Case Study

The Friendly Supervisor

Avishek manages the customer relations department of a public utility company. The

department is responsible for replying to customer requests for information and to customer

complaints. There are seven typists in the department who handle the correspondence to

customers dedicated by the staff.

Avishek recently promoted Rachana to office supervisor. Rachana had been a typist in the

department for ten years. She was considered the fastest and most accurate typist who had

ever worked for Avishek. Rachana has the best attendance record in the department and

Avishek considered her his most dependable employee. She was very well liked by all the

typist and they considered her to be a good personal friend.

As a supervisor Rachana does a good job handing out work assignments, but she does little

else to supervise the typists. She does not like to criticize the typists and does not enforce

office rules. No matter what a typists does Rachana will not take any disciplinary action. She

makes no attempt to check the work of the typists for compliance with quality standards or to

see that work is complete on time. In fact, she spends most of her time typing to reduce the

work load of other typists.

The human resource department have been receiving an increasing number of complaints

from various staff from different departments about the poor quality of the typing and about

the slow turnaround time of the work. A number of the complaints target towards Rachana’s

poor supervisory skills, complaints were also received about the typists under Rachana taking

excessively long coffee breaks and spending time on personal phone calls. The Human

resource department convey the complaints to Avishek who has been asked to inquire and

rectify the problem.

When Avishek talked to the typists, they told him that Rachana frequently invites them to her

house for dinner or to play bridge. It appears to Avishek that the typists all like Rachana as a

friend, but they are becoming concerned about her lack of supervisory skills. Avishek

mentions to Rachana that she should focus her effort on improving the work of the typists.

She replied, “These woman are my friends and I don’t feel right cracking down on them”.

Questions

1) Can an individual effectively manage a group and be a close personal friend with

group members?

2) What should Avishek do to ensure that the work of the typists will improve?

3) Should Bobby have been promoted to office supervisor?

4) If you were Rachana, what would you do? Would you quit the supervisor’s job?

Would you no longer be friends with the typists?

Question and answers

1) Can an individual effectively manage a group and be a close personal friend with

group members?

No. As a manager, all relationships should be bounded and defined. They're not about

liking, chemistry, or personality. Relationships that are personal can only produce

disappointment in the long run.

But it is not impossible to maintain close personal relations with employees but the

employer must abstain from one-way authoritative directing as giving preference to

one employee can lead to disdain in minds of others, a manager must adopt a

democratic style of management to ensure mutual respect.

In the case of Rachana, her close personal relationship with her employees proved

catastrophic, the other typists took advantage of her often taking longer breaks and

becoming lax in their work. Rachana was unable to supervise the other typists and this

lead to many complaints being put against her and the department, to manage the

group Rachana has to have a meeting with the human resource department as well as

her superior Avishek on how to handle office and personal relationships, as well as

implementing stricter rules to ensure efficiency in work if not the only option would

be a demotion or attrition.

2) What should Avishek do to ensure that the work of the typists will improve?

As a manager it is Avishek’s responsibility to ensure that the typists improve their

performance, and to help Rachana the supervisor, to enforce rules. Holding a seminar

on office relationships can help Rachana to understand by ‘cracking’ down on her

friends only then can there be proper work done. The seminar can also speak to the

typists under Rachana to be aware that taking advantage of friendship within the

workplace is not ethical as it would cause problems within an organisation.

3) Should Rachana have been promoted to office supervisor?

Yes it was right to promote Rachana to the position of office supervisor she has been

working in the organisation for ten years and has been a productive employee.

But she lacked the ability to separate her personal relations with her co-workers

against the demand of the organisation.

4) If you were Rachana, what would you do? Would you quit the supervisor’s job?

Would you no longer be friends with the typists?

As a supervisor it is Rachana’s duty to orient and train, assign work, evaluate

performance, approve time records and requests for time off’s, resolve complaints and

discipline employees including enforcing rules.

No, if I were in Rachana’s place I would neither quit nor cut away from social

niceties, rather I would adopt a democratic style of management as well as a change I

attitude towards employee relationships and find balance maintaining friendly

relations with co-workers as well as looking over their work; it is unavoidable that

clashes will occur with the other typists which may potentially damage relationships.