Work Issues, Essay Example

In my company, there is a serious problem that exists with our organizational framework.  Many of the departments have multiple responsibilities that overlap and it directly impacts the effectiveness of the work that is being produced for each customer.  Consequently, there is an issue between two employees that has continued to increase over time and has recently heightened to the point where neither employee speaks to the other.  It has begun to start a rift between the marketing and graphic design departments within our company and several of the employees have begun to take sides regarding the issue.

It is somewhat of a complex issue, but the gist of the conflict is simple enough to understand.  First of all, Employee A and Employee B work for the marketing and graphic design departments, respectively.  Each department is responsible for delivering a quality marketing campaign for our major client, which will be called Client One.  Employee A is responsible for heading the marketing efforts and creating the physical content for each marketing piece, which includes brochures, flyers and even the web site.  On the other hand, Employee B is responsible for taking the content and putting it together to create the overall appearance, which can involve coloring, fonts, alignments and much more for every marketing piece.  This is a direct overlap of responsibilities and because each department is heavily graded on efficiency, productivity and client satisfaction there are heightened emotions between the two departments.

Employee A’s team produced quite a bit of literature for Employee B to put together into a brochure, flyer and power point for a presentation to Client One.  However, Employee B analyzed the material and noticed that there were several grammar mistakes, content errors and statistics that were incorrectly used for justification of the marketing campaign.  Therefore, Employee B changed much of the content to improve accuracy within the marketing literature when creating the appearance of each piece.  Employee A immediately noticed these changes and took offense to Employee B attempting to do the work of the marketing team.  A heated discussion resulted in security being called to have Employee B removed from the premises due to a physical altercation.  Neither employee was fired, but Employee B was suspended for two weeks without pay while Employee A was suspended for one two days with pay.  This created an even greater debate between each department, and now there are very serious feelings between each group as to who was at fault, what the responsibilities are for each department, and why both employees were not disciplined equally.  Many employees believe that because Employee A is a department assistant manager and Employee B is an entry-level designer, their power within the company played an important role in determining each course of action.

I believe that the best course of action should have been to suspend each employee equally.  This would have been the best action based on utilitarianism.  The considerations for this philosophy are based on what departments are impacted, the message that is being sent by management to all employees, and the position that the company is taking on approving or disproving specific conflict behaviors and how departments should interact with one another.  By having two different disciplines, the company is supporting the marketing team and implying that managerial staff is more important than entry-level regardless of what each person’s behaviors may have been.  Ultimately, the clients are the individuals that suffer the most.  By reacting to this issue in this manner, the management staff failed to see its true impact on the entire company.  Both departments are arguing amongst themselves and management is receiving multiple complaints from employees and clients for work inefficiency.  My position on this issue would have eliminated any disparaging thoughts on power conflicts or departmental issues.  The message to all employees would be that every person is to be held accountable for their decisions.  Furthermore, a memo to employees stating that any conflicts between departments would result in further disciplinary actions would show that management is unbiased and the company must concentrate on what is best for the customer at all times.  This utilitarian concept is best for everyone involved because it eliminates present and future conflicts and focuses on delivering a quality product to the customer that will only increase future company earnings.  All parties’ interests are satisfied and the issue ends in a simple argument between two co-workers, nothing more.