The Celebrity Apprentice

Spoiler Warning: This post will discuss The Celebrity Apprentice that first aired Sunday March 27, 2011. I will discuss who was fired.

In my opinion, each episode of NBC's Celebrity Apprentice,  just gets better and better as the season continues. Last night's episode was no exception. Mr. Trump tasked the teams with designing a web commercial for telecommunications company ACN. I was impressed with both teams' commercials as well as the management styles of team leaders Lil Jon and NeNe Leakes. Ultimately, the men were rewarded for the risk they took in delivering a more comedic commercial than has been the traditional ACN style. The women stuck with a traditional appeal to emotional heart strings. Thus, one woman from the women's team had to be fired.

While NeNe and Marlee Matline criticized Latoya Jackson for being a follower, it was ultimately Dionne Warwick who Mr. Trump fired. Let me say, IT WAS ABOUT TIME. For the last couple of weeks Dionne did not seem to be working as hard as the other team members. In last night's episode, NeNe critized Dionne for leaving the task early. At the end of the night, the entire team went to the editing room to work on the finished commercial product. Dionne made a statement about how she was going to go home. NeNe made some joke about how Ms. Dionne wanted to go home, and everyone laughed. I took the laughter to mean that everyone thought that Dionne leaving prior to the task's completion as inappropriate. Despite this discussion, the self-proclaimed matriarch of the woman's team decided to leave early.

In the board room, Mr. Trump questioned Dionne. Dionne alleged that she asked NeNe, team leader, if she could leave early. I don't remember Dionne asking Nene, and this is also what NeNe portrayed to Mr. Trump. Ultimately, Dionne was not fired for leaving early, but because she challenged Mr. Trump to fire her. As Mr. Trump explained, no one challenges him to fire them and gets away with it. As Dionne was leaving after being fired, NeNe went to Dionne to say goodbye and gave her a hug. Dionne called NeNe a coward. To me, Dionne generally had a poor attitude and lacked a strong work ethic; Mr. Trump made the right decision.

Dionne's leaving the task early got me thinking about work place etiquette and when it's appropriate for salaried employees to leave the office for the day or even a break. In the situation with Dionne, it seemed obvious that it was an inappropriate time to leave. When there is an impending deadline, an employee should not leave prior to the task's completion. This was especially obvious in this situation because all of the other team members were up late working.

A related issue to this is whether employers of salaried employees should expect their employees to work a certain number of hours per week. Speaking solely to this issue as an effective management practice, my answer is no. Requiring salaried employees to work a certain amount of hours breeds inefficiency. For example, if one employee can finish a week's tasks in 35 hours and it takes another employee 50, the employee that finishes early should not be required to stay for an additional minimum hours. At the same time, the slower employee should expect to work that week until all assigned tasks are finished. Employees should be evaluated by their efficiency in completing tasks, not by how many hours a week they work. Just because an employee is in their office does not mean they are efficiently working. Employers should give employees their work with regard to tasks to complete not in terms of hours of work.

At the same time, quality is an important factor. In the above example with the 35 hour employee v. the 50 hour employee: the 35 hour employee should not be considered efficient if he or she is producing a below quality work product. Employers should engage in dialogue with employees about the quality of work product expected and if an employee is quickly doing work, but it is not up to quality standards, this is not any more efficient than the employee who takes 50 hours and does quality work.