Top Manager : 1 person

First-Line Manager : 1 person

Part Timer Worker (Case #1) : 1 person

Workers who Wish to Switch Dept (Case #2) : 2 people

Case #1

One of the team members work as part-timer where her working hours start from 2pm-5pm every
weekdays. Over time, I noticed that he/she seemed to be disengaging. He/She didn’t bring the same
enthusiasm and extra touch to his/her work I previously saw. As in contract, I can give warning or
discharge her from the position if he/she couldn’t manage to handle both of her jobson hand.

Factor #1

 As the top manager and I continued speaking, we realized both of us had failed to check in
with him/her. It had actually been months since either of us last checked in with him/her.
We focused more on the full time workers and this might be our mistake. Thus, after
discussion, I reached out to him/her and immediately scheduled a 1 on 1. I started the 1 on 1
by apologizing that we hadn’t been checking in with him/her. Then we started talking about
how him/her were doing.
 He/She was being too tired of handling both works at the same time. He/she couldn’t
continue the work passed by the morning-shift worker as he/she was not that clear about
the progress.

Solution #1

I introduced him/her a mentor to guide him/her from the point forward. The top manager and I
decided to counsel, motivate and understand his/her difficulties.
Case #2

I was having a one on one with a team member and they told me that they had a new career goal.
Suddenly they wanted to head in a very different direction. Instead of doing business development
(their current role), they wanted to become a product manager.

Now, this news was surprising and concerning for a few reasons:

They were very good at business development.

We needed the revenue and partnerships they built in this role.

We didn’t have any product management work available for them.

They were also one of our best people, so we did not want to lose them. However, it was clear they
had given it a lot of thought. They had good reasoning for the change and were determined to do it
whether we supported them or not.

Solution #2

 Rather than try to convince them they shouldn’t pursue their passion, I decided to embrace
it. I told them that if they kept doing a great job in their business development work, I would
help them learn how to become a product manager.
 At the time, I was afraid that with their change of interests, they’d start checking out of their
BD role. I worried that any encouragement I gave on product management, will take away
from the critical work we needed.
 We bought them the best books on product management to read.
 Once a month we met to discuss anything they wanted to about product management,
which also helped me see their progress in building their skills.
 I introduced them to other good product managers I knew to learn from them, too.
Case #3

David is a new employee in ABC company. He was assigned to assist his team leader in an
overseas project. Because of his academic qualifications, he was directly assigned to that job.
Besides that, although Keith has an excellent record and worked there for six years he did not
get that task. She was also not satisfied about being not promoted. She started to not involve
much in team tasks after that. It was so obvious that Keith has avoided all the tasks but
reluctant to talk to her team leader.

Solution#3 :
1. First-line managers need to discuss about the performance of the workers with each
team leaders.
2. Managers should give careful consideration as to an employee's suitability for
promotion in the first place, and make sure that the employee is given adequate training
before the promotion takes effect.