Wk3Discussion
Describe, in detail, the situation involving workplace drama and/or negativity.
Workplace drama creates a hostile working environment for everyone.
It causes employees to be unfocused and
create errors[ CITATION McQ19 \l 1033 ].
At a previous employer, I had a store manager (Ralph) that liked to gossip. He would talk to employees about other
employees. I was the Assistant Store Manager at the time.
After settling into the position, I discovered employees knew personal information about each other that was not
common knowledge.
I brought it up to Ralph and he just blew it off saying they probably overheard the
information. A lot of stuff didn’t add up. One of the main things told was Kathy was pregnant and no one knew
except Ralph. She told Ralph to let him know since he was the store manager. She wanted to keep it a secret until
she was able to tell the father which worked on the weekends at the same store. She did not tell anyone who the
father was. The information got out and everyone in the store knew she was pregnant.
Kathy came to me to talk.
Of course, I took her to my office, and we chatted for about an hour. Within this
conversation, Kathy explained that she is afraid to come to work because everyone knows about her pregnancy.
Also, the father of her baby asked if he was the father and caused problems because he didn’t want to deal with all
that.
Both were 18 and about to graduate high school.
Interpret the manager’s role in either fueling or permitting the drama or negativity.
Ralph started the whole situation when Kathy came to him as an employee letting her boss know that she was
going to have situations come up where she would have to miss work. Ralph told Kim then Kim told Dave, then so
on. As a leader, confidentiality should be the up most priority. Ralph should not have discussed anything with
anyone. He instigated gossip and drama which created a hostile working environment for Kathy and the father of
the baby (Chase)[ CITATION Wak18 \l 1033 ].
Explain how the manager might have behaved differently and propose some recommendations for the manager
to foster a more positive, drama-free work environment going forward.
The first action should have been for Ralph to keep his mouth shut about information Kathy told him. He should
have offered her support, help, and worked out a schedule plan for her as she progressed in her pregnancy. When I
brought it to his attention, he should have addressed it with everyone, but blew it off like it didn’t matter[ CITATION
McQ19 \l 1033 ].
I arranged an employee meeting with the entire staff.
I talked about work-place drama and creating a hostile
working environment.
One employee asked me what they should do if upper management is creating the drama.
I
assured them they are not untouchable. We need to create a positive atmosphere for all employees. I also
explained if they hear any gossip or rumors, bring them to my attention so we can smash them before they get out
of hand. After this meeting, my office was flooded with employees coming to me about rumors, gossip, and other
problems. All of them traced back to Ralph, the store manager[ CITATION Wak18 \l 1033 ].
I ended up calling the
District Manager that set up a secret, undercover situation for about a week. The store manager was stealing
product but hiding it by allowing employees to blow off their job duties.
He also was trying to get rid of employees
he did not like by starting rumors. The undercover situation revealed a lot about the Store Manager that got fired. I
came to work the next morning and was given all the information, keys, passwords, safe combination, and
everything to be the store manager.
After about a month, things got a lot better.
There were happier employees. Even customers complimented on the
change in the store.
