Management
Help with Board Question no word count, and Power Point Presentation. APA Format Throughout.
Board Question.
There are seven major methods to overcoming resistance to change: (1) develop a positive trust climate for change, (2) plan the change, (3) clearly state why the change is needed and how it will affect employees, (4) create a win-win situation, (5) involve employees, (6) provide support and evaluation, (7) and create urgency. Think of a situation where you would like to implement a major change with a group of individuals you work with. How would you utilize one or more of these methods to overcome resistance to your change?
Unit PowerPoint Presentation
Over the past 40 years, union membership has declined, and it continues to do so. Instead, many companies are turning to alternative dispute resolution. We know one of the best union avoidance tactics is good communication and providing job satisfaction for employees.
Create a PowerPoint presentation (with speaker notes) that focuses on unions in the workplace. Address the following concepts in your presentation.
Identify the factors that have contributed to the reduction in union membership. Be sure to include the rationale you use in your speaker notes.
Evaluate whether or not the reduction in union membership is a good or bad thing for employees in the United States. Be sure to include the rationale you use in your speaker notes.
Explain what alternative dispute resolution involves and identify the pros and cons from the perspective of the employee and the pros and cons from the perspective of the employer. Remember, you want to include the bulk of your explanation in the speaker notes, not on the slide.
Describe a situation where employees or managers would want to use some form of alternative dispute resolution such as mediation or arbitration as opposed to direct negotiation or litigation to resolve disputes. Be sure to include the rationale you use in your speaker notes.
Explain how each of the seven determinants of job satisfaction (individual personality, the work itself, compensation, growth and upward mobility, coworkers, management, and communication) help to create the type of environment where employees experience job satisfaction. Remember, you want to include the bulk of your explanation in the speaker notes, not on the slide.
Be sure to include an introduction and conclusion to your presentation. Include at least two images or graphics in your presentation.
Your PowerPoint presentation should be a minimum of eight slides, not counting the title or reference slides. Adhere to APA style when constructing this assignment, including in-text citations and references for all sources that are used.
UnitV Lecture Transcript
Slide 1
Unit V, Employee Rights, Employee Management, and Labor Relations.
Slide 2
In order to gain a deeper understanding of the concepts presented in
this course, the unit lessons will be structured in question and answer
format. Each slide will provide at least one question based on concepts
presented in this unit and an accompanying audio response from a subject
matter expert. Review each slide to further enhance your practical
knowledge about the field of human resource management.
Slide 3
Meet Marilyn Pike. Marilyn has over 20 years of experience in HR
leadership positions in both the public and private sector, large and small
businesses, and union and non-union environments. She currently holds
both the SPHR and SHRM-SCP.
Question: Can you talk to us about employee rights? Management
rights?
Answer: As Americans, we have all learned that we certain inalienable
Constitutional rights; however, it’s important to recognize that while we
have those rights in our private lives, in the workplace, we give up many of
those rights in exchange for a paycheck. That’s why it’s important to pay
attention to the ethics and/or mission of the organization which provides you
with that paycheck. An employer cannot force you to do anything against
your will; however, the consequence of you choosing not to do what your
employer wants you to do can mean loss of your job. That is the reality of
the world. Key idea, let’s get something out of the way: First Amendment
Right of Free Speech. In the workplace, individual freedom of speech is
limited. The reality is the employer has a responsibility to ensure that
everyone is treated with mutual respect. An employee cannot say whatever
they want, whenever they want. Respectful communication is everything.
That said, within organizations, individuals should still be free to
express concerns or discontent with organizational policies or to even blow
the whistle without fear of harm. Many employees fear that if they speak up,
their employer will retaliate against them by limiting their promotion
opportunities or just make their life miserable at work. There are laws
against this. In fact, a charge of retaliation can be more costly to an
employer than the penalty associated with the original complaint. Manager
rights are based on the necessity for the organization to protect itself and its
employees from persons that might do them intentional or unintentional
harm. The manager has to weigh the individual’s rights against the potential
harm that could be done to the organization by allowing the individual to
express those rights. Management has the right to:
create and enforce an employee code of conduct;
create workplace data and device policies to protect data and to
maintain control of its networks;
monitor the workplace to protect the organization and its
employees;
identify the relationship with workers as one of employment-at-
will, which basically allows either party to break the relationship
at any time, even without stating a reason;
set up an orientation program and require that new employees
attend such orientation; and
test for drugs in the workplace.
