Case Overview
The case looks at a company called Support.com that specializes in technology support. The company is roughly 11 years old and provides other companies, such as Comcast, technical support to their customers with purchased products. All employees of the company work remotely from home, while the corporate location has a large office in Redwood City. Support.com irritates that it is no longer a startup company, however, in many ways the maturity of its administration points otherwise. Jazmyn Robinson, a 2013 graduate from USF with a background in Communication Studies (also a team member of No “I” In Team), experienced the low-level administrative abilities in Support.com’s human resources department. She was hired in as a Temporary Contract Recruiting Coordinator in the fall of 2013. From Jazmyn’s initial perspective, the HR team appeared to be functioning just fine, but this was definitely not the case as time revealed. The HR Director, by the name of Erika, was the main cause of many problems that manifested in the department. Erika was employed for 7 years with the company, several of those years as the Director of HR. Erika had a background in Nonverbal Communication, as well as many years of experience in HR. Nonetheless, her inabilities to lead the HR team became quite evident.
In Erika’s initial greeting with Jazmyn, she referred to herself as the Grand Poobah, a term used to describe an important person of power. Jazmyn felt that Erika’s behavior was a little unprofessional. This incident was just the beginning of many later events, in which Erika illustrated herself as egocentric, demeaning towards others, and power-driven. In one event a contract coworker of Jazmyn, by the name of Ashleigh, was working with an employee on the phone, meanwhile Erika was telling a story that happened to her over the weekend. Erika acted out the scene by walking up and down the aisle near Ashleigh on the phone, while speaking loudly. Ashleigh took a brief moment to kindly gesture to Erika that she could not hear the employee on the phone, and Erika immediately fired back at Ashleigh with authority telling Ashleigh to relax and that she was allowed to talk in the office. After the call, Ashleigh left the office for a moment to refrain from crying.
In another event, Erika had been introducing a new business partner of Support.com to the entire corporate office. When Erika reached the HR department she introduced each company employee individually by name. However, when she arrived to the group of HR contract workers she quickly introduced Jazmyn and her coworkers as “the contract workers” and then moved along. The event quickly set the bar for Jazmyn and the other contract workers, measuring the significance of contract workers in the mind of Erika. The segregation of contract workers definitely showed relevance for introductions, for example one time Erika prevented an introduction of a business partner and two contract workers by running across the department to stop the conversation, but unsurprisingly it did not stop there. Segregation was also found during holiday parties and corporate meetings, in which she did not invite contract workers.
Under the leadership of Erika the department was also very disorganized and had poor procedures in place. When Jazmyn arrived, the recruitment process had changed 3 times during her 5-month contract, making work more difficult to grasp as a new hire. Employees in the office were not encouraged to keep updated on filing or keep their cubicles neat. The HR manager, Carrie, especially had a problem with disorganization of many confidential documents. Additionally, during the year of 2013 Erika managed to push aside and lie about the completion of a big administrative project, in which she tried to later secretly fix by hiring 2 contract workers to only work on that project. She assured that no one would be introduced to them or their project as they were particularly placed outside of the department in empty cubicles. Not to mention, the 2013 budget for the HR department was maxed out and over-withdrawn by $340,000 under Erika’s management, leaving little budget to pay for HR contract workers’ wages. Due to all of the issues the department was having, the reputation of the department, the face of the corporate office, and the company as a whole was essentially being scrutinized by non-corporate employees, company business partners, and inquiring candidates for positions.
The few HR employees in the department that managed to withstand Erika’s leadership leaked to Jazmyn and the other contract workers the horrible truth about the retention in the department, mentioning that Erika had had 14 employees come and go under her leadership and highlighting the reason why Erika depended on so many contract workers. It was evident to the company employees, as well as to the contract workers in the department that there was a serious team management issue. However, addressing the issues to Erika was never brought up in the team’s side discussions, demonstrating an obvious fear for consequences. Unfortunately, the thoughts about Erika did not only stay within the HR department’s walls. Employees from other departments in the corporate office as well as from other administrative offices took notice to Erika’s managing style and it became obvious to Jazmyn that Erika was not liked much.
Key Strategy Issue
After Brainstorming, our group came up with several issues that have affected the HR department’s team dynamics. In this situation, factors such as poor communication, aggressiveness, hierarchy, non-professionalism, and dishonesty came to the surface. This resulted in loss of job performance from all team members and employees’ retention. According to the Tuckman Model, the team was in the “Storming Phase” as there were many issues with communication and overall team harmony. Due to the Erika’s inability to lead the team, the team has continued to struggle in the same phase for last few years. The tyrant-like leadership Erika was running affected the team spirit for achieving business goals. Utilizing her deceptive abilities, she was able to misuse her power for personal gains, and taking advantage of contract workers which resulted in a less productive office environment where members communicate poorly. In addition to that, her negative attitude has forced many workers to leave the team. The “Rules of Engagement” are missing in the team’s development as various departmental problems continue to arise. However, even with many evident problems, the team still has some rectifiable strategies that can be used to address the team dynamics and contribute to the organization’s business goals.