Evaluating Melinda's Ability: Case Study on Manager-Employee Interaction

Introduction

The case study presents an employee and a manager with a context on the employee performance evaluation. The video shows the interaction between a manager and the employee during a performance session to assess the ability of the employee to meet the sales thresholds set by the organization. The interaction between Melinda Perez, a saleswoman, and Alex Baker, the regional sales manager who both work for an international organization that deals with diet products and nutritional supplements. Melinda is an actor, whereas Baker is a real manager, and he is required to respond to Melinda's recent sales outcomes professionally. The case study highlights essential characteristics for Alex and Melinda in their respective roles, which makes it easy to assess Melinda's competency as a salesperson and Alex as the regional sales manager. The interaction provides a real case example of a professional conversation between a manager and an employee and can be evaluated on the basis of the manager and employee communication competency or vice versa while at the same time taking notes of the inherent strengths and skills exuded by Melinda and Alex in their respective career position and responsibilities. This case study will assess the communication competencies between Melinda and Alex from the context of an employer and an employee, managerial skill for Alex, and Melinda's competency as an employee. Therefore, the case study will seek to establish the overall performance appraisal best practices and how both the manager and the employee can maximize the benefit that comes from an appraisal engagement.

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Case Study Context

During the performance appraisal, Alex finds out that Melinda's sales block has been underperforming with less than 40% off the sales trajectory for the region. Alex seeks to know the problem of why Melinda is underperforming, sitting the importance of teamwork in sales work. Alex notes Melinda's key strengths and the reason she was chosen to represent the organization in the South American region. Alex notes that Melinda has failed three primary appointments in a brief period of time, which could have been instrumental in the overall company sales in the region. Alex notes that if Melinda could have communicated that she would fail to go for the appointment, another person could have been sent in her place to prevent the company from losing out the essential sales opportunities.

Melinda is defensive about her failure to go for the appointment, citing that she had no prior knowledge that she would wake up feeling unwell. Alex notes that the company is an international organization with many salespeople, and Melinda interjects that she is amongst the best performing sales agents. Alex cites the importance of team effort in making sales an area that Melinda has failed to recognize, which has led to the loss of sales in her assigned region due to her failure to attend potential client's appointments. Melinda cites that the territory she has been allocated is very challenging for her to work, especially because she is a woman and that she desires exceptional support. Melinda cites the management failed to respond to her queries to the lack of gender equality in business management. Melinda is not clear, and she keeps on jumping from one area of concern to another without citing facts that Alex finds it difficult to follow up on her interests. Alex is very positive in helping Melinda to fix the current problem because it has only happened in the last three months of her 15 years of working. Melinda requests to be given an assistant to travel with her during her sales travels. Alex cites the technical challenges of allocating an assistant to Melinda due to the need to consider the compensation of the assistant, which might result in the loss of Melinda's bonuses, which she will have to share with the assistant. Melinda adds that the organization fails to respond in time has been detrimental for the organization due to the competition in the area, which has been carving out her potential sales opportunities.

Melinda is convinced that she can get the declining sales back in line, but she asks what she is getting in return by citing her job position stagnation for the last ten years. Alex gives Melinda an example of himself and how long it took him to get his position. Melinda is inquisitive about the lack of women in the managerial position in the organization, which she cites as a significant problem in getting her problems heard in the organization. Melinda comes back for the second performance appraisal, and she is six months pregnant. One of the primary complaints that Alex has is that Melinda has wholly failed to share her progress in recovering the sales or her condition. She blames her new state for her poor performance and failure to communicate with the regional sales manager. Despite Alex plea to Melinda that she should take a break, she insists that she will be able to continue with her work and attend the upcoming sales conference. Alex notes that Melinda has not been improving since the last performance appraisal, and she notes that most of her clients want to make a commitment to buy their product during the conference. Alex notes that he is too under pressure to answer the questions from the top management, which seeks to know why her territory has been underperforming and not meeting the set targets. Melinda is very defensive and opposes Alex's suggestion to take over her area and help to salvage the situation. She notes that her clients do not like dealing with non-Latinos, and they are skeptical about changes, which makes her the best option for the company in her South American territory.

