Case Study One: Howe 2 Ski Stores

1. The main problems occurring in the Howe 2 Ski Stores were that ski orders were delivered a couple days late, customers waited to receive help from the clerks because they were engaged in conversations among themselves, employees complained how merit pay was only given to the moulders and as a result the other employees were not as focused on customer service as expected. Another main problem of the work place was how the employees did not charge all customers for the damaged equipment because of how poorly maintained the records were.

The main problems are equal between the personality and characteristics of the work environment. The employees slack off and do not help their customers to what is expected, and are very talkative between each other. This may be because they do not receive merit pay; therefore they do not work as hard as they should. That is a characteristic of the workplace. Another characteristic is that the ski orders are often delivered two days late due to the lack of communication between the employees and the moulders. The personality problem is equal to the characteristics of the work environment because the employees have a poor watch for damaged ski equipment, and do not charge the customers for it. As a result, the owners lose money.

2. The owners should maintain hiring knowledgeable employees, but should increase on the rules implemented, which will result in fewer conversations with each other and more with the customers. The owners should increase on punishing their employees who do not follow the new rules, and reward the ones who do. As well as maintain responding to the customer comments. Employees who continue to not meet the expectations should be fired, therefore may reduce the amount of people working.

3. Maris Howe’s attempt to respond to the difficulties in the store was done