In each case, these rights are offered based on the need for managers
to be able to protect the organization and the employees from unnecessary
danger or harm.
Slide 4
Question: You mentioned employment at will. Can you explain this
concept further?
Answer: Employment at will allows the company or the employee to
break their work relationship at any point in time, with or without any
particular reason, as long as in doing so, no law is violated, which essentially
means that the employee is not being terminated due to any protected class
status.
The reality is that if an employer is using at-will employment to
terminate an employee, if that employee happens to be part of a protected
status group, the employer would be wise to document some reason for the
termination, showing that the reason was not protected class status. At-will
employment also runs both ways. An employee can leave an employer at
any time for any reason. While the professional thing to do is to give a
minimum of two weeks’ notice, the employer cannot require an employee to
give notice. I’ve heard many employees feel at-will employment is unfair,
but I suggest they consider that rarely is a manager going to decide to
terminate a good employee “just because.” The effect on other employees
would be devastating should a manager just walk up to someone and say,
“You’re gone.” When a manager terminates an employee, there is usually a
very good reason. At-will employment just does not require the manager to
share that reason with the employee.
Slide 5
Question: What is coaching verses counseling?
Answer: The major objective of coaching, counseling and discipline is
to change behavior. I’ve found, often, managers are reluctant to talk with
employees about issues. I think it is important to change the paradigm and
realize that by reaching out to the employee as soon as the issue is
identified, the manager is doing both themselves and the employee a huge
favor.
Coaching, generally, should be the first step in dealing with problem
employees, but if they are unwilling or unable to change, or a rule has been
broken, discipline is necessary. The second objective is to let employees
know action will be taken when standing plans or performance requirements
are not met and to maintain authority when challenged. It is all about
accountability. Management counseling, that involves giving employees
feedback so they realize a problem (often personal) is affecting their job
performance and referring employees with problems that cannot be
managed within the work structure to an employee assistance program. Of
course, coaching, counseling, and discipline may differ globally. The most
important thing in any successful interaction between the coach and the
recipient of coaching is probably an understanding of the individual, not the
culture that the individual comes from. This is because no matter what
culture a person belongs to, individual personalities may or may not adhere
to cultural norms and values. Therefore, two of the most significant issues
that the coach needs to attempt to determine are the individual’s personality
type and their motivators.
Slide 6
Question: What is job satisfaction, and why is it important?
Answer: Job satisfaction is an attitude, not a behavior. We can
experience behaviors directly, while we can measure attitudes only
indirectly, making job satisfaction difficult to measure. The seven
determinants of job satisfaction include individual personality, the work
itself, compensation, growth and upward mobility, coworkers, management,
and communication. Although compensation (pay and benefits) is important
to job satisfaction, research, historically, has not strongly supported the idea
that pay is the only, or even the primary determinant of job satisfaction in
many cases. Job satisfaction is, to a large extent, based on personality and
perception, so it can be changed. If you work at being more positive by
focusing on the good parts of your job and spend less time thinking about
problems, and especially complaining to others about your job, then you
may increase your job satisfaction.
Slide 7
Question: Let’s talk about unions. What drives employees’ desire to
unionize?
Answer: We talked about job satisfaction. Job dissatisfaction has a lot
to do with employees wanting to join unions. Treating employees well and
fairly is a very effective union avoidance tactic. Employees organize for a
variety of reasons, including better pay and benefits (especially good
healthcare coverage and retirement plans), they organize to fight unfair
management practices that lead to poor labor relations, and they fight for
job security. I’ve worked with three different unions and been involved in
two union organization attempts. One organization attempt failed and the
other succeeded.
In the attempt which succeeded, we realized after the fact that the
main reason the employees wanted to organize is they felt they were not
being heard. Conflict is part of every relationship and every social system.