Alex advises Melinda to take up the maternity leave plan, which the company offers, which will be good for her. The company provides three unpaid months for maternity, which Melinda cites will be difficult for her to make ends meet because she is paid on commission. Melinda hopes that the company can consider her a long time that she has been working the organization to help her. Melinda later confesses to Alex that the reason why she has not been able to make sales in the last 4 months is that Emanuel Dasilva who accounts for half of her south American sales forced to have an affair with her to protect her sales, but he later became unresponsive, and she wants to go to the upcoming conference to confront him.

Critical Issues in Alex and Melinda Case Study

Performance Appraisal Role in a Business

One of the most evident issues in the case study is the overall position and role of performance appraisal in any business. Performance appraisal refers to a systematic approach through which organizations evaluate employee's performance by measuring individual employee productivity against the established organizational goals. It is imperative for organizations seeking the betterment of employees and achievement of set organization goals to create performance appraisal methods for the organization. The human resources department plays a central role in the creation and implementation of performance appraisal methods. Performance appraisal should be carried out at least annually; performance appraisal gives the employees a chance to reflect on their performance of organization duties. Performance appraisal provides a performance feedback by evaluating the attitude, behavior, and personality of an individual employee regarding a specific job profile. Performance appraisals have been known to promote communication between organization management and employees. This enables the organization to indicate its expectations towards specific set tasks, and the employees also can show their hopes in the organization management. For instance, wages, treatment, and working conditions. In the case of Melinda and Alex, the performance appraisal could have helped to improve the overall outcomes of sales in the South American territory. However, Melinda's lack of cooperation and sharing of relevant information due to fear of gender insensitivity and lack of female senior managers to conduct performance appraisal significant affected the overall outcomes of their interaction and led to a further decline in sales.

A performance appraisal is instrumental in assessing the performance of the organization employees, after which it can be easy for the organization can establish avenues to promote the performance of the employees and the organization in general. A performance appraisal helps an organization to develop areas and departments that are not meeting expected organization target goals, which is crucial in establishing intervention plans like training the employees, adding more employees in a specific sales territory, or using technology to complement the efforts of the individual salespeople. The company can use performance appraisal as its basis to create a promotional plan for the employees who perform better, and those that show stagnation or poor performance can be demoted. However, in the case of the company where Melinda and Alex work, there is no clear framework for promotion, which has led to Melinda's career stagnation for the 15 years she has been a salesperson for the company. Performance appraisal should be able to create competition amongst employees and improves organization productivity and performance. In addition, performance appraisal can be used to develop test validation for the job description for different organization roles.

The Lack of Proper Communication Channels

Excellent communication and professionalism in an organization is an instrumental source of improved productivity and can improve the overall organizational competency in establishing fundamental problems facing an organization. Communication is the skill of indoctrinating a message and conveying it to another person or group of persons. There is a significant communication barrier in the case of Alex and Melinda due to the gender barrier in which Melinda is not willing to open up to Alex because she thinks her problems could best be addressed if there were women in the organization's senior management structure. Communication is an essential means to generate and transfer information in an organization setting. Interaction considerably manipulates organization management the same as the accomplishment of an organization's processes. Communication refers to the progress of data from one rank of organization management to another rank. The lack of proper communication between Alex and Melinda results in sustained poor performance in her sales territory, and she only opens up to Alex of the challenges and gender-based intimidation problems she was facing in the field when it is too late. Managers use diverse communication models to assist communication at different organization levels. Communication is also fundamental, especially during a performance appraisal, by helping to reveal the key challenges being experienced by the employees that negatively affect their performance. Excellent communication is vital for every business organization; in an aggressive market, small business organizations must set up suitable communication processes to uphold organization competitiveness. Management teams in diverse organization settings need to master the art of communication to successfully coordinate organization activities and also seek important information that can be used to improve business performance. Communication is the primary link between the employer and the employees. The communication barrier between Melinda and Alex negatively affects the business sales outcomes in Melinda's sales territory due to fear of gender insensitivity in expressing her problems to a male sales manager.