Maria called her team to a meeting and informed them that the CEO and FD have asked her to find a quick result that would provide a financial saving.

Her team went away and after some discussion between them have suggested that substantial savings could be made by withdrawing free canteen lunches from part-time staff. It was estimated that savings could amount to over £12,000 pa. This was considered an excellent idea and free meals for part time staff were withdrawn.

That night, last Thursday, the CEO returned home to find that his wife, who works part-time in the accounts department, and children were eating but that there was no meal for him. On enquiring why he was told by his wife, “you’re not feeding me at lunch so I’m not feeding you at night”.

Maria has been asked to replace the free meal allowance for all part-time staff. Naturally, she is a bit agrieved at this loss of face and is blaming her team for the suggestion.

Maria, together with the Sales Director, has visited the sales team in Exeter to close the local office. The rationale is that the office is not profitable and this is true and from a strategic point of view a good strategy for the company.

She did spend some time with each member of the team in Exeter to explain their options and to offer outsourcing advice. She also provided a list of vacant positions in the company but as these were all based in Manchester (the other side of the country) it was not viewed as being entirely helpful, which in fairness was not entirely her fault!

It has been noticed by other people within the company that she is intent on pleasing the new Sales Director at the expense of other alliances such as the CEO and COO. Indeed the Sales Director is adept at playing office politics and is understood to see himself as having far more “business ability” than his other executive Directors. He has actually been heard to say that it is only a matter of time before the CEO will “have to go!”.

I wonder if Maria is pinning her colours to the Sales Director’s mast too early?

Maria has battled into work for the first time this week as a result of the inclement weather and has immediately sent an email to all staff stating that any time taken off as a result of the snow must be made up within a four week period.

As she had a difficult journey into work Maria has just left work to return home and has pointedly stated to those in her team that all this last week she has been “working from home”.

Her team have concluded that she meant that her email will not apply to her.

I am detecting that Maria’s reputation amongst her team and some other key influence centres (people) within the company is not entirely positive. Indeed Maria is considered by some to be somewhat opportunistic and self-serving. (One person has suggested that being self-serving in most departments is acceptable it’s unfortunate for someone in HR. An interesting observation!)

The first day back from the festive holidays brings a staff meeting between Maria and her team. Now that she has been in her new job for a couple of months Maria intends to implement her plans for cost savings within the HR department.

She has told the team that her intention is to exceed the Managing Director’s request that all departments make a saving on budget of 6% during 2010. To do this Maria intends to restructure the team slightly and reassign workloads so that specific people handle specific departments.

Maria has also told her team that she intends to review “search company and head-hunter contracts” when sourcing new staff and that she will renegotiate fees and payment terms. This means that “some search companies might be dropped” in favour of ones that Maria has worked with in the past and whom she trusts.

It’s being reported that Maria has been saying to senior colleagues that her team aren’t as good as she first thought.
There’s nothing specific except that she doesn’t like her deputy, Christine.

Christine is liked throughout the company as being very professional, hard working and thorough.

It is reported that Maria has mentioned to the CEO that she would like to recruit her assistant manager from her previous company. 

Following the strategy paper that Maria and the Sales Director produced a few weeks ago Maria has seen the first team that is being restructured, The Marketing Department.

The post of Marketing Manager and his deputy are seen as being redundant. In future these roles will be done by the Sales Director, who sees himself as an expert on the topic.

This has come as a shock to many people in the company as the Marketing team have been credited with increasing company profile and being instrumental in the development of new product ideas that have kept the company at the forefront of their industry.

The gossip around the coffee machines would suggest that many see this move as the Sales Director “consolidating his position” as opposed to looking forward to the company’s future success.

Maria has been at her new company for a month and seems to have settled in well, although her team have some reservations around issues of trust. They see her as being self-promotional as opposed to a “team advocate”.

Over this last few days Maria has been working with the CEO and Sales Director to look at restructuring teams. With the drop in sales resulting from the depression certain posts are now seen as being redundant. Maria is advising on how this can best be done and a strategy for implementation.

Some sales teams will disappear altogether and some will be merged into others. The first announcements will be made towards the end of next week. The objective is to have the new teams in place for early next year after a staff consultation period.

To prepare the necessary paperwork Maria has chosen to work with two of her more junior team members. Her assistant managers are wondering why this is the case and if there is a “hidden agenda” to Maria’s actions.

An employee with a worsening attendance record has been seen by Maria. From what I have heard the investigation was professional and correctly done. Though the employee feels that Maria was unsympathetic to her particular transport problems and taking children to school.

Her team have noted, with some amusement, that she stands by her office window at lunchtime and as soon as she sees the MD or the Sales Director walking to the Canteen for lunch will quickly grab her coat and will rush to join them.

It’s been noticed that over the past few weeks Maria has been identifying those people with real influence in the organisation. A particularly important strategy for any new hire.

So far she seems to be making an effort to engage with the Sales Director, Project Manager and Company Secretary.

The Sales Director views having the Personnel Manager on his side as being a very useful alliance as he has some changes in mind for the structure of the sales teams and he will need help and advice to implement these correctly.

Developing a network seems to be going well for Maria. There is one fly in the ointment however. She was overheard running down some members of her team to the Sales Manager saying, “I’m not sure how Christine (her assistant manager) would be much help to you, I think she’s overrated. If you need some help, come directly to me”.

Maria continues to develop her poor reputation for team management capability and leadership amongst her team.

Today, Friday she has given them all some work collating some statistics. The work will take hours to complete and will delay some people leaving the office to start the weekend. But Maria has indicated that delivery is urgent and required by the CEO for an early meeting on Monday.

Maria has told everyone that she has an important meeting during Friday afternoon, unfortunately her husband has phoned in soon after she left to say that “He may be a few minutes late meeting her for some early Christmas shopping”.