Workplace

I have been working for my current employer for well over 5 years. Currently I hold a position where I oversee two employees. My department consists of filling daily requests with both product and literature and sending the packages to potential and existing customers. We receive all our requests through our customer support team located in our corporate office. So I would consider my department as part of a customer service team that seeks new business.
One of my employees is a Hispanic male who is about 47 years of age and has worked for my department for about 6 years. He is fluent in Spanish but speaks little to no English. One of the things that I notice is that his ability to perform his daily duties is far from average. He has demonstrated throughout the years that even as the business grows he gets things done. My employee has a great personality, always getting along with everyone. He appreciates his job and always comes to work with a great attitude. I have yet to encounter a problem with his attitude and he never hesitates to express himself when he feels that a situation is not pleasing him. In the individual level my employee has never shown anything but great citizenship. I consider him to be one of the most loyal self-motivating individuals in this company. Every project that I have assigned to him has been completed accordingly and in a very timely manner. The only problem that I have encountered would be the language barrier that he is faced with. Being that all of our material is written in English many times I find myself helping him understand the requirements of each task assigned. Our information and advertisements also come in English therefore I don’t believe he is well aware of what the significance of the project is. I believe that because my employee has those independent variables the dependent variables are very well proportioned. His productivity is extremely high; I always refer to him as my workhorse because he is just that. He is always on the move doing things to better the department. Down time does not exist for him. Absenteeism has yet to be a problem he always comes to work looking forward to another day. I can say that because he seems to be extremely happy with his job he performs well beyond my expectations. Within time he has assumed new responsibilities that have helped me relief my self of duties that I really had no time for. My employee has gone through three sales personal increases giving him that much more work and projects to complete. We originally had 36 sales representatives and today we have about 85. Being that he is hardly ever absent his productivity stays consistent. I believe that because he is an older man who has gone through many changes in life he appreciates his current job. It is not very demanding but can be extremely repetitive. I also think that his values as a person play a great role to his amazing productivity. He is a very modest man who has always worked hard for his belongings. His personality helps him get through the rough days, letting him know myself on a daily basis that he is a very important part of this organization might help him as well.
On the other hand, my other employee is the total opposite of the one previously described. This employee has been part of this department for well over 7 years. She is a female Hispanic who is about 29 years of age. She comes from a family of 5 and she is the youngest of them all. When this position was placed I applied to it and so did she. I ended up getting the position and she was left with her current role as a clerk. Since day one I felt a lot of resistance towards being managed by a younger man. Initially I thought that her attitude would change within time as I tried to ease the situation by being as nice of a manager as I possibly could. Her personality is very deceiving, it seems as though everything is right but from one instance to the next she is in my office crying about how unfair I am being. When she doesnt get her way she reacts negatively towards everyone in the department. Her values were really exposed to me when she tried getting me in trouble with our human resources department over an issue that could have been resolved internally. She is very confrontational and never tries to better the situation. She stresses on why she believes she is right instead of being objective about the situation on hand. She does speak and write in both English and Spanish. Her ability is not an issue; she is very capable of completing every task given to her. As far as her motivation is concerned, she leaves me with little to no option but to not compliment her work. She is always lagging when she comes to work complaining on how she would have loved to stay home. Her perception of this department is that no matter what is done she is never happy. There is always a problem with a certain thing throughout the days. My employees and her are always in discordance over everything. She will find a way to try to get him in trouble rather than help him. I believe that because of her attitude and personality her productivity is very low. She has no motivation to complete her job because she simply does not care. The situation escalated throughout the years, it has gotten worse every year. It was something that I was able to handle but I have came to a point where I have felt like terminating her because she does so much harm to the department. Her absenteeism is extremely high; she either gets here late once every week or she misses work. She is obviously not satisfied with her work always asking to either go home or go to the restroom. I really feel that she is an employee that is not loyal to the company she finds every way possible to try to get the easy way out. I sometimes feel that she is threat to the company’s well being because she will try to find a way to mess up to the company. Trying to work with a person who has no interest in trying to change is extremely difficult. With the performance evaluations that I gave this year I made it very clear that change is expected or severe actions were going to be considered. It is a shame that a person lets personal matters get between work, I did not choose myself to be here I was chosen. Therefore I feel that together we could try to make the best of the situation but when someone of her type has made up her mind it is difficult to change a personality that was build well over 28 years ago.
I believe that the independent variables are a strong indicator on how the dependent variables will turn out. People demonstrate with their actions and attitudes how productive or dissatisfied they really are. Conflict is said to be a good thing in some cases but not in this situation. You have a person who tries to come to work and do his best while another is simply trying to make his life impossible. The productivity and citizenship of employees I believe are two of the most important factors in identifying a great worker to a bad worker. Understanding the reasons behind an employee’s work ethics and attitudes is one of the hardest duties as a supervisor. Letting situations escalate without being aware that it is getting to an extreme point can cause the deterioration of a department. The inconsistency of a persons attitudes and personalities creates an unknown environment where looking at a new situation daily becomes a norm.