Business Decisions

I'm going to give a scenario and I would like you guys to post what would be the best decision.

You are the Manager of a supermarket.
Your Deli department is going through major changes, the Dpet. Head has retired and has been replaced and your supervisor has retired.
You have 2 people currently working in the dept that have applied for the only other 2 full time positions.
Assistant Manager.
Supervisor.

For ease of understanding we will call these 2 people Mary and Sue.

You give the Assistant managers job to the employee who has the most experience.
The supervisors job goes out for tender as per head office's request.

The Dpet Head has had an employee (Mary) with 9 years deli experience, 3 1/2 years in your store, the last 4 months as supervisor while the change has been happening and over 5 years managment experience including 1 year in deli and 4 years in IT.
You have someone from outside the company apply (Sue), this person has never worked for your company but has 10 years deli experience with 2 years deli managment.

Your dept head reccomends you hire Mary, who has been doing the job in question for the last 4 months with exceptional skill and has run the dept while manager is off very smoothly. Your dpet also head recomends you hire Sue to fill the part time position of Mary.

Your dept heads reason is that Mary already knows how to do the job and has proven beyond a shadow of doubt she is more than capable of doing this job by way of comming in on days off, staying late, comming in early and managing the staff and orders etc when needed with flying colours. She also doesn't want to have to train someone new on the ways of things over full time hours when she already has someone who can do the job.

The recomendation has been made, the decision is now yours as Store Manager.

Do you hire Mary or Sue?

I also request you give a reason for your decision if you guys would be so kind

 

Well this is kind of the point Laura, Sue is unknown other than a resume, we can assume she has glowing references as well. As far as how much she knows and what her work ethic is like etc will only be answered in time.
Mary's negatives, well she pretty much only has 1, last year she had several sick days due to long standing illness that is recurring randomly (Chrones), when I say time off I'm talking about a spout of maybe 4-5 months with approx 2 days per month. This is genuine and has been backed by doctors. Although this year has only had 2 days in total so far due to a back injury caused by an overloaded pallet at work.
One black mark on her record is from last november when her child fell with symptoms of H1N1 and a phone call to doctor resulted in advise for someone to stay with the teenager for 48 hours, Mary did this and it resulted in her being repremanded for it.
This is the only negative for Mary, as far as actual job, she has never made a mistake (other than the norm, such as accidently hit the wrong button on the scale or such like, resulting in pressing the "Clear" button and starting over) nor has commited any act that would compromise the running of the dept.

As for company policy, Mary was told when she was hire originally that company policy is to hire full time from within, every other full time staff member has put in at least 3 years before being granted full time, with no exceptions. When this job was advertised publically it was not specified full time, it was Part Time leading to full time, same as pretty much every job posted by this company.

Obviously this sounds biased, but the info I've given is all that is available and although I'm biased, I have offered up everything in order to try to get honest opinions, these are the facts.

Edit: One other thing, over the last few months Mary has been working 40-50 hours per week in hope of showing her commitment, she is currently classed as Part Time.

 

Ok I can add some other stuff, since it's pretty obvious I'm not just giving a scenario and these are actual events.
Mary was unsure if she wanted full time initially because she has been trying to build her own business, after a week of consideration she put her business on hold to comit to the job in question. She was requested by the Dept Manager, almost pleaded in fact to apply because the Dept Manager wanted her to have the job, the Store manager also requested she apply saying she would likely get it due to her standing in the store and recomendations, the Area manager said pretty much the same thing and for the last 4 months she has been told they are just waiting for aproval for the Full Time position because they were thinking of disolving it.

So in short, the Area Manager, Store Manager and Dept Manager all talked Mary into applying because she is perfect for the job.

Mary did not get the job being told Sue has more experience.... this being 1 extra year managment in a deli (3 less years in management toal) and 1 extra year working in a deli but no time in with this company, all Sue's experience has been with the competition.

 

Hire neither. Get a man in to do the job right.

 

Yes she gets along famously with everyone in her dept and the other depts, the youngsters look up to her and have no issues doing what she asks.

As for question of her getting it, as I said just a moment ago (probably while you were replying) she got passed over for it, details in above post.

This is obviously my good lady and she's totally broken hearted by it, not so much that she didn't get it but the fact that someone outside the store got it and the reason is extremely weak, not to mention she was pushed into applying and has been constantly told it's pretty much a formality as to when she starts her new position and has been strung along for 4 months under the impression the job was hers.
The dept manager is furious as well.
My girl is a very hard worker, much more work ethic than I have and is incapable of giving less than 110%.
She feels used and betrayed by her boss and really doesn't want to go back, but in todays economical climate she has no choice for now, she doesn't want to work for a company that treats employees like this.

