Stressed Sales Executive - Case Study Example

Executive summary The organization’s health and safety act (OHS) requires that organizations put in place measures that will ensure that the working place is healthy , safe and secure for everyone working there whether he/she is an employee or not. The essence of this is to ensure that the worker is safe and healthy and hence can have maximum productivity for the firm. As such, this is beneficial not only to the employee but also for the firm. In this regard, the act is against such vices as discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment since they are against employees’ health and safety. Such an act as sexual harassment is a threat to employees’ health and safety since it leads to a stressed employee who is less productive than the normal employee. Furthermore, this is against the employee’s human rights. This has been observed in Pauline a sales executive who has been become stressed and less productive allegedly owing to sexual harassment by Bob who is a manager in the company. As such, this report looks at the reasons why Pauline is stressed hence affecting her level of productivity. In so doing, the stakeholders in the case have been identified and their roles in the case identified. Then the role of David as a manager and the options he has in ensuring that the issue of sexual harassment issue is combated not just for Pauline but also for other employees has been discussed. The report then discusses the ethical and legal matters involved in the issue of sexual harassment. Finally, the paper discusses the responsibilities and legal requirements on a manager in pursuing matters of an employee refuse to discuss an issue as Pauline has been observed to do. In conclusion, the need for the company’s management to ensure that workers are provided with healthy and safe working environment has been emphasized in a bid to ensure cases of sexual harassment do not occur in a bid to ensure workers’ productivity is maintained. Table of Contents Executive summary 1 Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 The major stakeholders in the study 3 The action that David should take 4 The ethical and legal matters involved 6 Responsibilities, including legal requirements, on a manager to pursue matters if an employee refuses to discuss an issue 8 Conclusion 9 References: 11 Introduction Based on Australian Human Rights Commission, over 20% of the cases they handle boarder on sexual harassment in the workplace. On the other hand, the US equal employment commission handles over 15,000 cases of sexual harassment in the workplace with compensation to victim being over $50 million annually. This shows that the act is still rampant in our workplaces despite its being declared illegal by various acts including the occupation health and safety act, equal opportunities act and the sex discrimination act among others (Janet etal, 2014). The current case study shows that sexual harassment can have very negative effects on the affected employee’s morale and hence productivity as evidence with Pauline’s recent change of behavior. In the worst cases, it leads to employees leaving the organization. Due to their nature, cases of sexual harassment in the workplace go unreported as making a complaint is very stressing which is probably why Pauline does not want to report. As such, sexual harassment in the workplace is both an ethical and legal issue that should be discouraged at all costs. Thus, this paper reviews the case of the stressed sales executive with an aim of suggesting how organizations should deal with sexual harassment in the workplace with an aim of ensuring employees morale and hence productivity is maintained at all times. Furthermore, such organizations will guard themselves against unnecessary legal issues which may lead to uncalled losses in terms of time and money. The major stakeholders in the study The major stakeholders in this study include David welch, Pauline Cheng, Bob Ripley and the writer of the anonymous letter. David Welch is the marketing manager for Widget international who is described as having steered the marketing department to great success. In addition, he is the one under whom Pauline works and he notices the abnormal behavior with Pauline. At first, he makes an assumption that Pauline will recover and does not ask her the course of her strange behavior until it gets out of hand when he decides to intervene and asks Pauline the course of her strange behavior (The British Psychology Society, 2010). This is after she becomes abusive to Bob Ripley a manager in the human resources department. However, his efforts to establish the course of Pauline’s strange behavior are fruitless until when she receives an anonymous letter pointing towards what could have caused Pauline’s recent behavior as being sexual harassment by Bob Ripley. Another stakeholder in the case is Pauline Cheng. She is initially introduced as a very successful sales representative and the top performer in her department. However, she has been behaving strangely of late in that she has become short tempered; she has been coming to work late and has frequently not reported for work. However, the situation gets out of hand when she becomes abusive to Bob Ripley a human resources manager at a company’s social function. It is at this time that her manager David decides to intervene. She however does not reveal what the matter is to David but only claims that there is a matter that is stressing her hence her behavior of late. Bob Ripley is another stakeholder in the case. He is a manager in the human resources department. Bob Ripley is the one who prompts David to ask Pauline the cause of her strange behavior of late. This happens when Pauline becomes abusive to him in the company’s social function bearing in mind that Bob is supposed to be a manager (Ann and Jennifer, 2012). In addition, he is the one who is accused of sexually harassing Pauline by the anonymous letter writer. Another stakeholder is the anonymous letter writer. She/he plays the critical role of revealing what is disturbing Pauline. This is because the letter claims