High Turnover at the Cafeteria Sean’s first job out of college was as a supervisor for Lyle’s Catering Services. One of Lyle’s main businesses is managing the food service operations at colleges and hospitals. Sean has been given responsibility for the cafeteria at St. Paul College. He has a staff of approximately twelve full-time and fifteen part-time workers. The cafeteria is open 7 days a week, from 6:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. Sean has been in the job eight months and has become frustrated by the high employee turnover. Just since he’s been on the job, three full-time and six part-time people have quit. Sean went back and looked at the personnel records for the past five years and this pattern has been a constant. He’s frustrated by the cost and time involved in continually hiring and training new people. He’s decided he needs to do something. Sean has begun informally talking to employees. None seem particularly enthusiastic about their jobs. Even some of the “old timers”—who’ve worked in the cafeteria for six years or more—have little enthusiasm for their work. In fact, the part-timers seem more motivated than the full-timers even though the average part-timer makes only $11.50 an hour versus the full-timers’ $15.00.

Responding to the Case

1. Using what you have learned from studying the various motivation theories, describe the situation at the cafeteria.

2. Describe what you think might be Sean’s biggest challenge in motivating the employees at the cafeteria.

3. Recommend a motivational approach for Sean to use and explain why it would be an effective way to deal with the situation at the cafeteria.