Oh and the cherry on the cake is she will be expected to train Sue in her duties.

The only thing I can think of that is logical is that Sue is either family or friend of someone in house. Nothing else makes sense. Kind of why I posted, to see if someone could come up with a decent reason possibility.

@JOTS... a man in a deli? lol a rare site, it's funny because this company wont hire men for deli, all girls.

 

The old adage, it's not what you know, it's who you know.
As for nepotism being alive and well in society, I could bore you to death with examples of 'keeping it in the family' at work. I worked at a factory years ago where around 25% of the workforce were named Henderson. Including the general manager.....

The klutz who wrote this should be banned. I back that course of action 100%. Sack him. Schmuck.

 

If Mary had 3 Managers pulling for her and still got passed over, Sue just about has to be connected.Only reason I can think of.
Mary sounded like a logical choice. And expected to train Sue? I can see that happening if I was in Marys' position. Wouldn't be long before Sue was on the crap list then out the door.

 

Based on your description of the two, and all the hard work Mary has put in to earn the promotion, I'll simply tell you that if I was Mary, and you hired someone else after all my hard work and dedication, I would be so furious at you for screwing me over that I would either quit as soon as I found another job, or file a formal HR complaint against you for discriminating against an employee with Chron's Disease.

She might not have my temper, but really, from your description, Mary deserves the job. She's proven she can do it, she's proven her dedication to the company and there's no reason not to give it to her. Besides, the message it sends to the rest of the workforce if you refuse to reward her level of effort is probably not one you want to send either. Since no one brought up that side-effect yet I thought I'd mention it..

EDIT:
Never mind, didn't see your post saying she was passed over already. So... did she file a complaint, or did she just quit?

 

Another point to bring up.
Mary gets along with the other workers.
What do they think of this, and will Sue get the same performance level from them?

 

I agree with you totally Mimsy and I agree with everyone that said the only reason Mary didn't get the job is because Sue has a personal connection. It can be the ONLY reason with all of Mary's qualifications and if it's not, they are frankly quite stupid.

It's amazing how personal connections work, I have a similar story. I was working at an daycare center. My friend "Sam" had gotten me an interview there and they were so pleased with me that, maybe an hour after I left the interview, I was called and told they didn't want to interview anyone else and that I had the job.

On the other side of the token, another co-worker of Sam's, "Kelly" was trying to get HER friend the job. Kelly was great friends with both the owners as she had worked there for several years. Well since they hired me, let's say, Kelly wasn't very happy and kept secretly pushing her friend for the job (I was on a 90 day probationary period). After numerous praise of both the staff and the clients, my 90 days was approaching and I was sure to keep the job. Exactly 1 day before my 90 days was up, I was let go. I wasn't given a reason really, just that I wasn't the right person for the job. Sam tells me the next day, that who shows up for the job is none other than Kelly's friend! I was pissed but nothing I could do seeing as it was before the 90 day probation. rolleyes

 

@Mimsy... She hasn't quit, she HAS sent an email to HR area head and she is most definitely wanting to look for another job, unfortunately with me having nearly 6 months off early this year and only 2 months back to work, we can't afford for her to quit, even though if she really felt the need I would still back her in it.

She's gonna go back tomorrow and talk to her Dept Head and a few other people to decide what to do.

@hrlow2... The rest of the staff are either furious at the decision and are willing to make Sue's life miserable (although this isn't her fault so it's a bit harsh for her) or they thought Mary was already Supervisor for the past couple of months and didn't even know there was a question.... thee people are equally annoyed.
Also you have to think about some of the other guys who work there who had to put in years of part time in order to wait or earn full time, and then Sue walks stright into full time.

 

There should be some sort of trial "probationary" period to see how she works out before being confirmed as full-time, if they want to play games.

 

Above all things, do not make the mistake of quitting before you have another job lined up. Not in this economy. As much as the current situation sucks goat ****, it's at last bringing in a paycheck. Sadly, when regular income is difficult to come by, the first thing a pragmatic and smart person with bills to pay needs to drop and forget about is their pride. Pride can be restored later, when there are options available.

She took the job, didn't she? Anyone who waltzes into a coveted position due to "connections" of any kind should be smart enough to expect misery from their new co-workers. Then again, if she was smart at all she could have gotten a job on her own merits rather than have it handed to her on a platter, I suppose. :innocent

 

Well we are assuming she got the job because of "who she knows" simply due to a lack of any other logical answer, but it's still an assumption.
I guess we'll wait and see what happens tomorrow.