Avishek manages a customer relations department with seven typists. He promoted Rachana, the fastest and most accurate typist, to be the office supervisor. However, as supervisor, Rachana fails to enforce rules or discipline typists. She spends her time typing and socializing with the typists, who are close personal friends. This has led to complaints about poor work quality and long breaks. Avishek asks Rachana to improve work, but she refuses to discipline her friends.

1. Case Study
The Friendly Supervisor
Avishek manages the customer relations department of a public utility company. The
department is responsible for replying to customer requests for information and to customer
complaints. There are seven typists in the department who handle the correspondence to
customers dedicated by the staff.
Avishek recently promoted Rachana to office supervisor. Rachana had been a typist in the
department for ten years. She was considered the fastest and most accurate typist who had
ever worked for Avishek. Rachana has the best attendance record in the department and
Avishek considered her his most dependable employee. She was very well liked by all the
typist and they considered her to be a good personal friend.
As a supervisor Rachana does a good job handing out work assignments, but she does little
else to supervise the typists. She does not like to criticize the typists and does not enforce
office rules. No matter what a typists does Rachana will not take any disciplinary action. She
makes no attempt to check the work of the typists for compliance with quality standards or to
see that work is complete on time. In fact, she spends most of her time typing to reduce the
work load of other typists.
The human resource department have been receiving an increasing number of complaints
from various staff from different departments about the poor quality of the typing and about
the slow turnaround time of the work. A number of the complaints target towards Rachana’s
poor supervisory skills, complaints were also received about the typists under Rachana taking
excessively long coffee breaks and spending time on personal phone calls. The Human
resource department convey the complaints to Avishek who has been asked to inquire and
rectify the problem.
When Avishek talked to the typists, they told him that Rachana frequently invites them to her
house for dinner or to play bridge. It appears to Avishek that the typists all like Rachana as a
friend, but they are becoming concerned about her lack of supervisory skills. Avishek
mentions to Rachana that she should focus her effort on improving the work of the typists.
She replied, “These woman are my friends and I don’t feel right cracking down on them”.

2. Questions
1) Can an individual effectively manage a group and be a close personal friend with
group members?
2) What should Avishek do to ensure that the work of the typists will improve?
3) Should Bobby have been promoted to office supervisor?
4) If you were Rachana, what would you do? Would you quit the supervisor’s job?
Would you no longer be friends with the typists?

3. Question and answers
1) Can an individual effectively manage a group and be a close personal friend with
group members?
No. As a manager, all relationships should be bounded and defined. They're not about
liking, chemistry, or personality. Relationships that are personal can only produce
disappointment in the long run.
But it is not impossible to maintain close personal relations with employees but the
employer must abstain from one-way authoritative directing as giving preference to
one employee can lead to disdain in minds of others, a manager must adopt a
democratic style of management to ensure mutual respect.
In the case of Rachana, her close personal relationship with her employees proved
catastrophic, the other typists took advantage of her often taking longer breaks and
becoming lax in their work. Rachana was unable to supervise the other typists and this
lead to many complaints being put against her and the department, to manage the
group Rachana has to have a meeting with the human resource department as well as
her superior Avishek on how to handle office and personal relationships, as well as
implementing stricter rules to ensure efficiency in work if not the only option would
be a demotion or attrition.
2) What should Avishek do to ensure that the work of the typists will improve?
As a manager it is Avishek’s responsibility to ensure that the typists improve their
performance, and to help Rachana the supervisor, to enforce rules. Holding a seminar
on office relationships can help Rachana to understand by ‘cracking’ down on her
friends only then can there be proper work done. The seminar can also speak to the
typists under Rachana to be aware that taking advantage of friendship within the
workplace is not ethical as it would cause problems within an organisation.

4. 3) Should Rachana have been promoted to office supervisor?
Yes it was right to promote Rachana to the position of office supervisor she has been
working in the organisation for ten years and has been a productive employee.
But she lacked the ability to separate her personal relations with her co-workers
against the demand of the organisation.
4) If you were Rachana, what would you do? Would you quit the supervisor’s job?
Would you no longer be friends with the typists?
As a supervisor it is Rachana’s duty to orient and train, assign work, evaluate
performance, approve time records and requests for time off’s, resolve complaints and
discipline employees including enforcing rules.
No, if I were in Rachana’s place I would neither quit nor cut away from social
niceties, rather I would adopt a democratic style of management as well as a change I
attitude towards employee relationships and find balance maintaining friendly
relations with co-workers as well as looking over their work; it is unavoidable that
clashes will occur with the other typists which may potentially damage relationships.