing empty spaces in the parking lot directly associated that with a lack of commitment by his staff, I do not think that he was justified in sending a blanket message to all of us. My defensive reaction to the message greatly impaired on my listening ability because the message served to show the lack of understanding and appreciation of some of the pivotal duties some of us do for the company.

The approach of the CEO does not adhere to any of the principles of supportive communication. The fact that the message was general and not specific goes to show as much.

First the message was harsh on us managers and not sensitive to our thoughts, in that the CEO

THE E-MAIL FIRESTORM 3 directly linked his views of the parking lot to lack of commitment on our part (Denhardt et al., 2002). Secondly by directly addressing managers harshly, his focus was not on the perceived problem but rather on the person of the management team. In addition, his message was in effect an evaluation of laxity on the part of managers instead of being focused on describing the problem in detail (Podmoroff, 2005).

The management team ought to in principle be responsible for the actions of those under them. However, laying blame to the managers for a perceived problem without first enquiring from them the reasons for the said problem is not fair to them. In some cases the expressed problem is not a universal one and condemning all persons uniformly discourages those who did nothing negative. Lastly, the senior management ought to embrace supportive communication in whatever rules and instructions they send down the chain of command so as to promote cooperation in the organization and boost the potential efficiency of projects via inclusivity.

THE E-MAIL FIRESTORM 4 References Denhardt, R., Denhardt, J. & Aristigueta, M. (2002). Managing human behavior in public & nonprofit organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Podmoroff, D. (2005). How to hire, train & keep the best employees for your small business.

Ocala, FL: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc. Sharkey, B. & Davis, P. (2008). Hard work: Defining physical work performance requirements.

Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.