Managers supervise a variety of types of employees as part of their work. Most employees perform effectively most of the time. But any management development session eventually comes around to a discussion of employees like AI, Susan, Alicia, or Chip. These four employees are employed by a small conglomerate in the Chicago area, BigLot Incorporated. BigLot owns manufacturing and retailing units.

• AI is the salesperson who had the largest sales increases of any of the sales force just after he was hired. Later, his sales dropped off. When his supervisor checked, AI was found to be making just enough sales calls to reach his quota.

• Jessica is a good worker. However, there are a few days when all the forms she types have serious errors on them. These apparently are the days Jessica is drinking.

• Alicia seems to do good work. She is courteous to the customers. She puts the stock up quickly and marks the prices accurately. But Alicia takes more than her paycheck home every week.

• Chip is a pretty good employee. But Frank, his supervisor, is driven up the wall by him. Chip just can’t seem to follow the company rules. And when Frank tries to talk to him a bit, Chip gives him a hard time and may even seem to threaten him if he tries to do anything about the problem.

At present, BigLot Incorporated has no well-organized discipline system.

• If you were the manager for these four employees, what action would you take to address the current performance problems for each employee?

• How would you prevent the issues from happening again?