Ethics & Leadership
EMPLOYEE SCENARIO
You are the team leader on a project. You are supervising 4 employees and you just hired another employee to the team. The new employee is from another country with excellent credentials. She is a team player and her work so far has been impeccable. However, the other 4 employees have made complaints to you about her. They told you the following information:
1. She prays in the bathroom and lunchroom during breaks and it makes them uncomfortable;
2. She brings her lunch to work and they do not like the smell of the food she eats. It forces everyone else to eat lunch in their offices or go out to lunch. They don't think it's fair;
3. She speaks another language on the phone sometimes and they find it disrespectful; and
4. It is difficult to understand what she says sometimes and it's frustrating sometimes. They feel that she needs to take an English course to improve her communication skills.
None of these employees have a problem with her work product. In fact, her work is, by far, the best work you've seen in years!! You definitely want her on the team and you want to make the work environment pleasant so that work will get done and the common goal will be accomplished. Identify the issues. What are you going to do here? Use what you learned in class and through the readings to come up with a plan of action.