Human Resources Case Study

4 8

9 Rights and Employee

Management

Case 9.1. Coaching, Counseling, and Discipline: HR’s Role—Document, Document, Document Andrea Watson works in the small human resources department at ABC Fitness Center. There are currently about 50 employees working at ABC Fitness. Andrea enjoys the process of hiring and providing an orientation program for new employees. However, she does not like the responsibility of firing employees when they do not fit into the culture at ABC Fitness.

To overcome her own hesitation with firing employees, Andrea reviewed the coach- ing process, counseling process, progressive discipline process, and the tests for just cause used in disciplinary investigations. Andrea started to study and implement these pro- cesses about 2 years ago at ABC Fitness.

ABC Fitness uses the coaching process to give employees feedback to improve their performance over time. Coaching involves four steps: (1) describing the current perfor- mance, or what is currently being done by the employee; (2) describing the desired performance, or what the manager wants the employee to change; (3) getting a verbal commitment from the employee to change; and (4) following up to make sure the employee is behaving in the desired manner. Coaching is often associated with sports coaches such as Mike Krzyzewski at Duke University or Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots. However, coaching can be just as effective in a business situation as in sports. Employees in every organization need to receive positive feedback and support while doing their jobs.

Counseling is provided for employees who are not currently working at an accept- able level. Guidance is provided to help get the employee back on track. Management counseling involves giving the employee feedback so he or she knows a problem is affecting job performance. Employees with severe personal problems can be referred for help to the employee assistance program (EAP) to get assistance.

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Chapter 9 • Rights and Employee Management 49

Unfortunately, some employees just cannot get their work performance to an acceptable level. Progressive discipline is then used to try to solve minor disciplinary infractions. Progressive discipline is a series of steps to help provide discipline:

Step 1. Informal talk

Step 2. Oral warning

Step 3. Written warning

Step 4. Suspensions

Step 5. In some cases, demotion or transfer, or

Step 6. Dismissal

A key element in disciplinary investigations is just cause. Just cause is a set of standards used to test for fairness in an organizational setting to ensure that any disciplinary action taken has reasonable cause. The tests attempt to ensure that the individual knew what the rules were, that there was reasonable evidence or proof that the person violated or disobeyed the rules, and that, if the rules were violated, the disciplinary action was appropriate and fair.

Andrea wasn’t sure if all of these processes were conducted in the case of Derek Struble. Derek was an employee who worked at ABC Fitness for the last 20 years. He didn’t exhibit the greatest level of enthusiasm with the health center’s fitness members, but he was also never rude. He assisted fitness members whenever they needed help.

Andrea reviewed Derek’s file and found he was in a graduate, nonprofit manage- ment program, which was supported by ABC Fitness since it paid half the tuition. His file contained limited documentation that Derek was at times not as “cheery” or “happy” as one might expect at a fitness center. The file mentioned that Derek didn’t generate enough personal fitness training, which members paid for and which helped finance the fitness center.

Andrea was fairly sure Derek wasn’t fired due to gross negligence (such as leaving the fitness members unattended). Nor was he fired due to serious misconduct, such as hurting another employee or doing harm to the company. Actually, Derek was very actively trying to recruit new members to the facility.

Thus, Andrea wished she had more documentation that would show that Derek had been coached, counseled, or had even gone through progressive disci- pline. She could find in the file only some notes that Derek could be more pleas- ant and should improve the number of paid training sessions he conducted in the fitness center.

Andrea was also concerned with the fact that Derek was 39 years old. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 prohibits discrimination against persons 40 years of age or older. Congress found that older workers were disadvantaged in their efforts to retain employment and especially in regaining employment when released from a job.1 Since Derek was 39, he was certainly very close to age 40 and could file a lawsuit against the fitness center.

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Part III • Developing and Managing5 0

Andrea had a meeting scheduled with Derek later in the afternoon. Her major thought was something her former director of human resources at her last job used to say, “Document, document, document.”

Case Questions

1. Do you believe Derek received any of the four steps in the coaching process?

2. Did Derek receive progressive discipline?

3. Was there just cause to discharge Derek?

4. Would you, from what you know, discharge Derek?

5. How would the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 apply if Derek was 40 years old?

Case 9.2. Trends and Issues in HRM: Mindfulness—a Thoughtful Theory About Leadership Astrubal Gonzalez worked as the food service manager at Big-Time Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. Unfortunately, the food at the hospital was viewed as terrible. Still, since Astrubal’s food service was the only place in the hospital to get food, sales were stable.

