Case Analysis Fred Maiorino

Introduction of Fred Maiorino

Fred Maiorino was young and energetic and his age was 28 years old, when he joined Schering-Plough. He started his professional and long career in this company in 1958. He became part of their sales team and worked hard for many years to come. His hard work and dedication made him, one of the best employees and salesman of the company. He served in Schering-Plough for 35 years of time, which happens to be very long period to stay in one organization. It was his commitment to the company and his job, which made him to work so long. But after so much hard work, and so many years of relationship with the company, he was ultimately fired in 1991. This incident happened after few years’ time, when a new General Sales Manager named Jim Reed took his charge in Schering-Plough. But it is important to mention here that it did not happened at once, rather it took three years for Jim Reed to fire Fred from his job. The things started back in 1988, when Fred received his lowest ever performance grading in the company. Then Jim Reed tried to motivate Fred and customized a performance review solely for him, and he found that Fred was not doing up to the mark, as young salesmen were doing, so ultimately, he was fired from his job. Now, it is important to analyze that where Fred or Jim went wrong, and what else Jim Reed could have done to motivate Fred to work with utmost loyalty, hard work and commitment.

Detailed Analysis of the Case Fred Maiorino

            It has been observed in many cases that there are various reasons behind demotivation of employees. The best thing for leaders and companies is to keep an eye on those reasons, which demotivate their employees, who don’t feel happiness and satisfaction in doing their job. There are certainly few factors, which keeps employees satisfied or unsatisfied. According to Forbes Article, it was said that there are various common reasons behind demotivation of employees at workplace. One of the crucial reasons is micromanagement, which means that a closer eye is set on the performance of an employee, and he/she is given a feeling that he/she is not trusted anymore, so he/she will be closely monitored. This practice disengages employees from their work and commitment. They don’t feel valued and often leave the job, or don’t feel any energy to do his/her tasks (Hedges, 2014). This is one of the reasons that Fred felt demotivated and disappointed as he was being closely monitored from Jim Reed, and it was found that he was staying at home in various instances, whereas he should been out for work. It is important to look at few other aspects that why Jim Reed was not able to motivate Fred:

Lack of Transformational Leadership of Fred Maiorino

It has been observed that transformational leadership is important to keep employees motivated and committed towards their job. According to Ahmad, Abbas, Latif, & Rasheed (2014), the transformational leadership has four dimensions. The first one is intellectual stimulation, which means that employees are inspired to look at things more intellectually to find out solutions. The second dimension is individualized consideration, which means that followers get support and encouragement from their leaders. The third dimension is inspirational motivation, which means that leaders inspire their followers to increase their urge to do well in any given task, and last dimension is idealized influence, which means that leaders become role models for their followers so that they get influenced and work hard. But when Fred’s case is looked in relation to these four transformational leaders’ dimensions, it is quite evident that Jim Reed did not apply any of these dimensions, rather he was putting constant pressure on Fred to do well and increase his performance.

Jim Reed could not do his job well in terms of motivating one of the most experienced and oldest employees of the company, who has delivered so many successes over the years. Jim Reed was not able to inspire Fred with his charismatic leadership traits, which are part of a transformational leadership personality. A successful leader inspired his subordinates, keeps them motivated all the time, so that a full committed and loyal performance can be made sure by employees (Aunjum, Abbas, & Sajid, 2017). It was revealed in the case that when Jim Reed joined the company as General Sales Manager, he met Fred and asked him to help in understanding business and deriving strategy for future. These words from Jim Reed were important for Fred to feel valued being one of the most senior and experienced employees. It created a psychological understanding between the two and Fred was expecting to get more value and recognition. But he was literally shocked when things started to get worst for him, as Jim Reed was not valuing him as a senior employee; rather his performance was being measured by comparing performance with young salesmen. It is a fact that transformational leaders master the psychological aspects of their subordinates so that they can be kept motivated to do well in any given situation (Susilo, 2018). But unfortunately, Jim Reed was not able to do it at all; rather he showed the essence of authoritative leadership.