You are in conflict when you get aggravated at someone or when someone
does something that bothers you. When there is conflict and employees do
not feel heard, they turn to unionization in order to attempt to gain some
type of power on their side in the process.
Labor and management are required by law to bargain with each other
in good faith, and companies need to maintain effective employee relations,
but when in conflict, we cannot always resolve our dispute alone. In these
cases, we can use something called alternative dispute resolution.
Alternative dispute resolution includes a series of tools, most commonly
either mediation or arbitration, which parties in conflict can use to resolve
their disagreements without going through the process of litigation.
The NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) has taken a stance that
heavily favors the employee in virtually all situations where there may be
questions about whether or not an action is protected concerted activity.
Business, as a result of these interpretations, has found it more difficult to
maintain good order and discipline within their organizations. However, there
is at least some help from some recent court decisions that have reversed
some of the more extreme NLRB decisions, noting that sometimes, you have
to use common sense in such situations.
Companies have become much more knowledgeable concerning
avoiding unionization drives. However, it doesn’t mean that their activities
are necessarily ethical. Staying within the letter of the law (NO TIPS) may
not provide the company with the kind of skilled workforce that it needs. We
have to pay attention to whether or not actions on the part of management
will increase the satisfaction and engagement levels of the employees or
cause them to decrease.
Slide 8
This concludes the Unit V question and answer session with subject
matter expert, Marilyn Pike. Reflect on this question and answer session as
you review your readings for this unit.
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©iStockphoto.com/vgajic
|
9 |
Rights and Employee Management |
Media Library
CHAPTER 9 Media Library
PREMIUM VIDEO
HRM in Action
Disciplining
an Employee
LICENSED VIDEO
Employee Rights
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:
9-1.
Identify the commonly accepted individual rights in the workplace.
PAGE
304
9-2.
Identify the rights that management has in modern organizations.
PAGE 307
9-3.
Briefly describe the coaching, counseling, and progressive discipline processes and how they are used
.
PAGE 311
9-4.
Identify the factors that positive leadership takes into account to be successful.
PAGE
323
9-5.
Briefly discuss the stages of the change process, and how we can overcome our own and others’ resistance to change.
PAGE 329
9-6.
Discuss the process of providing corrective feedback and identify the problems created by modern social media at work.
PAGE 333
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Commonly Accepted Employee Rights
Rights and Privileges
Right of Free Consent
Right to Due Process
Right to Life and Safety
Right of Freedom of Conscience (Limited)
Right to Privacy (Limited)
Right to Free Speech (Limited)
Management Rights
Codes of Conduct
Data and Device Policies
Workplace Monitoring
Employment-at-Will
Orientation (Probationary) Periods
Drug Testing
Coaching
,
Counseling
, and Discipline
Coaching
Counseling
Disciplining
Terminating
Coaching, Counseling, and Discipline May Differ Globally
Leadership
and Management
Leadership
Situational Management
Teams and Organizational Change
Building Effective Work Teams
Managing the Change Process
Overcoming Resistance to Change
Trends and Issues in HRM
Good Feedback Makes a Good Manager
Social Media and the Web Continue to Create Managerial Nightmares
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Practitioner’s Perspective
Cindy says, “If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen.”
That’s a common expression in health care settings, and it stresses the importance of record keeping for patient care. The same holds true for management of personnel issues.
“I’ve had it with Jeremy!” Leonard exploded when Cindy returned his phone call one morning. “I’ve told him a million times how to run this report, and he won’t follow my instructions! If he makes one more mistake, that’s it—he’s out of here.”
“Whoa, Leonard,” Cindy soothed. “You know our policy advises progressive discipline. Are you documenting your issues with Jeremy? Have you tried nondisciplinary counseling or a written warning?”
“I don’t have time for all that nonsense,” scoffed Leonard. “I should be able to fire any employee Iwant!”
“If you haven’t been keeping records to back up your management of Jeremy’s performance issues, discharge is not your first option.” Cindy cautioned.
For the sake of due process in disciplinary matters, supervisors must document that an employee was informed of performance issues and given an opportunity to improve. You will find helpful information on employee versus management rights and related legal requirements in
Chapter 9
.