The CEO of the hospital, Jean Curry, wondered how she could improve the qual- ity of the food in Big-Time Hospital. Her first priority was to create a change process to help the food service employees who were in denial that their food quality could be improved. She had to help them forget about the daily grind they had repeated for years and learn a new way to do their jobs. She had to get past their resistance to change and help them see that a modern food service operation could lift employee morale around the hospital.

On the way to work on the train, Jean happened to read about an interesting lead- ership theory called mindfulness. She thought mindfulness sounded like a process with which the employees could develop a renewed sense of mission toward delivering bet- ter food quality and service. She decided to contact human resources about exploring mindfulness as a way to replace mindlessness.

The human resources department responded by researching mindfulness as soon as it received the call from the CEO. If Jean Curry called, HR was certainly going to respond. The first step required defining leadership and mindfulness.

Leadership is the process of influencing employees to work toward the achievement of organizational objectives. In Jean’s case, she was the leader, and it was her idea that using mindfulness might be the solution to motivating her food service personnel.

HR found out that mindfulness is an area of leadership study that has become more popular in the last decade. There are numerous summits and conferences devoted to teaching the process of mindfulness. Jon Kabat-Zinn, former professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, describes mindfulness as “paying atten- tion in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.”2

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Chapter 9 • Rights and Employee Management 51

By comparison, mindlessness refers to our subconscious, out-of-habit, or repe- titious actions, placing limitations on what we can accomplish. A mindless worker would rather continue the same steps and procedures used in the past at work.

Mindfulness enables employees to be fully aware of their mind, body, and spirit. Mindful people are fully aware of what is happening around them. A mindful employee has a high level of self-confidence, which gives the employee the belief that failures and challenges can be overcome. Mindful people can visualize great change instead of plac- ing limitations on what they can do to lead the organization.3

A mindful manager can lead the employees to reach higher levels of success. But to do this, the mindful manager needs to learn to be compassionate, more self-confi- dent, and an authentic leader. Recent organizations to embrace mindfulness include Google, Harvard Business Schools, and the Seattle Seahawks football team in the NFL.4

Employees would most likely find it easier to enjoy mindlessness on a regular day at work. However, an organization needs to strive for mindfulness every day at work to help develop a company culture of innovation and creativity. Mindful employees look for new ways to solve problems. To help develop mindful employees, HR needs to set the standard by offering training on leadership concepts such as the benefits of mindfulness. HR and managers in the different divisions can work together to model the behavior of being mindful so that employees can learn to bounce back from failure, learn to be more confident, and thus be actively aware of their surroundings at work and in their industry.

Jean decided she was going to also have to learn to use mindfulness if she expected to have such a culture exist at her hospital. She had to exhibit behaviors that showed she was innovative and creative. She wanted to be a leader who embraced everything at work and shared the success with her employees.

After a series of training sessions led by HR, the food service personnel started to feel more self-confident about their jobs. They were encouraged and wanted to cook more creative lunch and dinner options. They were excited to see which new food options were well received by the employees of the hospital. When a food item was not well received, they didn’t get disappointed as they would have in the past. They just used that experience as a learning situation. Their self-confidence and creativity were evident in the variety of food they offered and the upbeat customer service provided to their customers.

Jean was so excited about the results of implementing mindfulness that she was ready to spread the leadership theory throughout the entire Big-Time Hospital organization.

Case Questions 1. How does mindfulness compare to

situational leadership?

2. How does mindfulness compare to the definition of leadership?

3. What are some ideas about how human resources can teach employees to be more mindful?

4. Do you think Astrubal will find it easy or difficult to become a mindful leader?

5. After mindful training, what could Astrubal do to show he is a more mindful manager?

6. How did Jean use the stages of the change process?

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Part III • Developing and Managing5 2

Notes

1. http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adea.cfm. 2. Garms, Erica, “Practicing Mindful Leadership,” Association for Talent Development, March 8,

2013, https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/TD/TD-Archive/2013/03/Practicing-Mindful- Leadership.

3. Moua, Mia, “Mindfulness and Self-Efficacy,” Leading With Cultural Intelligence, http://catalog. flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/5575?e=moua_1.0-ch04#moua_1.0-ch05_s04.

4. http://www.mindfulleader.org/#home.

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