Lack of Goal Setting Fred Maiorino

            It has been observed that when employees’ performance is reviewed or when they are given harsh wordings on their performance, they absolutely don’t like it. When companies come up with rigid performance reviews everything going against employees, it means that level of motivation of employees will certainly go down. But there is great alternative to this strategy, by flipping it in a way that company gets its purpose served, and employees too don’t feel any pressure or demotivation. The alternative strategy is goal setting, which can serve all the aims of a performance review, but it does have a different impact on employees. When companies give some goals to achieve and allows employees to look at their future targets with some realistic approach, it means that they will go after those goals. They do so because they feel inspired, valued as well as empowered. The companies should involve employees while setting goals for them, moreover business goals and individual goals should be linked together, and goals should also be adapted in real time (Chowdhury & Hioe, 2017).

But when Jim Reed strategy is analyzed to deal with Fred and his performance, it was evident that goal setting was lacking. For most part during his performance review, Fred even did not know that what was expected by him to achieve. This is not the way to deal with employees especially, when they have served so long for a company with so much proven success. If Jim Reed wanted something best out of Fred, then he should have sit together with Fred to set some realistic goals, which Fred would have also agreed to achieve, and with this collaborative approach, Fred would have felt more valued empowered, and could have done lot better than what was revealed in the case. The theory of goal setting works well in achieving desired task performance from employees. If Jim would have realized the importance of goal setting theory, and applied it accordingly, the scenario and result would have been totally different (Locke & Latham, 1990).

Discrimination on the basis of Age Fred Maiorino

            It was described quite clearly in the case that performance review system established to review Fred’s performance was not applied on other young salesmen, who were working earlier or newly hired. It was really disappointed for Fred to see that he was getting an unfair treatment, which is certainly based on his age factor. If there was any other factor, then all salesmen would have been reviewed with the same criteria, but why only Fred was being scrutinized like this. Even Jim Reed was spying on him to know whether he was at home, or working outside as per given criteria. It was not being done for all employees, which is quite unfair, especially for a person, who has served so many years with great success in a same company. The unfair and discriminated treatment on the basis of age or any other reason never encourages employees to perform as per expectations. The employees feel demotivated, pressurized as well as depressed when they face any kind of discrimination and unfair treatment by their employers (Hammond, Gillen, & Yen, 2010).

Lack of Recognition and Reward of Fred Maiorino

            It was quite clear from the case details that Jim Reed was not realizing the fact that Fred has served this company for more than 30 years, which often does not happen in many sales jobs. People tend to switch jobs for more benefits and opportunities. But Fred stayed with the company for so long period and still he was looking to work more five to ten years for the same company. Such employees are assets for a company as they have given their so much to the company from their young age. Jim Reed should have recognized his efforts and some kind of rewards & respects should have been given to Fred. It has been observed that reward and recognition improve employee’s commitment, loyalty, and urges to work harder for the company. When employees receive recognition for their efforts, they feel valued and come up with more efforts to show their commitment towards their job. Jim Reed could have increased this level of commitment and motivation for Fred by providing recognition and some kind of rewards (Baskar & Rajkumar, 2013)

Conclusion and Recommendations on Fred Maiorino

            After analyzing the case and looking at other findings from literature, it was clear that Jim Reed was on the wrong side of the matter. He was the one, who could not motivate and inspire Fred to do well; otherwise things would have turned differently. So, here are few recommendations to elaborate that how Fred could have been motivated by Jim Reed:

·         It was revealed in the case that Fred was being treated and reviewed differently as compared to other young employees. So, if Jim really wanted to motivate Fred, he could have done that by treating everyone equally. He should have provided same review system for all employees

·         If Fred was not performing up to the mark, then his poor performance could have been tolerated. At least top performers and senior employees are human in the end, and they can make mistake. But employees like Fred should be given a chance to give explanation for his poor performance, and should be given another chance

·         Apathy is important to keep employees motivated and committed, so Jim Reed should have shown more apathetic behavior towards Fred

·         Jim Reed should have recognized Fred role as a senior player in the company, who can guide other young salesmen that how they can perform well by taking less time as they do (Bradberr, 2019)

 References of Fred Maiorino