that Bob Ripley has been sexually harassing Pauline. The action that David should take It is worth noting that managers like David have the responsibility of preventing sexual harassment in the work place. In addition, it is worth noting that sexual harassment as alleged by the anonymous letter is not a single behavior but a continuum of behaviors and hence the need for David to thoroughly investigate the claim in a bid to establish its nature and the extent to which it has occurred in a bid to determine the nature of action he is to take to prevent its reoccurrence not just to Pauline but also to any other worker in the company. Having received the anonymous letter, David is now aware that the recent change of behavior by Pauline has probably been caused by sexual harassment by Bob Ripley (Equalityhumanrights.com, 2014). However, it should be noted that this is just an allegation and it has to be investigated before a disciplinary measure should be taken. It should also be noted that he has not secured cooperation from Pauline who could be is instrumental in bringing to an end the acts of sexual harassment in the company as a victim. As such, David’s first step should be establishing the authenticity of the allegation. This he should do by trying to seek cooperation from Pauline since securing her cooperation will make his investigations easier. However whether or not he secures Pauline’s cooperation, he should carry out investigations into the sexual harassment allegations since every sexual harassment act may involve more witnesses than the victim. The anonymous letter will also act as a good lead into unveiling the truth about the allegation (Lyon, 2007). In doing his investigation, David should consult the human resources department immediately who may guide him or be involved in the process bearing in mind he is the marketing manager and may not have much experience on human resources issues. His investigation should start by interviewing Pauline in a bid to establish whether sexual harassment occurred, when and how it occurred. He should then arrange for a meeting with Bob and his representatives so that he can inform him that a sexual harassment complaint has been made against him and gather his response. David should then interview the witnesses that might have been present or heard about it in a bid to inform himself more (Civil Service Commission, 2014). Having gathered his evidence, David should determine the facts in a bid to determine the kind of response that will be appropriate. He should also provide his findings to the human resources manager who will guide him into the kind of action to take. The action David takes should also be informed by the organization’s policy on workplace sexual harassment as required by organizational health and safety act. David’s investigation may lead him into making one of the conclusions below; i) That the evidence and balance of probability standard of proof indicated that harassment occurred and hence an appropriate course of action should be taken ii) That evidence showed that harassment did not occur in which case he may recommend actions such as workplace mediation and education iii) That evidence gathered is insufficient for drawing a conclusion in which actions such as debriefing and education may be recommended (Workplace matters,2014). Should the evidence prove that sexual harassment actually occurred; the action David takes could be informal especially when the extent of harassment is not severe. In this case, the action will involve informing Bob that his action was inappropriate and hence require him to cease the behavior and conform to the organization’s policies and standards. Then Bob should be monitored in relation to harassment to ensure that he actually ceases. In addition, David could recommend to the organization training or mentoring program that is awareness rising in a bid to prevent future incidences while ensuring maximum productivity by employees. On the other hand, if the act was severe, David should consider involving the human resources department to take a formal action against Bob (Diana, 2014). This is because David may not have powers to take actions such as separating the two employees or taking disciplinary measures against Bob since this is the reserve of the Human resources department and management. Regardless of the kind of action taken on Bob, David still needs to bring Pauline back to her normal productivity levels. It should be noted that sexual harassment is very stressful to the victim and this could be made worse by the investigation process. As has been revealed above, Pauline’s performance and morale has drastically reduced and hence the need to restore her back to her normal position as the best sales executive. David should thus consider involving the organization’s welfare officer or occupational health adviser to assist in this (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2014). This will be done by offering support or counseling appropriate to Pauline’s situation. However, the counseling needs to be done by a person who is independent, confidential and sensitive to Pauline’s needs. In addition, this should never be seen as preferential treatment. This way, Pauline will gradually recover from the incident and be as productive as before. This way, David will have successfully played his role as a manager in responding to workplace sexual harassment. The ethical and legal matters involved As stated above, the anonymous letter writer alleges that Pauline has been sexually harassed by Bob who is a manager with the human resources department. Sexual harassment involves any unwanted or unwelcome sexual behavior that makes the victim feel offended, intimidated or humiliated. Sexual harassment involves such acts as staring, unnecessary familiarity such as unwelcome touching, suggestive comments, taunts of sexual nature, statements about one’s private life, and sexually explicit messages among other related behaviors (Yossie, 2010). This kind of behavior is unethical since it leads to mental torture of the victim leading to stress and reduced productivity as has happened