Ashley was a young woman who worked in a government institution as one of the finance managers. The organisation employed over 3000 staff across a number of different sites both onshore and offshore. Ashley started out as a young 17 year old in a junior assistant role and had worked her way up the corporate ladder to a very senior position in the organisation over a period of ten years. She was determined, a quick learner and loyal. She was also aware of keeping up to date with her professional development and had enrolled in a Masters of Accounting. This was particularly pressing as she did not have a bachelor degree and knew how important it was to have qualifications in her industry as well as the necessary experience. Over the years, she had worked in a number of different areas within the organisation and through her different roles gained a number of different skills. Her professional career was going well and she was enjoying her expanding role, especially the move to have her now managing a small number of staff within her unit. Changes were taking place within Ashley’s immediate environment (as a manager) but also in her surrounding environment (within the organisation). Some of these changes included a new strategic direction for the organisation, a new CEO and new policies and procedures. All of this meant a lot of change for the organisation on many different levels. Ashley was heavily involved in many of the strategic planning sessions and meetings for her department, and was often relied on for her expertise by senior management. Other changes included restructuring certain positions within the organisation and refreshing the branding and marketing of the company. One particular change included the CEO starting a blog to inform both internal and external customers of what was happening and the different projects the company was involved in. This blog was intended to be another form of marketing communication with the wider community that the organisation dealt with. While the CEO was always informative and spoke about general business, other staff members and the wider community were also able to comment and post on the blog. This allowed those that worked within the organisation and those that did not to leave messages for everyone to view. While most posts on the blog would be aimed at questions for the CEO on different projects that were developing, a growing number of disgruntled employees were also using this site as a place to anonymously vent their frustrations with the changes. Most of the 3000 employees were busy working on their day-to-day operational duties and did not frequent the blog. However, whispers of what the disgruntled employees had been posting began, and more and more staff were starting to log on just to find out what others had to say for that particular day. These staff were publicly bagging the company, management and anyone they were upset with. It was apparent that some staff were not happy with the changes being made. Like any organisation, this one had staff that had seen it all, those who had been there since the very beginning, those who had been there for a few years, and those who were brand new. Internal politics were raging and the marketing blog was used as the vehicle to further the rumours. Staff were now more concerned with what had been published on the blog than what work needed to be done. While Ashley was relishing her new role as a manager within her department and learning new skills, she was unaware of the comments that had been posted on the blog about her. While the anonymous staff member had not used her name, when she saw the comment she knew they were talking about her. There was too much history there that couldn’t possibly be coincidental. This person was questioning her professionally. How could she be in a managerial position at such a young age? What specific qualifications/experience did she have to be able to do that role? Why was she promoted over others to that role? This person was able to question her professional integrity without exposing themselves. How could she prove who it was, and what should she do? Once Ashley became aware of the comments on the blog, she went to the CEO’s office and informed them. She thought that would be the end of it — the CEO would make sure that this person was not allowed to make such defamatory comments and would remove them from the blog. However, the comments remained and nothing was done. Other people were also jumping on the commenting bandwagon. It seemed it was free-for-all to publicly vent. Each day it would get worse and worse, and staff were wondering what was going to be said next. Ashley was disheartened — how could the CEO 472 not listen to her and understand how she felt? She was being publicly defamed and the management didn’t seem to care. The corporate culture of the organisation was going downhill drastically. While the CEO was still trying to move forward with the company’s strategic intent, staff were more interested in what was being posted on the blog. Ashley was becoming more and more stressed at work. She was unable to complete her tasks in a normal work week and would often be at work long after everyone else had left. She was constantly having to have time off for migraines and would often be sick with colds. She wondered why she even bothered if this was how people viewed her and her CEO wasn’t willing to stand up for her. After a number of months the productivity of the company was starting to suffer. The CEO finally realised what impact the blog was having on the employees of the organisation, removed the negative comments and issued warnings to staff about posts on the blog. This was a public site where everyone could view the organisation. The blog would now be monitored for inappropriate posts. Ashley was relieved that the comments had finally been removed. However, she wondered how much damage had already been done. How did her colleagues really feel about her? She applied for a similar job in another department managing a larger team and budget to further her career skills. QUESTIONS 1. What are some of the HR implications of having a public forum (social media) where staff are allowed to post comments for the wider community to view and read? 2. What is the most important part of implementing change? 3. If the corporate culture is deteriorating what impact would this have on the organisation? 4. Certain levels of stress are good in order to help people accomplish things; however, too little or too much stress is not healthy. What could be the impact to your organisation if staff are stressed? Provide an example of a program or policy that could be implemented so that your employees could deal with stress better. 5. What should the CEO have done when first setting up the blog? Here it is 1500 words under Australian laws and rules if required Sidd: 15:19 please make sure it’s under Australian laws
