Casual Dress at Digital Devices - Essay Example

Human Resources Management 4 Table of Contents Discussion Case Casual Dress at Digital Devices’ 3 Discussion Case 2: ‘Stealing a Smoke, Losing a Job’ 4 Discussion Case 3: ‘When is a Team a Union?’ 5 Discussion Case 4: ‘Mental Health: A Global Concern’ 7 Discussion Case 5: ‘Two Sides to Every Story’ 8 Reference 11 Bibliography 11 Discussion Case 1: ‘Casual Dress at Digital Devices’ a) Should the casual dress policy be abandoned or not? As per the case, casual dress offers advantage for both employee and the company. Casual dress improves the morale of the employees and helps to reduce the status barrier between the mangers and the non management personnel. It improves the communication process in the organization. Therefore it can be said that casual dress policy should not be abandoned. Casual dress policy can also be regarded as a recruiting tool for the technical people particularly the engineering graduates who want to work in a friendly environment. The policy would allow the employees communicate more freely and make a healthy workplace to work in. b) Should the policy be revised to list approved and not approved items, and what problems might this create? After implementing the policy of casual dress policy, Digital Device started to face few issues. The employee’s behavior became more casual with the clients resulting in complaints to the sales manager. The Casual dress should be allowed but there should also be certain rules and regulations with respect to casual dressing among the employees. The policy should be revised in accordance with the HR manager and list of approved and not approved items. However after implementing the casual dress policy and revising it again after few months might not be acceptable for the employees and they might not agree to the revised list as to which of the type of casual dress to be followed. c) How should the company communicate the revised policy? It is very important to communicate the changes that are to be taken place in the organization to its respective employees. Here the HR department plays a vital role as it is the duty of the HR to communicate the revised policy to the employees. The revised policy can be communicated personally to each department by conducting meetings with the respective teams by the HR head. This might have a positive impact on the employees rather than just sending mails and listing the revised policy in the notice board. Discussion Case 2: ‘Stealing a Smoke, Losing a Job’ a) Is such a policy legal, and is it ethical? The policy of losing the job if one found to be guilty of smoking or stealing has been practiced in most of the organizations. The new policy treat cigarettes as an illegal narcotic and aims to adopt a free smoker free workplace. If the policy is mentioned in the contract before joining the organization it can be viewed to be legal and very much ethical. The organizations aim to provide with a healthy working area and also ensuring proper health of the employees. b) Was Lisa treated fairly, and were the mitigating circumstances given proper weight? At Health Unlimited each of the employees is required to sign a statement stating that the employee is a non smoker and will not smoke either at work or away from work. It was also stated that if anybody found guilty would be discharged from the job. Since the condition was already stated the company did not provide any unfair treatment to Lisa. The Company justified its step taken towards Lisa as smokers are unhealthy as compared to the non smokers and also raises the rate of health insurance which is paid by the organization. Lisa who was suffering from stress had abandoned the policy and started to smoke but she restricted to off duty hours. However in certain circumstances the policy can be made relaxed and could have issued a warning or some sort of fine from Lisa. But as per the no-smoker policy the company had to enforce it and it can be said that Lisa was treated fairly and the reason given for the discharge was true to the company’s policy. Discussion Case 3: ‘When is a Team a Union?’ a) Why did the local union object to the way Amalgamated’s management used the problem-solving teams? Amalgamated Tool which suffered financial losses in the year 2006 and in order to conserve cash it froze the pay of all of its employees and asked them to pay a larger share of the health insurance cost. As a result the employee’s morale and productivity declined as the employees were not satisfied with the decisions. Amalgamated management therefore decided to form a team of problem solving employees. Each of the team had a leader but only 20% of the employees were allowed to serve the team which was not accepted by the local unions. The local union filed a claim for unfair labor practice that the management had illegally made use of the problem solving team and formed a management dominated union. b) What is the difference between a team and a union? A team consists of individuals who work together for a common goal, common objectives and think of the same line whereas union is an organized group of workers who works together to make a decisions with respect to the working condition. The union has the ability to impact the working hours, wages, benefits, health and safety along with other health related issues (Young workers, 2009). A union forms an integral part of the working of the organization and team forms a part of a particular project and is not permanent. c) What should the company have done differently in using problem-solving teams to avoid the NLRB’s cease-and-desist order? The company could have involved the top level management into the problem solving team which would not have raised the issue of dominating the members through an illegal system. Also another alternative was to involve the members of the organization on shift basis or suggestion made from all the