Michelle has worked in sales at a department store for five years, where she initially was supervised by a supportive manager named Amy. Michelle likes her job, which gives her the flexibility to be in school at the same time, and she also likes her co-workers. However, when Amy leaves the store, a new manager named Will is hired. Will quickly develops a reputation for being difficult and providing harsh feedback. During her performance check-in, Will berates Michelle for an email she sent about her schedule for not following a new process and also questions her priorities. Other co-workers have begun leaving the store due to Will’s management style. Michelle wonders if she should stay in her job and, if so, how she should move forward with Will as her boss.
Michelle is a part-time student who has paid for her own schooling in university, and she is now working on a graduate degree in business. To support herself, she works part-time at a department store, where she receives commission for sales to customers, and has been doing so for over five years. She considers herself a flourishing, high-performing employee, and she credits part of her success in retail sales to her former manager, Amy.
Amy was Michelle’s first manager and was a professional when giving clear feedback to her employees, including Michelle, in a polite, respectful, and considerate way. Amy’s feedback made Michelle want to perform better and made her become the employee she is today. She could feel Amy wanted her supervisees to grow, and Michelle was always grateful for the relationship she had with Amy. Because Amy was so skilled at welcoming new members to the team, Michelle had formed strong relationships with her co-workers as well.
Amy recently left her position for a different opportunity, which was sad news to Michelle and the rest of the sales team, although they all wished Amy well for her new opportunity. Amy was replaced by a new manager, Will. This made the sales team nervous. Will was known as someone with a reputation in the company for being direct and pushy in his comments to colleagues. Michelle and her co-workers knew it would be hard to get used to another manager after Amy, and the choice of Will as her replacement made them all nervous. Sure enough, Will quickly became known for giving out harsh feedback. The sales team was somewhat shocked by Will’s behavior, and he even made a few people cry after sharing feedback. Michelle was initially unsure if her co-workers were overreacting to Will’s managerial style and thought that it just might take some getting used to a new way of working.
However, Michelle realized that her coworkers were correct when she had her own performance meeting with Will a few months after he started. When Michelle walked into the meeting with Will and other supervisors, Will immediately began scolding her. The week prior to the meeting, Michelle had sent an email letting her supervisors know the hours she would need to block off due to her new semester’s schedule for her school program, something she had done regularly since starting her job at the department store. Unfortunately, management had switched to a new scheduling process, unbeknownst to Michelle: now, Instead of emailing her supervisors, Michelle should have used an online system to report her unavailable hours.
Will used the meeting as an occasion to tell Michelle that he did not appreciate the wording of her email, noting that he felt her note was “entitled” and that her job at the department store did not seem to be a priority. Michelle immediately apologized and explained that her words had been misinterpreted. She explained that she had not known about the new scheduling process and had just emailed her hours out of habit. Michelle also explained that she was committed to her job at the department store but needed to balance her work and school. Nonetheless, for the duration of the meeting, Will reprimanded Michelle for the email and let her know that she ought to reconsider her ability to both work at the department store and pursue her studies.
Michelle was shocked and confused. She had apologized for what she thought was a simple and easy-to-fix problem regarding scheduling, and she could not understand why she was being spoken to so harshly by Will. Compared to Amy’s feedback, Will’s feedback made Michelle feel devalued and degraded.
After the feedback meeting, Michelle was so upset that she quickly began looking for another job. Michelle was also aware that she was not alone in feeling underappreciated by Will’s comments on her performance: other co-workers on the sales team had reacted similarly. One long-time employee even recently took a pay cut so that he could leave the department store, while two others had opted to transfer to similar jobs at a different retailer.
Michelle feels stuck. She does not know if she should alert other supervisors to the way Will’s feedback made her and co-workers feel. She is also unsure whether to reveal that his feedback is the reason that team members are leaving the store. She fears retribution from Will, who is in a position of authority over her, and she does not know the other managers well enough to trust that they would handle the matter sensitively. However, Michelle has also been working at her department store for a long time and does not want to simply leave the store and her co-workers. She feels an obligation to support the team members who remain, even if Will is going to be trouble. She also needs this job if she is going to pay for her school, and she worries she won’t be able to find another job with flexible hours.
Ultimately, Michelle wants to do the right thing for herself, the team, and the store where she has worked with for the past 5 years.
What do you think Michelle’s options are? How could she resolve this situation? What are Michelle’s responsibilities, and how might these responsibilities influence her decision-making?