Another update from the Jungle…
Shelly owns a small company that is growing rapidly now that the economy as a whole has perked up. She’s hired several new employees and is pleased with how well they are doing. She just promoted one of the new hires, Zach, to a management position that makes him her second in command. She hopes to take a real vacation this year now that she has someone dependable to cover for her.
Shelly would love to celebrate her good fortune but there’s a fly in the ointment. Claudia was the first employee Shelly hired. Claudia is detail-oriented and in many ways, she is responsible for Shelly’s success because she did all the tedious, time-consuming work in the office. That freed up Shelly’s time to market the company and increase sales.
Unfortunately, what worked for a small, new business isn’t working so well now. Claudia wants to use old record-keeping methods that are no longer efficient for the company. It takes her forever to complete specific tasks and co-workers are complaining about Claudia’s slow pace is slowing them down.
Claudia feels threatened by the others, particularly Zach, who is now making decisions that she and Shelly used to make together. Claudia feels like her contributions are ignored and it’s obvious she’s afraid she’ll be replaced. Shelly sympathizes because she knows what she owes to Claudia but she also sees Claudia’s limitations. The fact is that Claudia isn’t quite good enough; her skills don’t match what the company needs.
Shelly’s been struggling for months to figure out what to do about Claudia. Shelly no longer has time to spend hours helping Claudia agonize over every decision or listening to her complain about Zach. Shelly never realized how whiny Claudia can be and her patience is wearing thin.
What are her options?
- She can fire Claudia and give her a huge severance package as a going away present. A couple of glasses of wine will ease Shelly’s qualms about doing what needs to be done for the good of the business.
- She can hire an HR manager and delegate responsibility to listen to whiny employees, like Claudia. After all, why else would a boss hire an HR manager?
- She can create a job specific to Claudia in recognition for Claudia’s contribution to the success of the company, but that shunts her aside so that she doesn’t slow down co-workers.
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