Regulatory Review Commission Case Solution

1. Executive Summary

The case concerns the issue of a supervisor in a governmental organization who was finding it difficult to manage her subordinate’s unprofessional behavior. Monique is the supervisor and Brian is her subordinate in an operations department in the organization. Brian's careless and irresponsible behavior is not acceptable by Monique as she finds it to be disrupting the department's efficiency. Brian had a record of poor performance but there was no accountability as his evaluations of the previous supervisor was not documented which made him more inefficient. The goals were set considering the situation in hand which included strict and realistic probationary terms, optimum-staffing levels and structured deadlines monitoring mechanism. Based on the problems and causes, the alternate action plans that were proposed included, firing Brian or extending his probationary terms or increasing the number of staff on an immediate basis. The recommended action plan was to terminate Brian on an immediate basis. However, in case of failure to get approval for termination, the contingent plan would be to put forward the proposal for extending his probationary period for a thorough evaluation. 

2. Overview

The case is about maintaining organizational efficiency in a governmental organization. It considers the situation of a subordinate employee, Brian and his supervisor, Monique. Monique was dissatisfied by Brian’s unprofessional attitude and was planning a course of action to deal with the situation considering the critical nature of the operations department in which both of them worked. She had tried to warn him multiple times but Brian did not change his behavior, leaving Monique with no other option except for taking strict measures to ensure compliance and efficiency. Since Brian's probationary period was about to end within the next few months, Monique was compelled to think of an action plan quickly before he gets permanent as after being permanent, it would be difficult to get the employees terminated due to high job security in governmental organizations (Gould‐Williams, 2004).

3. Problems 

The high degree of job security allowed Brian to continue with his non-serious work attitude. No appraisal was ever done for Brian; instead, he had received a lot of criticism from his former employer as well as the former supervisor of the department in which he was previously working. Brian demonstrated similar non-acceptable behavior in his new role by submitting the assignments after the deadline. Furthermore, he took a long time to request urgent requests put forward to the department. Because, operations department was responsible for highly sensitive information, communication of which needed to be done on an urgent basis, Brian failed to meet the required criterion as he would arrive late at work and take extended lunch breaks. He lacked motivation, which is why he waited for breaks and was ready to skip work for them. Moreover, he even took leaves without informing Monique, which again showed irresponsible behavior on his part. Lastly, he was not ready to cooperate with his supervisor, Monique as, despite multiple warnings, he did not comply, which can distort department culture (Kim, Wang, & Chen, 2018).  

4. Causes 

Firstly, there is no proper evaluation of the employees, which causes them to get away despite being inefficient and incompetent (Chandrasekar, 2011). This is evidenced by the fact that Brian’s poor performance in the previous department was not documented; instead, Monique got to know about it verbally. This demonstrates a lack of fit between processes. Secondly, the cause for late submissions by Brian may be attributed to lack of staff in the department relative to the workload, causing him to take more than the normal time to ensure quality and properly documented data, which is the lack of fit between systems (Abdullah & Ahmad, 2009). Thirdly, Brian’s past performance shows a record of unprofessional behavior, which he demonstrated in the current department as well. This can help deduce Brian’s lack of fit between people, which caused him to underperform (Lievens, Decaesteker, Coetsier, & Geirnaert, 2001).