SHRM
HR CONTENT
See Appendix: SHRM 2016 Curriculum Guidebook for the complete list
A. Employee and Labor Relations (required)
1. Disciplinary actions: Demotion, disciplinary termination
7. Managing teams
22.
Investigations
27. Employee records
B. Employment Law (required)
19. Employee privacy
30. Employment-at-will doctrine
C. Ethics (required)
5. Guidelines and codes
6. Behavior within ethical boundaries
H. Performance Management (required)
8. Diagnosing problems
9. Performance improvement programs
I. Staffing: Recruitment and Selection (required)
14. Job offers: Employment-at-will, contracts, authorization to work
M. Workforce Planning and Talent Management (required)
3.
Retention
: Involuntary turnover, outplacement counseling, alternative dispute resolution
N. Change Management (required—graduate students only)
1. Stages of change management
3.
Communication
4. Building trust
6. Leading change
7. Planning change strategy
8. Implementing change
Q. Organization Development (required—graduate students only)
1. Coaching
7. Leadership development
X. Workplace Health, Safety, and Security (secondary)
12. Monitoring, surveillance, privacy
Get the edge on your studies.
edge.sagepub.com/lussierhrm3e
• Take a quiz to find out what you’ve learned.
• Review key terms with eFlashcards.
• Watch videos that enhance chapter content.
p.304
COMMONLY ACCEPTED EMPLOYEE RIGHTS
LO 9-1
Identify the commonly accepted individual rights in the workplace.
In this chapter, we will follow up on the developmental interview to continuously manage and improve employee relations. We will manage individual performance through coaching, counseling, and finally to disciplining or terminating employees who cannot or will not perform to acceptable standards. In addition to individual development, we discuss team development through positive leadership, team building, and managing change.
|
Licensed Video |
In order to develop or discipline employees and develop high-performance teams, we need to understand employee and management rights to ensure that we don’t violate those rights by taking unethical or illegal disciplinary action against employees.
Exhibit 9-1
provides a list of six common employee rights.1 However, before we discuss these common employee rights, we need to understand the difference between a right and a privilege.
Rights and Privileges
Individual rights are the topic of much conversation in our society today. However, how many of us actually know the difference between a right and a privilege? If we listen, we constantly hear statements such as, “I have a right to drive my car the way I want,” or “Ihave a right to go to college.” Are such statements correct? In fact both of these statements describe privileges, not rights.
Privileges are things that individuals are allowed to do based on asking permission from an authority.In simple terms, a privilege must be earned because the individual does something successfully (like passing a driver’s test or getting good grades in high school), while a right is provided to the individual by the society in which they are a member. We don’t have a right to drive, especially not any way we want. Driving is a privilege based on the individual showing that they have knowledge of the correct way to drive so that they can avoid doing harm to others.
On the other hand, a right does not require the individual to do anything in order to gain that right at that time in that society. Rights are things a person in a society is allowed to do without any permission required from an authority. Rights are bestowed upon the individual based on their membership in the society.
p.305
Exhibit 9-1 EMPLOYEE RIGHTS
1 Note that these three rights have limitations.
The simple way to tell the difference between a right and a privilege in an organization is this: If the employee has to request permission to do something within the organization, then the employee is attempting to exercise a privilege. On the other hand, employees do not need permission to exercise their rights.
WORK
APPLICATION 9-1
Give examples of rights andprivileges where you work or have worked.
In general, employees have several rights. Because these are rights in the sense noted in the above paragraph, the individual employee doesn’t have to do anything to gain these rights. Some of these rights are part of federal or state laws, while others are simply provided by organizations because they are accepted as part of our society. Because the employee is a part of this society (the organization), they gain these rights. The organization has a duty to protect each employee’s rights. This duty, or obligation, is a societal (company) responsibility to protect the individual’s (employee) rights. The individual employee also has a duty to avoid violating the rights of other employees in the course of exercising their own rights. So rights are always balanced by duties or responsibilities.
So what do these rights allow an individual within the organization to do, and what limitations are there on the three “limited” rights that we noted in Exhibit 9-1? Let’s break down each of the six rights individually in separate sections.
