problem solving application case

292 PART 1 Individual Behavior

B. You may find potential solutions in the OB in Action boxes and Applying OB boxes within this chapter. These features provide insights into what other individuals or companies are doing in relationship to the topic at hand.

C. Create an action plan for implementing your recommendations.

Step 3: Make your recommendations for solving the problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recom- mendation is desirable and feasible?

A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are your best recommendations? Use the content in Chapter 7 or one of the earlier chapters to propose a solution.

LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE

Does GPS Tracking of Employee Actions Foster a Positive Work Environment? 

More companies are using GPS apps to track the whereabouts of their employees. Companies claim such devices increase productivity and help locate em- ployees in times of a crisis, such as the 2016 terrorist attack in Paris.175

For example, the city of Aurora, Colorado, installed tracking devices inside its sweepers and snowplows “to make sure they’re being used as taxpayers in- tended. Management claims a 15 percent increase in productivity by having the tracking devices in the ve- hicles.”176 Driver Maria Coleman said, “It’s Big Brother. It’s watching you, making sure you do what you’re sup- posed to do, but if you are doing what you’re sup- posed to be doing, then you shouldn’t have a problem.”

Others think tracking devices are a violation of pri- vacy and don’t foster a positive, trusting climate. Offi- cials at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, for instance, required nurses to wear tracking devices in order to improve patient care. Christine Terranova of the New York State Nurses Association doesn’t like the devices. “These badges are worn every place they [the nurses] go,” she said. “If they take their break, if they go to the bathroom, it reads out on a computer- generated real-time screen and it’s logged.” The nurses filed a grievance about wearing the sensors and lost in arbitration.177

The practice of tracking is now heading to the courts. Myrna Arias, a former sales executive for money-transfer company Intermex Wire Transfer, sued the company after she was fired for failing to use a Xora app that contained a global positioning system function that tracked the location of the person pos- sessing the smartphone on which it was installed.

Arias’s boss, John Stubits, admitted that she would be tracked both on and off the clock. He “bragged that

he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she had installed the app on her phone.”178  Arias agreed to use the app during work hours but thought it was an invasion of privacy during nonwork hours. Stubits “told Arias she was required to keep her phone on 24/7 to answer client calls.” Arias decided to remove “the app to protect her privacy and was scolded by Stubits. A few weeks later, Intermex fired her.”179

What Would You Do?

What would you do if you were the CEO of Intermex and in charge of deciding what do about the Arias case and the use of tracking employees?

1. I appreciate the value of people flourishing at work, but this is a sales context and the company needs to be responsive to customer issues 24/7. I thus would fight the lawsuit and keep using the tracking device. Tracking employees during off-hours is not an invasion of privacy.

2. People won’t flourish if the company doesn’t change its ways. I would settle the lawsuit but continue to monitor employees only during work hours. It’s an invasion of privacy to track people when they are not at work.

3. Settle the lawsuit and continue to track employees 24/7. I would also make all current and new employees sign a waiver indicating that it is a job requirement to use the tracking device 24/7. People can leave if they don’t want to abide by the policy.

4. Invent other options.