I think the most demotivating part of Harper’s job is the lack of recognition (and feedback) for taking on additional workload (although overall communication from management is low and also needs to be addressed.

If I were David’s supervisor and he came to me for advice on how to help Harper feel engaged again (presuming David noticed on his own that Harper is feeling disengaged, which in my read of this case study is definitely not a given), I would suggest he set up regular recurring one-on-one meetings with Harper (somewhere in the once a week to once a month range) to discuss her current workload, positive and constructive feedback, and what her progression options are (including what she needs to work on to be promoted). I would strongly recommend David assess whether Harper’s workload is reasonable, with the goal to reassign work as needed (and being careful not to take away the interesting projects and leave her only with the less engaging/less promotion-oriented work). He should also stress that his door is open for any discussions Harper needs/wants to have outside of regular meetings.

There are several costs to the company in losing Harper: the costs (monetarily) of searching for and training a replacement hire; the loss of institutional knowledge she has; and the demoralizing effect on the other marketing team members when they see a good employee leave because the company appears to not care enough to work to retain her (and the possible catalyst effect this can have if those team members become inspired by this to leave themselves).

Talisha Smith

March,22,2021

Professor. Brielle Buckler

Retention Assignment

Although Harper enjoyed what she has done for many years she has reached a point where she no longer enjoys working for her current company. This is due to her former manager leaving the company and her new manager not being as supportive as the last. Harper is also working so hard that she does not have time for her personal life. Without a work/play balance Harper will become burnt out and then she will not be any good to her company.

David should meet with Harper and give her positive feedback on the work that she has been doing. He should also ask her what he can do to assist her and how can he help her moving forward. David should communicate that he may not be able to help her all the time, but he will try his best to help her so that she does not feel over worked. He should also keep her up to date on things involving her workload and help her prioritize what needs to be done first.

Harper enjoys doing what she does and has been with her company for three years. She is also experienced and able to do managerial work which is a great bonus to any organization. Although she is doing more then one job and is over worked losing her would mean you would have to replace two people. Most importantly the company will lose a dedicated employee who not only enjoys what she does but can move up throughout the years.

I think Harper would benefit from all the steps in the retention article. David following those steps will ensure that Harper not only feels respected and valued, but that she is part of a team with a supervisor who cares and wants to see her grow professionally. 

1. I think the most demotivating part of Harper’s job is the fact that she is now doing twice the work now that Jose is gone but is still behind so its as if she isn’t making any real progress and is always playing catch up.

2. If I was an HR manager the advice I would give David is to give Harper a schedule of availability that he has in order to meet with her one on one so he may answer any questions or concerns that she has so she can be guided better, but also to possibly have the talk about her taking over Jose’s position and getting a promotion.

3. The downside of losing Harper is that you would have to hire and teach a new person what Harper knows how to do very well and also the amount of work that would have to be made up from losing now two employees would be too much to make up.

Of the eight effective retention strategies I believe the best one that would work best in Harper’s situation is number 4 which is Create a Culture of Open Communication considering how that was a big point for her with her previous boss Jose.

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

I think that the most demotivating part of Harper’s job is that she doesn’t get any recognition for her work and she doesn’t get acknowledged or appreciated by her new manager. My reason for this statement is that when you don’t get recognition you tend to lose motivation and don’t want to keep moving forward in a company if you feel depreciated.

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

Advice that I would give David is to make more time to meet with Harper and communicate with her, acknowledge the work and reward her with attention and other things to make her feel like she is bringing value to the team, and to give her feedback so she knows what to improve on and she knows how well she is performing on a day to day basis.

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

The downside of losing Harper is that the team will be backed up on work and everything would be delays because other people have to help take care of her responsibilities while having to worry about theirs at the same time.

Amadou bah

March 21, 2021

Prof: Brielle

Spring semester

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

The demotivating part of harper’s job is that her boss Jose has left the organization. Her workload has increased, she has limited communication with the new boss, she feels overburdened and she doesn’t feel valued.

1. • 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 was the HR manager the meeting with Harper and the advice, I would give is that I would create channels of communication with Harper and make her feel valued. Also, give her feedback, on her contributions.  Further, he can review her workload and responsibilities and distribute some workload to other team members giving her time and space to manage her responsibilities effectively.

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

the downside of losing Harper as an employee would be that the company would have to find a new employee and train the employee to adapt to company culture and work style. The new hiring would consume a lot of time, effort, and taring. Finally, the company would invest a lot of time taring the new employee would not adapt may not adopt the culture of the job.

After reading the “Eight Effective Retention Strategies” I feel like number six would work the best for Harper and her situation. Number six is “Don’t overburden Employees” which is about not working your employee to a breaking point where they are treat unfair. In the case Harper was working more than ever and that was what lead to her wanting to leave the company.

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

Well, it all starts with Harper last boss leaving which she had a great relationship with, then on top of that her job has become more since she had to take more responsibility because she has to do more work since some of the thing her previous boss did, she had to do now. Therefore, she became stressed because she couldn’t handle the her personal and work life. She understood her new boss had a lot on his plate too, but she felt unappreciated.