Right of Free Consent
Individuals in a modern organization have the right of free consent, which is the right of the individual to know what they’re being asked to do and the possible and probable consequences of that action to the individual or others, either inside or outside the organization. People should know what they are being asked to do in their jobs; and they shouldn’t be forced, manipulated, or deceived into working in situations that could cause harm. The organization’s duty is to ensure that the individual voluntarily agrees to do a particular job or task for the organization, making them fully aware of everything involved. The organization would be violating the individual’s right to free consent if it forced the person to do something against their will or manipulated them in some way to do something that they would not do if they knew all of the circumstances.
p.306
WORK
APPLICATION 9-2 and 9-3
Give an example of how your present or past employer met your right to free consent. What did you consent to do on the job?
Have you ever not consented to do something on the job? If yes, give an example of what you refused to do.
A great example of the right to free consent was shown after the Japan earthquake and ensuing tsunami in March 2011. Several nuclear reactors were damaged, and workers were needed to go into areas with significant radiation and other dangers.2The workers needed to be told about the dangers from both radiation and potentially explosive gasesthat they would encounter by taking on the job of working on the reactors. If the workers had not been told the extent of the danger, the company (Tokyo Electric Power Company) would have violated their right to free consent. For the right of free consent to be in effect, the workers would have to be given enough information so that they could understand the danger and then freely agree to do the job.
Right to Due Process
WORK
APPLICATION 9-4
Briefly describe the due process rights where you work or have worked.
We have due process so that employees are not punished arbitrarily.3 If the organization contemplates a disciplinary action, the employee has a right to know what they are accused of, to know the evidence or proof thereof, and to tell their side of what happened. This is the right to due process. We will review due process and the seven tests for Just Cause a little bit later, but due process is basically the concept of providing fair and reasonable disciplinary actions as consequences of an employee’s behavior. So, the organization would have a duty to investigate any disciplinary infractions; and the employees would have a right to understand the charges against them, the evidence concerning those charges, and the reasons for the conclusions that led to any disciplinary action by the organization.
WORK
APPLICATION 9-5
Briefly describe some of the life and safety issues where you work or have worked. If applicable, give an example of how someone was hurt.
Right to Life and Safety
Every employee within the organization has a right to be protected from harm, to the best of the organization’s ability. In 1948, the United Nations declared that every individual has a right to life, liberty, and security of person.4 Security of person basically means personal safety. This would obviously include individual employees at work in the organization. So the organization has a general duty to see that every employee is protected from harm when working within the organization, because the individual has a right to life and safety. We will discuss safety and health in more detail in
Chapter 1
4
.
Antonio Zugaldia/Flickr/CreativeCommons
Google Glass and other like technologies create a new set of privacy concerns for HR managers.
Right of Freedom of Conscience (Limited)
Employees generally should not be asked to do something that violates their personal values and beliefs, as long as these beliefs generally reflect commonly accepted societal norms. A person’s conscience determines what that person considers to be right and wrong. The organization has a general duty to avoid forcing an individual to do something that they consider to be wrong, either morally or ethically; and the individual has aright to avoid doing things within the organization that would violate their personal values and beliefs.
However, this doesn’t mean that a person can accept a job in, for example, a medical lab working on cancer cures, then refuse to work with living human cells because their moral convictions prohibit that, and then be free from any threat of termination of their employment. The organization would generally have the right in this case to terminate the worker for noncompliance with legitimate requirements associated with the job, since it would be almost certain that the individual would know of these requirements before accepting the job.
p.307
Right to Privacy (Limited)
WORK
APPLICATION 9-6
Give an example of when employees were encouraged to conduct unethical or illegal activities. Try to give an example from an organization where you work or have worked; but otherwise, give an example from another source, such as the news media.
This right protects people from unreasonable or unwarranted intrusions into their personal affairs. This general right to privacy would include the employee’s right to have their personnel files, other employee records, and/or private areas of their workplace (such as a personal locker) kept private, to an extent. The organization would have a general duty to protect individual employee privacy in most cases, whether dealing with the employee’s private life, personal history, or private areas in the workplace.
