Scenario – Ruby Sanchez: What Would You Do?
Ruby Sanchez is the Manager in charge of Better Women’s Sportswear for a major national retail clothing store in a large metropolitan city. Ruby grew up in retail and has a real knack for merchandising and personal fashion. In fact, Ruby couldn’t think of a career better suited to her interests.
Ruby is also passionate about customer service. Year after year, she has won awards for #1 sales person of the year, and she has been invited to Manager’s Gold Circle – for high performing managers – yearly for the past two years. Many customers ask for Ruby by name, but since she is no longer working the floor, she must spend more time managing others than doing what she loves.
Lately, Ruby is having a difficult time with Aronda, a sales clerk who just moved from jewelry into sportswear. Aronda, according to Ruby, doesn’t like the extra work that comes with selling clothing instead of jewelry. For example, when Aronda sold jewelry, all she had to do, according to Ruby, was to know lots about diamonds and other precious stones and then turn on the charm when some man came in looking to buy something nice for his wife or girlfriend. Plus, the commissions on jewelry sales were great. Now, Aronda has to clear messy fitting rooms hourly, find different sizes of garments for shoppers and be pleasant to many more people, most of whom wouldn’t know fashion if their lives depended upon it, according to Aronda.
Ruby’s latest conflict with Aronda is over how Aronda treats customers. Ruby observed an interaction between Aronda and a woman Ruby knew to be a long-time, steady customer of the store. Although Ruby couldn’t hear the exchange of words, she knew that the customer was none too happy when she left there.
Ruby is in a quandary. Does she confront Aronda now, and if so, what does she say? Or, should Ruby just ignore the incident and hope that Aronda is just having a bad day?
You are Ruby. What do you do?
Workshop Description
Everyone runs into conflicts with co-workers and managers over his/her working life. How you manage these conflicts, though, can determine whether your work time is pleasant and productive or discouraging and dysfunctional. Small conflicts, unresolved, can grow into big challenges. Likewise, large conflicts can involve many people and can significantly impact customer service, employee morale and bottom-line business results. You probably can’t avoid workplace conflict, but you can learn effective ways of dealing with it.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
This 2-hour Lunch ‘n Learn Workshop will teach you:
- How to recognize when it’s time to deal with a simmering conflict
- Key steps for resolving conflict
- A process for workgroup issue identification and proactive problem resolution
