I need recomindations to how they should deal with problem. Case: The Reluctant
ID: 385667 • Letter: I
Question
I need recomindations to how they should deal with problem.
Case: The Reluctant Receptionist Superior Products Company has recently hired a new HR assistant, Virginia Fisher, who just received a college degree. Frederick Mills, the HR Director, was extremely pleased to find someone who had some familiarity with basic management concepts because he was the entire HR department except for a clerk-typist. During the interview Frederick emphasized that he planned to have Virginia function as his assistant and that she would be doing some interviewing and be responsible for maintaining employee records. Because Superior has over 300 employees, Frederick had been too busy to prepare anything resembling a job description except for some scrawled notes on the back of an envelope Everything went fine for the first week for Virginia. On Monday of the second week, Frederick called Virginia into his office and explained that there was another minor duty that he had not mentioned to her. Frederick said, "In order to get approval to hire you from the president. I had to agree that whoever was hired would be the relief receptionist from 11:30 to 12:30 every day. The switchboard is usually quite busy and we wanted to be sure someone who is capable would be the backup."Virginia was not very happy about this assignment being sprung on her, but she agreed to try it for a while Within two weeks she was beginning to dread having to work the switchboard an hour everyday. Also, she discovered that she was expected to be the relief if the receptionist was sick or unable to work. On Wednesday and Thursday of the third week the regular receptionist was sick and Virginia filled in for her. On Friday, Virginia told Frederick she was quitting in two weeks. When asked why, Virginia replied, "You misrepresented the job to me. You never said anything about my receptionist duties. If you had, I probably would not have taken the job."Explanation / Answer
The roles and responsibilities of a HR Assistant would be totally different from that of a receptionist. It is very obvious that a person who is trying to build a career in HR would feel hesitant to take the job of a receptionist. So the only solution to this problem will be to ensure that Virginia does not have to work as a receptionist and her job is just confined to the activities related to HR. Frederick needs to understand this and talk to Virginia to make her feel confident that she doesn't have to keep working as a relief receptionist on a daily basis for 1 hour. Like she mentions in the question, she wouldn't have taken up this job if being a receptionnist was a part of it. So keep both the jobs seperate and ask Virginia to concentrate only on the activities related to HR. Hire a new intern to work as a relief receptionist or ask the existing employees to cover that shift. The company should stick to its words and not make the interns do things that they have not signed up for. This can keep the interns interested and encourage them to concentrate more on their work.