SHRM
A:27
Employee Records
However, if the employer feels that there might be a hazard to others, in keeping with all employees’ right to life and safety above, a locker or other personal space (e.g., a desk) could be searched. For example, if an employee reports to one of the organization’s managers that another employee has a weapon in a personal space (such as their locker), then the organization probably has a right to search the individual’s locker.
Another limitation on privacy is in email to and from company addresses. The employer again has a right to review any information in these types of correspondence to protect other employees and the organization.
SHRM
B:19
Employee Privacy
Right to Free Speech (Limited)
The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech. What most people don’t understand, though, is that the First Amendment applies only to the government not being allowed to control free speech. In the workplace, individual freedom of speech is limited, based on many years of case law. Within the organization itself, individuals should be free to express concerns or discontent with organizational policies without fear of harm. Allowing such expression provides the organization an opportunity to see that problems exist, and it gives them the opportunity to correct these problems. Employees have legal protection to blow the whistle on an organization that is involved in illegal activities; in other words, employers can’t fire or discriminate against an employee for telling others about the organization’s illegal activities. (We will talk more about whistle-blowers in the next chapter.)
WORK
APPLICATION 9-7
How do you feel about management going through your personal space (desk, locker, etc.) and monitoring the equipment (computer, telephone, etc.) you use, to see if you are using it for personal reasons?
However, many types of speech have no protection. If the individual employee exercises the right to freedom of speech, and if, in the course of that action, the employee harms the organization or other employees, then the organization has a right to discipline the employee based on the harm that the employee did to others. For example, an organization in the private sector can discipline an employee for using demeaning language toward another employee, even though the first employee might assert the right to free speech. This is due to the requirement to maintain good order and discipline in an organization so work can be produced.
In another case, a manager might verbally and publicly disagree with a corporate policy. The manager certainly has a right to do so, but the organization would also have a right to discipline or even terminate the manager because of such actions, again based on maintenance of good order and discipline in the organization. In such a case, managers are generally held to a higher standard than nonmanagerial employees. You may remember the case of the president of Chick-fil-A saying that the company supported the “biblical definition of the family unit.”5 Or you might recall Phil Robertson of TV’s
Duck Dynasty
“equating homosexuality to bestiality” in a
GQ
article.6 These men were both criticized by politicians, news outlets, gay and lesbian organizations, and other individuals over their remarks. In fact, both were boycotted and picketed by multiple groups, and Robertson was suspended from his own show for a short period. So, the organization has a right to limit the rights of the individual employee (especially high-level employees) because of the harm that they could cause to others in the organization and to the organization itself.
MANAGEMENT RIGHTS
LO 9-2
Identify the rights that management has in modern organizations.
You’ll notice that, for each of the rights that we’ve identified as limited, we’ve said the organization has a right to limit the individual employee’s rights in order to protect the firm. Organizations, like individuals, have rights within the larger society. Organizational rights tend to be based on the necessity for the organization to protect itself and its employees from persons who might do them harm, whether intentionally or unintentionally. While some of these rights (such as limiting certain discussions about work conditions and requiring civility in conversations between employees) have been weakened by recent labor rulings, organizations still have a set of rights that let them generally protect themselves and their people.
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9-1 APPLYING THE CONCEPT
Employee Rights
Review the list of rights below and write the letter corresponding to each right before the statement involving that right.
a. free consent d. freedom of conscience
b. due process e. privacy
c. life and safety f. free speech
____ 1. The HR manager made me sign this form before I could start the job, stating that she had told me about the possible side effects from the lead paint removal.
____ 2. I enjoy writing negative comments online about my boss and company.
____ 3. I’m going to teach you how to use the rifle. Rule number one is to always make sure this lever is down so you don’t fire the gun by accident.
____ 4. You can’t discipline me for this minor safety violation. I’m going to the labor union to stop you from doing it.
____ 5. Let me keep working in security. I don’t want to work in the bar, even though it pays better, because drinking is against my religion.