to Pauline. Sexual harassment is also a legal issue in that the sex discrimination act of 1984 declares sexual harassment unlawful. In addition, the occupational health and safety act makes sexual harassment in the work place as illegal since it is against the organizational health and safety guidelines. Women are ore affected by workplace sexual harassment in comparison to men according to Australian human rights commission (2014). According to the commission, 21% of the complaints it received in 2009-10 involved sex discrimination in the workplace as is alleged to be happening to Pauline. The rise in sexual harassment in the workplace is attributed to the increased use of new technologies including social networking sites. However, managers such as Bob ought to know that sexual harassment is against law and is punishable in law. As an ethical issue it can be said to be discriminatory since as can be seen, it has acted as a barrier to Pauline participating fully in her employment while reducing the quality of work she does. As can be seen, Pauline will probably cease working in the company if David does not take an appropriate action to remedy the situation which would be unfair. In essence, it is one of the causes of high turnover in our workplaces. An ethical issue of concern in this case would be what the acceptable and unacceptable within the workplace for both male and female employees. Has Bob been accused of such behavior before and also whether he understands his acts to amount to sexual harassment? We would also be concerned whether the organization has put in place a policy against sexual discrimination and whether such policies is known to exist by the employees and whether the organization enforces the policy. Legally, the organization would be held responsible for ensuring health and safety in the workplace and in this regard, it should have put in place a working policy on sexual harassment for both employees and managers like Bob. It should be noted that legally and ethically, sexual harassment leads to workplace discrimination based on gender based on civil rights act. Pauline could even bring a complaint against Bob based on discrimination which would result in the company paying her a lot of money in damages. If she is forced to leave work owing to the harassment, she can sue for unfair dismissal (Kenneth, 2000). This would be a loss to the company. However, it should be noted that men and women have different perceptions of what may constitute sexual harassment and hence unless Pauline has informed Bob of his behavior clearly, he may continue with it innocently. In such a circumstance a reasonable person’s test is suitable for establishing whether Bob’s act is deliberate. As an employer therefore, the organization should invest in a working policy that informs the workers of what may constitute sexual harassment and the consequences of involving oneself in them. Responsibilities, including legal requirements, on a manager to pursue matters if an employee refuses to discuss an issue As revealed in the case, Pauline is not willing to discuss the issue of her sexual harassment by Bob despite the fact that it is affecting her performance. However as a manager, David should understand it is his common law duty to take reasonable care and ensure that the issue is resolved. This duty has also been reinforced by Australia’s health and safety legislation. As such, he should take reasonable steps to ensure that he gets Pauline to talk about the issue now that he has an idea of what is causing her behavior. The manager should understand that making the complaint is stressful itself. As such, there is need to involve the organization’s welfare officer or occupational health advisor to assist in counseling the victim (Squelch and Guthrie, 2010). The manager should also alleviate any fear of intimidation or losing her job as a result of speaking for instance. He should reassure her that the process will be confidential and will not result in negative consequences on her part. Should the employee still continue being adamant to discuss the issue, the manager should inform her of the consequences of refusing to cooperate such as continued harassment. He should also consider extracting information from her anonymously for instance through friends who witnessed the act (Joan, 2003). Finally, there is need to explain to her that her refusal to cooperate is against the OHS act and the organization’s policy on sexual harassment since it does not help in eradicating the vice and is equivalent to hiding evidence thus obstructing evidence which could have legal consequences. However, in matters that are different from the current issue for instance involving fraud, the manager can even threaten to take legal action if need be if only to expose the truth. Conclusion It has been revealed that sexual harassment in the workplace is still rampant and can come from anyone including managers such as Bob, fellow employees or even the management. It has also been revealed that sexual harassment is against various acts including the sexual discrimination act, Occupation health and safety act among other acts. This is because it is unethical and usually results in reduced employee morale and hence productivity as was the case with Pauline. However, it is the responsibility of Managers like David and the management as a whole to take necessary steps aimed at curbing the vice in the workplace (Stutman, 2001). As such, organizations need to put in place policies that are working against the vice and ensure they are actually functional. It should also be noted that victims at times may be unwilling to report and hence proper reporting processes free of intimidation and which assure employee of their safety and their job security should be put in place. Finally, victims should be encouraged to cooperate with those looking for evidence if the vice is to be overcome. Failure to cooperate should also not be tolerated since it may lead to further perpetuation of the vice within the workplace and is against the various acts as mentioned above. 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