Legal Case Study

Claudia recently became the HR manager at a small sized private company. One of the

things she has been tasked with by the CEO is addressing employee tardiness. The CEO

is a stickler for punctuality and there are a few employees who continuously arrive to

work late.

First step for Claudia is to review all the employee’s timecards and determine who the

serious violators are. Upon completion of the timecard review Claudia identified a

handful of employees that were violating the company’s policy on tardiness, however;

one employee had a more serious tardiness issue than the others.

Claudia decides the best way to approach this issue is to send a companywide email

reminding all employees of the company’s operating hours and schedule and to please

make there everyone adheres to this policy. Within a week of the email all but 1

employee were arriving to work on time.

Claudia next sent 2 emails on separate occasions directly to the employee who was still

not arriving on time and reminded the employee of her work schedule as well as the

company’s operating hours and to refer to the employee handbook for any questions or

concerns regarding the matter of her tardiness.

Another week passed and the employee continued arriving tardy to work. This time

Claudia sent the employee an email and copied her immediate supervisor. Two days later

the employee continued with the tardiness and Claudia again sent an email to the

employee and copied her immediate supervisor. This time the employee replied to

Claudia’s email. Her email stated that she felt she was being discriminated upon by being

asked to arrive to work on time when other employees arrive late, and nothing was

done about their tardiness. She also stated she was being harassed and singled out

because of her “age, gender, and/or sexual orientation.” She is a 52-year-old female, we

know nothing of her sexual orientation.

Case Questions:

1. Is the company in fact discriminating against the employee by requesting she arrive

to work on time and adhere to the company’s operating hours and/or schedule?

2. Is the employee being harassed if emails had been sent out to the entire

organization early on reminding everyone of the company’s policy on tardiness as

well as their schedules?

3. What should be Claudia’s next step?

4. What process or policies should Claudia implement to avoid this type of situation

occurring again? (Make recommendations based on what you have learned)

Paper Instructions:

Write a 2-3 paper addressing the questions, do not include the questions in your

paper, format is APA, Times New Roman 12 point, double spaced, with a minimum of 2

appropriate references i.e. peer-reviewed journal, textbook, scholarly works or websites

such as .Edu or .gov)