Case Summary:

CEO Janette Briggs calls Frank Schuman, V.P. of Human Resources to her office where he finds her engaged in conversation with Pedro Gutierrez, head of operations, and Marlys Higgenbotham, CFO, about her experiences on the reality TV show Executive in Disguise. Janette announces that she is having second thoughts about rolling out the employee of the month program. After spending time with employees in some of the resort facilities she was amazed at their high level of teamwork, planning, and pride in their work. She turns to Frank and asks what they should “really be doing” as the top managers to motivate their employees. Franks responds in an interesting way. He says “Maybe what we don’t want to do is decide what will make their jobs better. What I mean is that we need to listen before we decide.”

Case Discussion Questions:

1. What steps might the top managers take to design motivating jobs for the camp staff?

2. How could they use a reward system to reinforce the feedback process?

3. In what ways might the empowerment of employees affect the success of the company?