Question

As a manager, you meet with each of your team members quarterly to review their progress toward their written and agreed-upon goals. One of your employees, Claire, had a goal of increasing sales in her territory by 10% in the first quarter of the year. However, when you review Claire’s sales numbers, you see that her sales have actually gone down. You know that Claire is a hard worker and has an excellent relationship with her customers. When you sit down to discuss Claire’s performance, she explains what is happening in her territory. A major automobile manufacturer, which once provided 25,000 jobs, has moved its operations to Mexico and laid off all 25,000 of its workers. As a result, the economy in Claire’s region has become quite depressed, and the residents are living off their savings.

Taking the steps of the planning/control cycle into account, what is your best course of action with Claire?

a. Terminate Claire's employment with the company.
b. Arrange for Claire to take a refresher course on sales methods.
c. Transfer Claire to another territory and replace her with another sales rep who is new to the company and therefore "hungry."
d. Recognize the economic reality of Claire's territory and change her goals to make them ambitious but realistic.
e. Put Claire on probation, explaining that she will be terminated if her performance does not improve in the next quarter.

Answer 1

Answer: d. Recognize the economic reality of Claire's territory and change her goals to make them ambitious but realistic.

Explanation: a,b and d are all punishments and will cause the company to lose a valuable and hard-working member which does not make sense since it is not her fault. c. is not a very option either as it would involve relocating Claire which she may not want, is not necessarily fair to the new sales rep, and could potentially cause profit and sales to go down even further by having a new sales rep work this territory. c. d. is the best option because it will be kinder to Claire and will keep the company running smoothly.

Hope this helps! :)