Imagine that you are a high level HR manager at a large advertising agency. Most of your employees at the agency are involved in highly creative, artistic work. The agency is understaffed and experiencing relatively high turnover. Workload is high, deadlines are short, and people are working long hours. You have heard rumors that employees are feeling high levels of stress, and that some of them are even getting burned out. You would like to administer an organizational survey to measure employee stress and burnout, but upper management is resistant to paying for it. They aren’t convinced that stress and burnout are worth worrying over. How would you make the case to upper management that stress and burnout are important and should be considered?
(a) [15 points] Please write a brief e-mail to upper management to convince them.
(b) [15 points] Upper management believed you! Your survey showed that, indeed, many employees are experiencing high levels of stress and burnout. Management recognizes that they need to hire more staff, but employment levels are high, and qualified candidates are hard to find. What three interventions would you recommend to reduce stress and burnout in the meantime? Please be specific and reference the appropriate concepts from class.
2. [30 points] Abdu is a branch manager at a large bank. Abdu’s boss calls him into his office to discuss some "recent concerns" about Abdu’s branch, which has experienced high turnover. Abdu tends to believe that the events that happen to him are mostly out of his control, which makes him nervous about the meeting. Abdu is shocked to find out from his boss that his employees have been complaining about his management style! Upon hearing this, his face turns red, his breath gets short, and he can’t stop thinking of how unfair he is being treated. Despite never having talked to Abdu about his performance in the past, his boss tries to start an honest conversation about Abdu’s strengths and weaknesses as a manager. However Abdu is too distracted to engage with his boss, angrily wondering which of his employees betrayed him. Please analyze Abdu’s problems using three concepts from our class. Clearly underline each of the three concepts you use in your answer.