• What do you think is the most demotivating part of Harper’s job?

After Evaluating Harper’s situation, I think I found the most demotivating part of her job was that she not only lost a boss that she felt she had chemistry with, but also some of the effectiveness in communication, work life balance, and overall enjoyability on the job. Her new boss does not have as much time to dedicate to solely Harper, as he oversees an entire team not just 2-3 other employees and it sounds as if she feels she isn’t being seen or heard anymore at work.

• If you were an HR manager meeting with Harper’s supervisor, David, what advice would you give to help them re-engage Harper?

If I Had to put myself in an HR manager’s shoes, I would recommend that David possibly    find time in his schedule to meet 1:1 with Harper to see what she needs to succeed. If Harper is experiencing burnout because of increase in workload it would be helpful to decrease some of her responsibility or if she had PTO suggest she take some time off. Furthermore, I would recommend that David establish clearer deadlines and communication, offer an incentive such as a raise or promotion around performance review time, and hold meetings to recognize employees that are putting in extra work to increase morale. (Appreciation lunches if they are in the budget.)

• What would be the downside of losing Harper as an employee?

Harper has been in her position for the last 4 years since graduating, not only would it hurt the company to lose an employee who has almost hit the 5-year mark, but it also might create a domino effect of tenured employees leaving after seeing what Harper has dealt with. She has also talked with her friends about leaving, which may have an influence on some of the people she was close to in the company. Seeing how Harper has handled Jose leaving, this might create a strain on employees, and they may lose motivation to work hard, aka silent quitting. I also feel like since workload is already increasing across the board, if others were to start leaving it would pile more work onto the employees who decided to stay.