Importance of Attitude 

Once again, we will be focusing on our managerial skills.  Imagine that you have just been made the boss of a new clothing store and you have five different people that work for you.   Read a short description of each of your employees below:

James–has been with the company for two years.  He is always polite to customers, and he typically encourages customers to buy additional items that they might not have planned on.  He makes customers feel good about coming into the store as well.  James always reports on time and his transactions are always accurate on the cash register.  While James is really wonderful to the consumers he is not very nice to others on the team.  He refuses to stock merchandise and to refold clothes to make the displays look nice.

Maria–has been with the company for three months and she has never missed a day.  Maria is a little on the shy side, but the customers always speak very highly of her.  She is very helpful when it comes to assisting customers by finding different sizes and clothing that is on the display racks.  She is very helpful to the other members of the team and will go out of her way to fold and bag clothes during checkout to make the job easier for the person who is on the register.  Maria will pro-actively fold merchandise and restock inventory.  Before she closes the store for the night she always takes out the garbage and sweeps all of the floors without being asked.

Amber—arrives for work almost ten minutes late nearly every day.  She is always apologetic, but some of her excuses are not very believable.  Amber changes all of the displays in the store often, and she has a great eye for what customers would like to buy.  Amber works very hard when the boss is around.  However as soon as the boss leaves she hides in the storeroom and texts her friends.  She doesn’t care if her co-workers are forced to work harder.  Sometimes, she even talks to her friends while she is in the front of the store.  When asked about her behavior by the last boss she denied ever using her cell phone during the work day.

Jerry–arrives for work early every day.  He is positive and polite to his boss, co-workers, and to all of the customers.  He has gone out of his way to learn new responsibilities such as receiving and unpacking new merchandise that is received by the store.  Jerry will volunteer to come in on his days off when other employees call in sick.  However, Jerry makes a lot of mistakes when it comes to giving change to customers.  He never steals money for himself, but he also makes mistakes not ringing up all of the merchandise that customers put on the counter.

Anna–often calls in sick to work because she is very busy with her friends.  She brings a lot of her friends into the store to see her and shop and during her shift sales are usually up.  Anna often offers discounts to her friends without permission to get them to buy more merchandise.  Whenever the last boss spoke to her about it she was rude and argumentative, threatening to tell her friends not to shop there any more.  She has been with the company for two years and has had arguments with three other co-workers who have quit because they did not want to work with her.

The school year is almost done, and you have received applications from two people who you think will be good employees.

Discussion Question:  Will you make any changes to the team?  Is there anything that you will do differently as the new boss?