human resources motivation problems

Case Review / Proposal

Key Issues

EBTech might have a cash flow problem, and it definitely has a motivation problem. There might be a leadership gap in the development team, and that in turn is negatively affecting morale. The CEO feels that the development team is disengaged from the major project on which the future of the company is staked.

Possible Solutions

There are a number of ways to address this. First, the CEO has to step in and fill whatever leadership void now exists. It might take too long to bring in outside talent. Somebody within the development team should be promoted to run this project, which might be rudderless at this point. But the CEO might have to get involved here to instil a sense of optimism and motivation. What news is leaking is generally both speculative and negative – none of which is okay for morale. The reality is that everybody needs to be focused on the task at hand, not distracted by the defections or concerns about a cash crunch.

The CEO also has to look inward here. There does appear to be a disconnect where she sort of sees the devs as not having the right motivation, but she doesn't seem to really know what's going on in that department, and is afraid to address it head-on. Yet, somebody has to. So the best solution right now is probably that the HR professional gets in there, talks to the people in that department, and finds out for certain what the key issues are – diagnosing the problem from afar, on the basis of opinions held by someone who seems to have low emotional intelligence, is simply not good enough. My first task is to listen to the other side of this, and only then formulate a plan.

Summary

It is recommended that I, as the HR superstar, sit down with the members of the development team individually to find out what's going on. There are several potential issues here. If time and cash are both scarce, then we have to know exactly what the problems are before we can solve them. We don't have time to guess, or to simply throw solutions to the wall to see what sticks. Thus, the next week will be spent listening to the developers, and talking to finance as well, in order to understand this situation fully. It is probably a leadership void, but the best solution to that is to find some leadership, and it will be easier to do that if I have a chance to talk to the key stakeholders.