Erik Peterson

4 Pages 1023 Words

The problems facing Erik Peterson

In this case, Erik Peterson had faced sever situation in GMCT. For example, he had not even known that to whom he should report. He thought that he should report to Jenkins directly before, but in reality, he had to report to Jeff Hardy as his supervisor. Furthermore, he could not receive any useful advices or comments from Jeff Hardy because he had not had system operating experiences ever. That made him isolated in the position and more or less, it caused system implementation to fall behind the schedule. Also one more big issue was his direct subordinate Curt Andrew. He did not have right skill for the planning aspects of the chief engineer’s job, which was in critical role in the system construction. Thus, problems Erik surrounded were so tough and challenging one.

To review such situation objectively, I think there were four main issues as follows.
• Improper job assignment
• Insufficient reporting relationship with supervisor
• Unclear salary policy
• Communication gap

Improper job assignment
Jeff Hardy and Curt Andrews were typical case for this problem. Jeff was a director of budget and plans and he was Erik’s direct supervisor. But he did not have any sufficient skill and experience. Therefore, he could not give any advice and supports to Erik. And Curt was a chief Engineer but he had difficulties in handling the planning aspects of the chief engineer’s job. Those situations are possibly based on skill-mismatch between position and its staff. In my opinion, I think Erik is also mismatch to his position because he also had not had enough experience in system operation field before.

Insufficient reporting relationship with supervisor
As for reporting, Erik had tried to communicate with his supervisor Jeff Hardy many times, but he could not understand what’s going on in practice and what caused several problems in the project. Consequently, it assumed that Jenk...