Giving Bad News at BABA SHISMO’S Restaurant
Directions: Read the story below, and then write a
letter to your employees telling them about the bad news.
DO NOT INCLUDE LOCAL SAUDI LABOR LAW INTO YOUR
THINKING. All the employees here are
Saudi.
Do not be concerned about the format of the
letter. You have not learned about
writing letters yet. What is needed for
this assignment is the CONTENT of the letter.
All the necessary information should be included to inform your
employees and you must FOLLOW the 4 STEPS of
the BAD NEWS process of Communicating.
NOTE: You
will also be responsible for conducting a meeting about this case.
THE CASE:
Five years ago you opened a fast food restaurant
called Baba Shismo’s. You began with 8
employees and had a lot of profits. As
the business grew, you added 6 more employees.
Then . . . last year sales started to drop lower and
lower because of the bad economy slowdown.
There is also now a lack of jobs in the market. However, you did not fire (terminate)
anyone. But, sales dropped even more
this year. So, you had to fire 4
employees.
You estimate that sales next year will be down about
20% more. You and your partners agree
that labor costs are much too high. You
all agree to cut labor costs, instead of firing more people. You want to keep fulltime employees on a
long-term basis. You, instead, (1)
cancel company-paid health insurance, (2) cancel paid vacations – employees can
take vacations, but will not be paid, (3) employees must pay half of their
retirement plans.
You do not know how long the restaurant will have to
do this, but it will not be forever, you think. When the economy gets better, you will return everything to
normal, as before.
You set an appointment with employees to have a
meeting about this, but they ask for a letter from you first to learn about the
cutbacks in benefits. They want
something on paper to read about the cutbacks in benefits.
You say OK and write a letter to all employees about
the Bad News, following the 4-step process
of communicating Bad News.
