5 Responses

1. making the presumption…..

   …that the purpose of the workshop is to train managers to handle grievances from staff members.

   Ask the question….what are possible outcomes of staff having grievances that they feel are not taken seriously by their supervisor/manager?

   Then share selected snippets from this entry on wikipedia 

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_postal

   That should grab attention.

   I hope that helps

   Rus

   http://www.coach-and-courses.com

2. That’s great!

   Thank you for taking the time to comment on this. I think it will definitely grab the delegates attention, as it certainly grabbed mine. I will be including it in the workshop which I am delivering this Friday. I will let you know I get on.

   Best wishes

   Emma

3. My pleasure…..

   …it also occurred to me that there may be an escalation of reaction by an employee who has a grievance and feels that it is being ignored or belittled.  It might be quite worthwhile to get the delegates to consider the rising "scale" of response….eg

   level one: feeling ignored but doing nothing about it

   level two; moaning to family and friends

   level three; moaning to work colleagues

   level 3.5; posting negative blogs

   level four; working to rule/go slow/vicious compliance

   level five; small acts of disobedience/sabotage/theft

   level six; inciting others to join levels four and five

   level seven; quitting…getting severely depressed

   level eight; going berserk with a meataxe

   I'm sure that this could actually make a really valuable exercise but this is off the top of my head.

   Do let me know how it goes!

   Rus

4. Thank you

   Rus I like your take on considering the scale of response. I will incorporate this during the facilitated discussion at the beginning to lead into the "Going Postal" example.

   I will keep you posted!

5. Well received by delegates!

   Rus your suggestions worked well as an attention grab and lead into the workshop. One delegate was familiar with the "Going Postal" example and it definitely grabbed their attention. Thanks again.