Bob Knowlton

Bob Knowlton

Description

Once graduated with a business degree in financing, Robin Martin-Jones, is recruited to work on a Fortune 500 company. As part of the recruiting process she is informed of all opportunities available to her and how far women have advanced within the company. Robin led a successful career for many years receiving top rated reviews and finally got a mid-management position supervising 10 financial analysts. Once Robin comes back from maternity leave she seeks new opportunities to see man get promoted. She is still receiving stellar feedback and great reviews but is not getting promoted. She stays with the company without promotion for three more years and finally resolved to quit to start-up a business with a colleague from graduate school.

Diagnosis

Robin seemed to be a motivated individual pursuing improvement for herself and her company. After coming back from maternity leave she keeps getting passed over by men for promotions. He drive for the company is eroded due to the lack of opportunities and challenge from her company.

Theory

Herzberg motivator-hygiene theory helps explain Robin’s case. The motivator-hygiene theory mentions that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction. Robin’s motivators to do well at work were a sense of achievement, professional growth, and more responsibility which came with every promotion. Her sense of dissatisfaction comes from extrinsic factors like the company policies, written and unwritten, which precluded from getting promoted.

Prescription

Short Term:

Management needs to help employees look into their short/long term goals and help them succeed -a development plan with milestones and clear achievable objectives should be formed during one on one meetings.

Fallout

People will always come to a point when they need to move on. However, such decisions should not be based on misunderstandings or lack of information on the hiring process when being passed over for a promotion. A feedback process should be instated to help any candidate understand what can be done to improve the odds at getting a promotion.