“Well,” Lia thought, “I guess I’m going to have to do something with Eileen” As the new manager of the Blue Whale Research project management: Human Resource Management Case Study, TCD, Ireland

“Well,” Lia thought, “I guess I’m going to have to do something with Eileen.” As the new manager of the Blue Whale Research project management team, Lia knew she had to make a decision about Eileen, one of the project management employees she had inherited.

While Eileen’s client relationship skills were excellent, her detail work had slipped in terms of quality, and just yesterday there was a serious and highly visible incident involving Eileen in front of one of Steve’s clients. Due to her newness in a managerial role, Lia had delayed making a decision about Eileen. However, now she was thinking, “This has been put off long enough.”

As a Project Manager, Eileen’s position is one of support for Steve, who is a client service representative currently on probation. Steve had asked Lia and Eileen to attend the meeting to give his difficult client the impression that BWR had the bench strength necessary to serve their needs.

Prior to the meeting, Lia thoroughly reviewed the client’s file and determined that Eileen had handled everything appropriately from a project management perspective. She realized, however, that flaws in the original design of the study—something for which Eileen was not responsible—were creating problems with this client.

In light of this, the atmosphere in the room was tense when Lia and Eileen entered the meeting, and things went downhill quickly from there. When the client asked for the most recent production reports, Steve turned to Eileen and repeated the client’s question, intimating that he had requested them to be available.

Everyone looked at Eileen, who obviously was not prepared to produce the reports. As Steve had ultimate authority with the client, Eileen simply stood up and said to the client: “I am sorry; I’ll have them in an hour.” Eileen left the room and as the door closed, Lia listened while the client started yelling about the incompetent way her account was being handled, threatening to complain all the way up to the Chief Executive Officer of BWR.

Steve apologized to the client, trying to calm her down. He placed responsibility for the mishandling of the project directly on Eileen and promised to remove her from the account. Eileen returned in less than an hour with the reports, and the meeting proceeded without further incident.