Case Study

Read the case study given and answer the questions that follow.

It was August of $2013$ and speculations regarding promotions were rife amongst the employees of concepto a stationary manufacturing firm. Annual appraisal interviews at concepto had been conducted in June $2013$ but the announcement of result of the interviews had got quite delayed for the year. The employees were anxiously waiting to know the fate of their career in the organization as many of them were expecting their long awaited promotions.

On $22$ August $2013,$ an SMS$-$congratulations$!$ You are being promoted!$-$ From concepto MD$,$ Sameer Khanduja, created a stir among the employees. This SMS was received by very few employees, and as the day progressed, grapevine spread and the employees discussed who all had received the message. Amidst all this discussion, a rumor spared that eight people had received the SMS and hence were being promoted. People started congratulating the ones who had supposedly got the message from the MD$.$ As the nature of the grapevine is$,$ in this list of eight people, there were two employees who mentioned that they apparently had not received any message.

The company premises was full of different versions of information and the two employees, who had not received any message, but were in the list of eight people, took an offence on being congratulated by their peers as if it was meant to be a deliberate act of demeaning. There was also a significant number of people who were expecting promotions but had not received any message. An ill$-$ feeling towards the management had already started brewing in them they approached the senior management with their grievances. This commotion continued for one week and significantly disrupted the productivity of employees.

On $29$ August $2013,$ an office order was sent across to all employees through an e$-$mail mentioning the list of the employees who had been promoted. The list included the names of seven employees for whom strong speculation were being made. It was surprising that in this list, out of two employees who had not received any SMS from MD$,$ only one was promoted.

The entire episode of appraisal and promotion created even more rivalry and disappointment amongst those were not promoted. The employee whose name was being talked but was not promoted felt offended and embarrassed.

Questions:

$1.$ Was sending the personal message a good idea in this case? Could this confession be avoided by reducing the gap between sending the message and official order?