#5 Managing High Performance

Individual Project 500- 750 words

You are the manager of human resources at a shipping firm, and the CEO has approached you for guidance. He is about to make a difficult decision and is seeking your counsel on how to handle a certain situation. In an earlier staff meeting, you had outlined the following criteria to use when making a difficult decision involving employee relations:

• Is there any precedent in the company that could not only serve as a guide but which must be considered to avoid reinventing the wheel? More importantly, could the firm be charged with discrimination if employees do not treat person X in this situation the same as person Y in the precedent situation?
• Is this just a onetime individual issue, or is the decision, in effect, establishing a new policy?
• What are the long-term ramifications if the company sets a new policy to address this situation?
• Which should dominate the decision-making process: the good of the long-term future, the rights of the individuals affected right now, or the cost to the company?
• Is how the company decides to handle this situation that is arising in department A going to have a bad impact on other departments?
• Will the decision made have any impact to the outside community?
• How will the decision among this certain number of employees, or this department, impact overall workplace harmony and teamwork?
• Will the decision leave the supervisor involved with possible problems regarding other employees?
• Are there any legal issues involved that may guide the decision-making process? 

The exact situation the CEO is being asked to make a decision on is as follows:

The company is preparing for its negotiations for a new contract with its labor union.

In two particular departments, the supervisors suspect significant drug use on the part of the employees. Other supervisors are not sure if their departments have this problem.

As a result, the CEO is considering requiring mandatory drug testing for all new and existing employees. In prenegotiation discussions, the union leadership has stated adamantly that it opposes this, even though if tested positive, existing employees will go through several steps of company-paid treatment and company-paid cessation seminars.

The CEO is convinced that several of the more serious plant accidents had some under-the-influence element as their cause, and you agree with him. Whether it is true or not, expensive worker's compensation settlements were incurred by the company, in one case because of an amputation on a piece of machinery.

You need to formulate a strategy as to how to include this, or decide not to make this an issue in the upcoming negotiation.

He asked you to write your recommendation and explain which of the 9 criteria are the reasons for your recommendations. If other criteria helped you formulate your recommendation, explain that criteria.

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Discussion Board 150- 250 words

You are a supervisor in a factory in downtown Brooklyn, a current day melting pot of numerous ethnic, religious, and racial groups. Your department has 2 devout Muslims, a person of Jewish descent, 5 African-Americans, 3 Hispanics, and 5 Caucasian employees. In recent months, tensions have been mounting in the department because of a variety of differences in opinions and values among the workforce. Although departmental output has met the scheduled work, it has done so just barely, and you are convinced your department could do much better. Your boss has indicated that unless the overall plant efficiency improves significantly, he cannot guarantee that some of the factory's work will not be outsourced to a factory in another state or country where the workforce is more homogenous and has less employee tensions.

You plan to meet with your department tomorrow and discuss all this.