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 was in a HR manager meeting with Harper’s supervisor, David, I would advise him to dedicate more time and help Harper more since she had taken more responsibilities and had more work than ever now.

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

One downside about losing Harper as an employee is that she is an experience employee since she has been working that role come out of college, so losing someone that has some much time working that role would slow down the team if the person replacing her is not as experience with the role.

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

The most demotivating part of Harper’s job is not being able to get the recognition that she fully deserves from the amount of work she is putting in for the company. As for that, losing the main person who was able to give her the same amount of work that she was putting in had to let go and became something that Harper had to get use to the situation despite the work relationship they must’ve built together. With her new boss David, she loses that connection she once had with Jose and now lacks that ability to cooperate at a good level to ensure that work is being kept up a good pace. With that, it brings down the motivation to continue working under her new boss David due to the lack of communication and ability to keep up with the work balance since Harper is doing more than what she has been doing.

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

I would do my best to set up a meeting with David to reassure everything that’s not working out in the company, coming up with positives and negatives to seek out a plan to re-engage Harper. Make sure that the boss is fully aware of how employees need to checked out on a daily basis and be kept a level where there is a good balance of work and happiness. If both those don’t present themselves, it can bring such a decrease of happiness at the workplace which makes the employees feel unstable to continue working at any place that they don’t feel wanted or appreciated at. I would also make sure that David is showing good communication to not just Harper but throughout all the workers to make sure they are all on the same direction to reaching the company’s goal.

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

The downside of losing Harper as an employee is losing someone with passion and dedication towards her company no matter what. Loyalty as well due to her being at the same company ever since she had finished college after 22. She’s been there for 4 years. Having a person that brings good energy along with a good work ethic needs to be appreciated and looked at as an important figure to the workplace. Not much workers at any workplace bring that sort of style compared to Harper where she even stayed dedicated when the work was piling up on her even though eventually it had gotten to a limit where she couldn’t handle it any longer. At any cost, keeping an employee like Harper is something that needs to assured 100%.

The most demotivating part of Harper’s job is the added workload without compensation. Harper not being fully compensated for the extra work, which has taken away from her work-life balance, is the most demotivating aspect.

If I were an HR manager and meeting with David, I would let him know he needs to sit down and talk to Harper. He needs to commend her for the job she is doing. David needs to be told that he has to think about a couple of things: 1. Promote Harper to the supervisor position and hire a replacement for her position. 2. Hire someone to replace Jose in the management position but still compensate Harper for the work she has been doing. 3. Have the work Harper is doing split among more team members. This is a way to lessen the workload of Harper and to ease her stress level. 4. I will insist that David make time to always interact with his employees. This is to build employee morale and have them know what is going on and how their work level is aligned with the company’s perspectives.

The downside to losing Harper is that she is a true team player and is willing to go the extra mile for the team. She is not afraid to take on extra duties when the time arises; she wants to be appreciated and informed about her work environment.

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

I feel like what is demotivating Harper Jones would be the way she isn’t getting recognized with the amount of work and extra work she has been doing. I can also see another reason to be that her boss left the organization which must have been hard for her since they have been working together and had a strong connection together. Harper has been struggling in her communication and work relationship with her new boss David. David is also lacking in the workplace by not communicating with the team as a whole and not visualizing what Harper is doing out there. Harper has been feeling very unappreciated and unrecognized which I believe to be the main reason why she feels demotivated. When there is no communication between the boss and employees there is a lack of chemistry, lack of leadership and can affect the workplace as a whole

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

Being the HR manager, the first thing I would do is to meet with David and see how he feels about the whole situation to hear his part first. After this meeting I would let him know and show him that first thing in a workplace should be to make sure every employee feels greeted and very appreciated for the work they are doing. As for Harper, I will make her and David sit down together to see where they are, she has been in the company for 4 years so this wouldn’t be new for her which is a big highlight for her. I personally feel that Harper should know her position in this job and that spot would be a higher role than what she has at the moment or possibly if she still needs a couple more years then lower her workload which would up lift her spirit once again with her job. Most importantly that they will speak about this why not set a goal for the company as a whole to be on the right path again? Harper needs to get recognized more often and not feel worth less in the company, David should start checking up on not only Harper but everyone in the job. Doing all this can put them on track and up lift Harper and the rest of the guys again as a whole.

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

Losing an employee that loves to work in a company can really affect the company a lot, it can impact the company in many ways. It will be a huge downside if they end up losing Harper because Harper was an excellent employee that naturally loved working for the company. She loved doing what she was doing which is amazing for a company to have someone like that working for them. Losing an employee in general causes the job to find someone new, training them and expecting them to live up to the expectations Harper once reached. Someone like Harper is someone you don’t want to lose in any company because she was pretty much the heart of the company and I don’t really anticipate the company to do so well without her presence in the company.