ESSENTIAL OF MANAGEMENT

You supervise a group of 15 people of various specialties who were drawn from other groups in the company and brought together six months ago to work on a project. The work requires constant interaction between the various specialists in the group. They were cooperating well until two weeks ago when, on March 1, you brought up the subject of scheduling their summer vacations. You told them to decide among themselves when each one should take his vacation, since they knew which people could be absent at the same time without disrupting the work. You gave them sheets listing the amount of vacation each was entitled to because of length of service. The periods are one week, two weeks, three weeks, and four weeks. You reminded them that company policy forbids split vacations, off-season vacations, and vacation scheduling that disrupts production. Although seniority governs vacation scheduling for hourly workers in the shop, it has never been established as a policy in salaried groups such as yours. The company has always stated that the requirements of would govern the scheduling. Since you turned over the vacation scheduling to your group, the opportunists are buzzing around making deals that will fix themselves up with the choice schedules. People are aligning first with
one faction and then with another, whichever will give them best deal. A few are refusing to deal on the grounds that their seniority or status should entitle them to first choice. All this political maneuvering is taking up time and interfering with the cooperation that is essential to the progress of the work.

Answer the following question.
Q1. What should you do now in these circumstances?
Q2. . How should a supervisor go about setting up policies in a newly formed group?
Q3. What cautions should a supervisor observe in bringing subordinates into decision making?
Q4. How much time should be allowed between bringing up a problem like this and forcing it to a solution? Explain.