Reference no: EM132963952

In August 2020, Bill Gruber submitted a resume to the Human Resource Department of Big Time Computers Inc. in response to an advertisement in the local newspaper for a Senior Technical Writer. After a short interview process in which three of the four individuals on the selection committee felt that he should be hired, Laura Conroy hired him.

Gruber spent a three week training period learning departmental methods and procedures, becoming familiar with Big Time's products, and preparing for his first writing assignments. As a senior writer, Gruber was also expected to serve as a technical publications project leader for one of Big Time's product groups. During the training period Gruber attended project meetings to meet the employees from other departments who were involved with that product group and to become current on what was happening within it.

Following the training period, Gruber started his first writing assignment, the revision of a software manual to reflect upgraded product software. Gruber went two weeks beyond the scheduled date for completing the first draft of the revision. In editing the first draft, Hanson felt that the writing quality and organization were poor, and he suggested extensive changes before the manual went out for review. Gruber implemented these changes and prepared the manual for review. One week before the review, Gruber sent an advance notice E-mail message to the reviewers, notifying them of the upcoming review. Mike Simpson, the project leader for the product described in the manual, pointed out to Laura Conroy that the message was sloppy, with misspellings and poor grammar. He expressed concern that the credibility of the Technical Publications Department was at risk if the quality of any of the written material that went out to the entire company was poor. Hanson and Simpson also expressed concern to Conroy about Gruber's writing ability.

Conroy decided to implement some procedures to monitor Gruber's progress and temporarily give him more supervision. She set up weekly meetings with Gruber during which he was to give her a detailed status report for the week, with particular emphasis on tracking manual schedules. She also required Gruber to pass his work to the technical editor on a chapter-by-chapter basis, and each week Hanson would meet with Gruber to discuss his writing. Conroy also decided to postpone giving project leader responsibilities to Gruber, but she had him continue to attend project meetings with Miller, and planned to give Gruber a project in the future.

Some resentment was starting to develop in the Technical Publications Department due to Gruber's failure to meet expectations. Several of the writers complained to Conroy because Gruber had been hired as a senior writer at a higher salary, yet apparently his writing skills were inferior to theirs. Miller also expressed dissatisfaction at having to serve as project leader for two projects when the expectation was that Gruber would take one of the projects. Hanson fell behind in his editing assignments because of the extra time he was spending with Gruber, and the editorial assistants complained about the quantity of cleanup required because of Gruber's poor work. In private meetings with dissatisfied employees, Conroy expressed faith in Gruber's abilities and urged patience while she worked on developing his abilities.

Gruber showed signs of improvement in his writing skills and his ability to meet schedules under the procedures implemented by Conroy. As a result of this, and because Gruber now had four months' experience at Big Time, Conroy assigned Gruber to do a marketing article on a topic related to his area of technical expertise. Gruber was to work with a marketing engineer and a marketing product manager to develop the article by a specified date. When the initial review of the article was due, Gruber gave the first draft to Marketing without any review or edit from within the Technical Publications Department. Marketing was dissatisfied with the organization and content of the article; Dick Sanders, marketing product manager, met with Laura Conroy to express this dissatisfaction. Although Conroy assured Sanders that Technical Publications could complete the article to his satisfaction and on schedule, Sanders decided to have the article written by a marketing employee.

Though his writing skills were slowly improving, lingering resentment continued about Gruber's status and salary as a senior writer. Morale in the department was low. Hanson continued to have a difficult time fulfilling his editing responsibilities due to the extra time he was spending with Gruber, and Miller couldn't meet manual schedules because of the time spent fulfilling project leader responsibilities for two projects. Laura Conroy knew that it was time to act.

1) Based on the given information, your understanding and further research, you are required to discuss the following issues:

-Relationship between staffing and performance management
-Managerial control and decision making
-Termination decisions
-The role of an established group in new employee socialization

2) After that, you are required to provide recommendations on how to solve the problems presented in the case