As Manager of the Accounting Department at the Low Price

Multiple Choice

As manager of the accounting department at the Low Price Warehouse, Babette noticed that the cohesion of the collections team was rather low. Each team member was assigned a section of the alphabet, A-D, E-G, etc., and was responsible for calling only those customers within that particular range. In terms of division of labor, this worked well, but it also kept her employees in their own specific bubbles, resulting in few interactions between team members. To address this, Babette instituted mandatory Friday afternoon meetings where she would provide coffee and brownies, and employees would pair up, and each person would present the other's weekly report to the entire group. She felt this would give the entire team a sense of what others were working on and would encourage healthy competition once everyone knew what everyone else's stats were. As soon as she began holding the meetings, one of her best employees, Jermaine, began leaving the office just before the meetings began. He always turned his reports into her before he left, and they were always accurate and well written, but he never showed up at the meetings. When Babette talked to Jermaine about his absences, he sheepishly explained that he had a fear of talking in front of groups. Applying the concepts behind secondary appraisal, how should Babette deal with Jermaine's avoidance issue?

A) require Jermaine to attend the meetings or be given a formal reprimand
B) arrange for Jermaine to attend an intensive class on effective public speaking
C) discontinue the meetings to make sure Jermaine is not uncomfortable around his colleagues
D) make meeting attendance voluntary and hope that Jermaine will attend when he feels less pressure to do so
E) allow Jermaine to continue to skip the meetings because in every other way his work performance is exceptional