Handling Personnel Problems
“Give me an example of a time when you had to han-
dle a personnel problem and what you did.”
■“One of the people I supervised was not following the pro-
tocol for making requests. I asked him politely to use the
forms that everyone else was using, but he became bel-
ligerent. I took him aside when the opportunity presented
itself and told him that he and I needed to have an under-
standing so that we could work things out. He knew that I
would eventually have to take the problem to the next
level and decided it was in his best interest to cooperate.
There were no further problems after that, and from then
on he followed procedure and acted professionally toward
me and the other team members.”
■“I had a difficult problem with a supervisor who was taking
credit for the work that her team accomplished. Some of
the team members came to me and complained. They said
it was affecting their attitude. I called the woman in and
explained how her taking credit was affecting production
and morale. She became very upset that others saw her
that way, and she said she was unaware of her behavior or
the reactions of others. She wanted my advice as to how to
change the situation, and I suggested talking to each per-
son about how much she appreciated his or her team
effort. She took my advice, and there was a noticeable
improvement in morale as well as in her behavior after
that.”
■“Selling the concept of change when merging companies
has been one of my greatest challenges. When a company
of a similar size acquired my current company, it seemed
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