Assignment

The Background

Judy Maples, the appraisee, has been working for the housing authority, in one of the branches in the northwest, for nine years. She is 45 years old and has worked for other building societies.

During her nine years with this society, she has progressed to taking responsibility for all the front-desk transactions within the branch. This involves many tasks, including balancing the cash drawers, assigning duties for the staff, and handling new accounts. Judy dislikes change, is very quiet, and prefers her own company. She takes pride in her standard of work and has always been left to run the front-desk operation the way she believes best. This changed with the arrival of the new branch manager, Barry Hopkins. She finds him extremely difficult to relate to since his methods are so different than those of the previous manager, and in her opinion, he is loud and self-opinionated. Because he wants to change so many operations on the front desk, she is having difficulty knowing where to start.

Barry Hopkins is 27 years old and has been working for the housing authority for five years, having joined as a management trainee out of college. He is considered a potential regional manager and is well respected for his managerial skills. He moved to this branch 9 months ago and has enjoyed the normal challenges that face a manager when taking over a branch, especially one from which the last manager retired, having been there for 20 years. He has found that Judy Maples, the supervisor on the front desk, has been used to doing things her way, some of which are not totally in line with organizational policy. He finds her very hard to relate to since they are so very different in character and style of management.

The Appraisal Interview

It is now the appraisal interview and Barry has asked Judy to prepare her own appraisal. The interview seems to have gone reasonably well so far, although Judy is not forthcoming at all and seems very agitated. She seems to agree with the comments made by Barry, yet it is obvious by the way she agrees that she is not totally happy with the way the interview is progressing and the way things stand generally.

If you were Barry, what action could you now take?