The Research Branch, a small non-profit management development form, has employed Sue for the past 6 months. Sue’s responsibilities can be categorized in 3 major tasks; (1) Keeping track of the branch’s budget, (2) making your travel arrangements and providing you with graphics and work processing support, (3) providing administrative support for the other four members of the research branch. Although Sue has 15 years of secretarial and administrative experience her performance has been described as less than stellar for the last six months, and specifically over the last month has been unsatisfactory. Sue is chronically behind on the branch’s budget and not able to complete it without repeated help, travel arrangements are not always in line with the workshop schedules, workshop materials are not arranged in proper order, and she’s routinely needs help with any graphics that are not identical to what she was exposed to in training. These issues are complicated, or perhaps created, by the fact that Sue’s personal life can be distracting. The other four competent members of the branch are frustrated with Sue, feel drained by her constant need for assistance, and need to focus more on their own projects and job responsibilities. Sue does appear to recognize the importance of the completion of each task as she puts in a full eight hours day, sometimes with overtime, and is not afraid to ask for help when she needs it. Since it is explained in the case that Sue is very good at following clear instructions and completing tasks she has experience with one solution that may help improve Sue’s, and the efficiency of the entire branch, is to provide detailed chronological work instructions for some of her responsibilities where appropriate. This would of course require some up front time and creative commitment from the other members of the branch but in the long run it would prevent the repeated need for help and allow all team members to focus on their own projects. Written work instructions on how to manage the budget might be an appropriate task to start with. Since Judy has methodically explained how to do the budget to Sue four times since Sue has started it would be easy for her to document the process. In fact, Sue could document the process herself while Judy explained it so it’s organized in a manner that she will understand when referring to it later. Another good task for work instructions would be assembling materials for new executive development workshops or simply organizing them in the supply room in the order they need to be assembled. The work instructions for this task could basically be pictures of each assembly item arranged in a slide show in the order they should be assembled. Another area that could be looked at to help improve Sue’s success is training. Although it is stated that she received several weeks of training for Apple graphics and word processing packages, she still needs help when working on either when exposed to anything that is not exactly like the training. Perhaps it’s not the amount of training that she was given but the quality of training. It could be the case where the training was too focused on certain aspects of the graphics and processing package and not broad enough to be able to apply the training to a variety of situations. Also, it is explained that Sue is very good with tasks she has experience with and the budget is not something she has experience with. Her only training exposure with the budget is Judy’s help in “bailing” her out. In that instance you might expect that Judy only explained enough to Sue in each instance to get the task completed so she could get back to her responsibilities. It would be appropriate to provide formal training for the tasks related to the budget. It is stated in the case that Sue often appears distracted at work which can be largely attributed to her personal life. Both her and her husband were recently laid off from a high tech firm and moved to Minneapolis in search of work and Sue is now the only bread winner. Even more recently her husband returned home after resigning from a sales job in San Diego. It would seem that a significant amount of personal life stress and distraction could be alleviated if Sue’s husband were gainfully employed. It would not be completely far-fetched to consider employing her husband at the branch. He has recent sales experience and presumably intelligent as his previous long term employer was a high tech firm. The most drastic solution would be to terminate Sue’s employment. If all the facts are considered that does not seem unreasonable. She has been employed for only 6 months with the research branch of which her performance has been describes as less than stellar and continuing to decline. Sue often arranges travel so arrival times are hours later than the start of the workshops which does not make clients perceive the branch in a positive manner. She generally ignores instructions that she’s unsure of and repeatedly needs for help. The budget has been explained to here four out of six months and does not appear she has complete understanding yet. Considering she had no budget experience, the amount of time she pulls others from their tasks, and the dissatisfaction expressed by other branch members she might not have been the best of the 100 applicants. Sue seems to be consciences working who’s willing to put in the time and effort, and ask for help if necessary to meet her work responsibilities. I believe the best solution for this circumstance is to provide a combination of work instructions and improved training. Work instructions will certainly decrease the likelihood that mistakes will be made as a result of personal life distractions and the training will give her the knowledge she needs for the budget and prevent her from pulling other branch members from their responsibilities. Employing her husband may only provide more distractions than already exist and he may not have any abilities that branch can use. Finally, terminating her employment would be a last resort if the previously mentioned suggestions don’t show improvement. The branch already has some time and money investment in Sue and hiring a replacement would provide a gap in the administrative work that may be more frustrating for the other members than Sue is providing.