Reference no: EM132889316

Shirley and Raymond were working together on a common project of great importance to their employer. Shirley was at the head office in Montreal and Raymond was temporarily stationed in France. Raymond joined the company one year ago and saw this first expatriate assignment as a step on the path to the future promotion that he aspired to achieve.

Shirley was also considered for the assignment but she had personal obligations in Montreal that made it difficult for her to relocate for six months to another country. In the end, she had declined. She had eight years of experience in her current position, and there was no doubt she was essential to the company, but she still felt that she was missing some of the more challenging aspects of the client work in the field while she remained at the head office.

Anxious to stay on top of the project and worried that he might not be successful on his first assignment in the field, Raymond bombarded Shirley with text messages and emails throughout the day from France. He never wanted anyone to "beat him to it," and he felt that he needed to be the first to communicate with Shirley about questions from the client. Besides, the client was so demanding, Raymond felt that he could work day and night, and there would still be more to do.

Of course, with France being six hours ahead of Montreal, these messages often reached Shirley in the middle of the night. The constant pinging on her phone, as early as 2:30 a.m. frustrated Shirley immensely. Some of the messages pertained to important issues, but others were pictures and short videos of the life in Paris. If she didn't respond immediately, Raymond would message her again, and on and on it would go all night long. Even though Raymond knew it was the middle of the night for Shirley, he couldn't tolerate waiting for her to respond and his tone would get more and more argumentative with everyone as his day wore on. He could feel his chest tightening and heart rate rising when he didn't have answers to his (and the client's) questions. Sadly for Shirley, she was losing precious hours of sleep and it was really throwing her off.

For over a month, Raymond did not relent. He kept sending messages all night long and getting angry when Shirley did not respond within minutes. Then, all of a sudden, Shirley stopped responding to his work-related messages until it was afternoon in France (9:00 a.m. Montreal time) and she started to ignore his personal updates.

Raymond was furious that Shirley was prioritizing his messages even less than she had before, and he decided to go directly to their superior, Pablo, to ask him for assistance. Raymond was completely shocked when Pablo called him back and started yelling at Raymond about how he should never have waited until the last minute to let Pablo know that there was a problem with the project. Raymond was blindsided. Shirley had never indicated to him that a minor delay would be such a big deal.

Embarrassed that he had lost control of the situation in the field - and trying to cover for himself - Raymond blamed Shirley's lack of responsiveness for the problem. But Pablo said it was Raymond's responsibility as the person in the field to make sure the client was happy - whether he was the senior person on the team or not! Raymond knew that Pablo was right. At this point, he was worried about whether he could get things back on track.

QUESTION

Apply the model of stress in organizations (e.g., stressor, stress, stress reactions, personality) to the situation for Raymond in the case. In your answer, be sure to identify two (2) stressors that could have affected Raymond and to discuss the stress model fully. Provide one (1) recommendation that could help Raymond to reduce his stress in the case. Provide a rationale for your response and use information from the case to support your analysis. Make sure to include a word count with your answer.