Department Problems

Laura Wheeler had been employed at Baxton, Inc. for three years when her department head resigned. Laura’s first two years were spent in the Accounting Department, which she had joined fresh out of college. She had then transferred to Training & Development, to a position of trainer in the finance area. Laura became Acting Department Head for a year, with the hope of the appointment becoming permanent upon successful completion of this probationary period.

The Training & Development Department which Laura now headed had a staff of ten professional trainers and an Administrative Assistant. Each of the trainers was skilled and experienced within a particular field - so Laura did not make any changes to the specific content or methods of their work. She took on the role of coordinator ensuring that the trainers planned and delivered their courses to meet the department’s objectives. The other major part of her job was administrative – preparing budgets, scheduling courses, attending corporate committee meetings, which discussed training and development issues and generally completing all of the paperwork associated with running a small department.

For the first while, Laura had no problems. Her staff liked her and they all got along well with one another. There was an air of openness and warmth in the department, members socialized with one another, and there were no challenges to any of Laura’s decision or actions. But as the department grew in size due to increasing demands from within Baxton, Inc., Laura began to experience some difficulties. The first problem centered on the allocation of the budget to various units in the Training & Development Department. Laura did some training herself, and it was argued that she had allocated more resources to the people who work in her area – Finance - than was warranted either by the number of courses offered or the number of staff who took these courses. There were constant battles over budgets.