In my previous position I was responsible for managing a small team of 8 in a high volume retail store. Due to the small team and high work volume, many of the team members had established a close friendship. This team comprised of a combination of new and original team members. This team brought both a combination of youth and enthusiasm, and maturity and professionalism to the team. Due mainly to the retail environment, the store has always had a high turnover of team members, but the store has always comprised a combination of both new and training team members and experienced team members.
A new team member was hired to fill a vacant position created by the departure of one of the team. This individual was a mid twenties male university student that was to work three days a week. After two months of training, a situation arose where the new team member failed to turn up for their shift without advising anyone in the store. This situation was unacceptable but was caused by an unforseen accident. After this incident had occurred we were to go through training in the companies procedures to reinforce the absenteeism policy. With the knowledge of what was expected from him we had no more problems for about one month until the same situation occurred again. This time we were to conduct the same training as last time but the team member was to receive a verbal warning in regard to not following company procedure for absenteeism. With this training completed he agreed that his behaviour was unacceptable and he acknowledged that he understood what was required from him if he was unable to turn up for a shift.
This problem escalated while I was out of the country on annual leave for four weeks. While I was away this team member had been late to work on many occasions and had not turned up for his shift on a few occasions as well. This situation had caused a lot of problems with job motivation, productivity and satisfaction within the team.