Our last major speech asks you to practice a complex communicative interaction, where you respond to a personnel issue in a corporate setting. Acting as a first-line manager, you will prepare a 3-minute chat with an employee you supervise (played in this speech by a classmate) about an issue touching on corporate policy, ethics, or performance. You will prepare a 3-minute statement that is the bulk of the chat, simulating the initial stage of a difficult conversation at work.
The specifics of what people say will vary from situation to situation, but in general your prepared statement should 1) briefly summarize the incident/issue, 2) explain and inform your employee about the relevant corporate policies or best practices, and 3) outline guidelines for future action and persuade/motivate the audience to adhere to these practices as part of future success. You want your audience to understand and be able to act in accordance with what you’re telling them. At the same time, you do not want to attack or shame your direct report. It might help to think of this as a “teachable moment” rather than a mistake that’s being corrected.
Scenario:
You’re the crew leader at Prometheus Transportation solutions, where you manage a staff of 6 hourly employees. While you help out with different tasks, they are responsible for staffing the front desk, completing rental contracts, servicing and inspecting vehicles, and interfacing with customers. One of your employees, Jason, who has been on the team for 2 months, has started to arrive late. At first, it was just a minute or two and was barely noticeable. However, over the last two weeks, they’ve arrived late 8 different times, including showing up 20 minutes late today. They are always very apologetic and provide some kind of reason, e.g. bad traffic, issue with their alarm clock, long line at the coffee drive through, but it has become a problem. It is time to sit this employee down and have an honest talk. You may wish to consult the company’s attendance policy and think about what to do if the employee cannot follow through on promised changes.
Attendance policy: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kh1crg646e3zmxw/Sample%20Workplace%20Attendance%20Policy.docx?e=1&dl=0
Please be professional and careful when creating the dialogue, on the other hand avoid using strange words.
(Please prepare the statement following the instructions and do not use external sources.)
USE THE ATTENDANCE POLICY AS A REFERENCE AND INCLUDE IT IN THE STATEMENT.
do not write the employee responses, just the first-line manager statement
