Reference no: EM132168122
An Experiential Exercise: Laying Off Workers
Every supervisor, at some point in his or her career, is likely to be faced with the difficult task of laying off employees. Assume that you are the supervisor in the accounting department of a 750-member organization. You have been notified by top management that you must permanently reduce your staff by two individuals. The following are some data about your five employees.
Janet McGraw: African American female, age thirty-six. Janet has been employed with your company for five years, all in the accounting department. Her evaluations over the past three years have been outstanding and above average. Janet has an MBA from a top-25 business school. She has been on short-term disability the past few weeks because of the birth of her second child and is expected to return to work in twenty weeks.
Bill Keeney: White male, age forty-nine. Bill has been with you for four months and has eleven years of experience in the company in payroll. He has an associate degree in business administration and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting. He’s also a CPA. Bill’s evaluations over the past three years in the payroll department have been average, but he did save the company $150,000 on a suggestion he made regarding using electronic time sheets.
José Melendez: Hispanic male, age thirty-one. José has been with the company almost four years. His evaluations over the past three years in your department have been outstanding. He is committed to getting the job done and devoting whatever it takes. He has also shown initiative by taking job assignments that no one else wanted. And he has recovered a number of overdue and uncollected accounts that you had thought should be written off as a loss.
Lisa Parks: White female, age thirty-five. Lisa has been with your company seven years. Four years ago, Lisa was in an automobile accident while traveling on business to a customer’s location. As a result of the accident, she was disabled and now uses a wheelchair. Rumors have it that she is about to receive several million dollars from the insurance company of the driver that hit her. Her performance the last two years has been above average. She has a bachelor’s degree in accounting and specializes in computer information systems.
Charles Thomas: African American male, age forty- three. Charles just completed his joint master’s degree in taxation and law, and recently passed the bar exam. He has been with your department the past four years. His evaluations have been good to above average. Five years ago, Charles won a lawsuit against your company for discriminating against him in a promotion to a supervisory position. Rumors have it that now, with his new degree, Charles is actively pursuing another job outside the company.
Given these five brief descriptions, make a recommendation on which two employees you will suggest to your boss be laid off. Discuss any other options that you feel can be used to meet the requirement of downsizing by two employees without resorting to layoffs. Discuss what you will do to (A) assist the two individuals who have been let go and (B) assist the remaining three employees.