members further divided into different groups would have avoided such a situation. The issue raised was of dominance and if Amalgamated had used the other alternatives NLRB wouldn’t have ceased the problem solving team of the company. Discussion Case 4: ‘Mental Health: A Global Concern’ a) Mental health problems often have a negative stigma. What, if anything, do you think companies can do to reduce this stigma? Mental health problems have negative stigma towards the employees and also influences as to how one experiences life. In every one out of four people experiences a problem of mental health and is caused mostly due to heavy workloads, high expectations. Therefore to deal with mental health issue organization should introduce plans to help the employees to improve the mental health. Organization should involve a campaign whose motive should be to end mental discrimination. By singing up a commitment is made from all the level of the management and send message to the employees and support the campaign to deal with the issue of mental health. Secondly companies should involve training in mental health by an expert which would create awareness among people. Organizations should take seriously the issue of mental health and look after the implementation for its employees. b) How can an employer be protected from feigning and fraud if it takes a liberal approach to dealing with mental health? The employer can seek the help of an outside service which would provide a list of recommendations of what to be done by an employer to be protected from fraud and feigning. Implementing EAP programs i.e. Employee Assistant Program would help employees to deal with their personal problem which might impact the heath, work force and well being. Introduction of flexible timings and work schedule would allow the workers to time off and concentrate on the needs of the mental health requirements. By adopting the above steps an employers can be protected from fraud and feigning while dealing with mental health in a liberal manner. c) Does the employer have some responsibility for dealing with these mental health problems? Explain. Yes the employer does have responsibility to deal with the problem of mental health. This is because the employees form an important part of the organization and if they are free from mental health problem, they would contribute towards the effective working of the company. It is therefore said that organizations should indulge it with programs which would reduce the mental stress of employees. Stress in relation to personal life should also be dealt by employers to a certain extent. When employees have mental health problems whether personal or professional they are unable to concentrate effecting the organization. As employers are responsible for every activity that happens in workplace, therefore with programs to handle stress employers are expecting to have a positive feedback and result. Discussion Case 5: ‘Two Sides to Every Story’ a) Based on what you have learned in this chapter, what do you think are the underlying problems in the Polish subsidiary? Pressman Company went into joint venture with Polish firm to manufacture plumbing supplies for internal and also international markets. But none of the expatriate managed to survive and returned with couple of months. This was a serious concern as the company had already invested a huge amount and the resignations and early return had cost the company a loss of about $4milion only with regards to direct expanse and three times more in production loss and delayed work schedules. However the main problem lied with the Polish subsidiary was the lack of awareness about the polish culture by the US counterparts. They implanted their style of working which was not liked by the Polish. Also the Americans were paid more than the Polish counterparts which also created a sense of discrimination among the employees and affected the working conditions. b) How can you account for the perceptual differences of the Polish locals and U.S. expatriates? There were a huge perceptual difference between the Polish locals and the US expatriates. The US expatriates believed that the Polish counterparts had the same working culture as that of US. The three major complaints received from Polish members was that the American managers as well as the technicians behaved as being superior and knowing everything, had unrealistic expectations and were making more money than the Polish counterparts. When asked about the problem to the US expatriates it was revealed that the Polish colleagues were lazy did not put in the maximum effort and making an effort to make them work only resulted in anger, the polish worker did not have any intrinsic motivation and complained of loneliness and inability to communicate effectively. c) As a consultant, what steps would you recommend to remedy that Stevens take? As a consultant I would recommend Stevens to provide training to the expatriates with respect to the culture, the way of doing work by a polish employee, the motivational level. As already a huge amount has been spent by the company, it would be advised to spend on training and development especially for members who are sent on international sites. With a difference in perceptions and work culture, employees might not be able to adapt to a particular culture resulting in resignation of the job. Thus to avoid cultural shock and get accustomed with the working style and habits, proper training is required. Pressman Company can hire trainers to train its employees and send them to onsite board and make effective use of the resources both internal and international. Reference Young Workers. (2009). what is a Union? Retrieved from < http://www.youngworkers.org/teens/union.html> Bibliography Gomez-Mejia, L. Balkin, D. B. & Cardy, R. L., (2009). Managing human resources (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Read More