____ 6. Get out of my locker now. You have no right to search it without my permission.
WORK
APPLICATION 9-8
How do you feel about employees communicating negative things about the organization to outsiders? Should management monitor employee speech and take action to stop negative speech?
So for example, if the organization had reasonable evidence or proof that an individual had a weapon, or was harassing or bullying a coworker, or was providing organizational secrets to a competitor, we would generally have a right to investigate the individual in order to protect the organization and its other employees. Similarly, the organization has a right to determine whether or not the employee’s free speech does harm to the organization or other employees that exceeds the individual’s limited free speech rights. In other words, does the harm to the organization and other employees outweigh the rights of the individual to say what they want? So managers in the firm have to weigh the individual’s rights against the potential harm that could be done to the organization by allowing the individual to exercise those rights.
What other rights do organizations have? In this section, we discuss six management rights; see
Exhibit 9-2
for a list.
SHRM
C:5
Guidelines and Codes
Codes of Conduct
Managers of organizations have a right to create and require compliance with a reasonable code of employee conduct. The code of conduct is the organization’s mechanism for identifying the ethics and values of the firm, and it serves as a guide to individual action.7 Research shows that making a decision without using an ethical guide leads to less ethical choices,8 so ethical guidelines can have a positive influence.9
SHRM
C:6
Behavior Within Ethical Boundaries
Employees are more unethical when they believe they will not get caught and punished.10 Thus, most codes of conduct today also note the consequences that can occur if an employee does not follow the requirements in the code. A code of conduct gives an employee a practical tool for determining whether or not an action that they are contemplating is within the acceptable boundaries of conduct within their organization.
Virtually all organizations have a code of conduct. Generally, the larger the firm, the more likely the code of conduct will be in a written document or multiple documents.11 Most large companies also have a specific section of the code of conduct, or a separate document known as the code of ethics, that spells out what is and is not ethical behavior.
p.309
Exhibit 9-2 MANAGEMENT RIGHTS
Data and Device Policies
WORK
APPLICATION 9-9
Give examples of behaviors that are not acceptable in an organization where you work or have worked.
Employers have the right to create workplace policies to protect organizational data and to maintain control of their networks and connected devices.12However, maintaining that control becomes much more difficult when many different computing devices are allowed to connect to the organization’s network.
Let’s take a look at one policy trend—the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement, which had been adopted by around 60% of US companies by 2014, including Carfax, Kimberly-Clark, Kraft, and Citrix.13 BYOD is basically what it sounds like: The company allows employees to bring their own laptop, tablet, smartphone, and so on to work and connect that device to the company network. There are good reasons for allowing this, but there are also some problems. Reasons for allowing BYOD include the following:14
• It may increase productivity and employee satisfaction.
• It helps in recruiting new employees.
• It can strengthen work-life balance.
• It reduces computer hardware costs for the organization.
However, these benefits come with a host of problems, including the following:
• Multiple types of security risks, including leaks, hacking, lost devices, and so on
• The mixing of company and personal information on the same device
• Employee privacy concerns
• Employees who leave the organization with company information still on their device
As a result of the above issues and others, many companies are allowing BYOD, but with restrictions. Some restrict the types of devices to those that are more secure. Many require specific security programs on all devices that will connect to the network. Some require the employee to acknowledge that if they leave the company or lose the device, it will be “remotely wiped,” deleting everything on the device.15 Having policies covering the use and management of BYOD is an absolute requirement in any organization that decides to allow such use.16 Regardless of the policies, though, the company has the right (and the obligation, for privacy reasons) to manage any device connected to secure company networks.
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310
Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images
An employee at De Beers, the world’s largest diamond producer, monitors mining operations to keep employees and assets safe.
Workplace Monitoring
Managers in the organization have a right to monitor the workplace to ensure that employees are acting both legally and ethically in all of the actions that they take on behalf of the organization. One form of monitoring that we discussed in earlier chapters is the website monitoring that companies may undertake in an attempt to ensure that employees and others don’t defame the organization. Companies may also do monitoring and analysis of computer and network use within the firm, video monitoring of work spaces, and recording of phone conversations and emails. Workplace monitoring provides the organization with a mechanism to protect itself and its employees from individual actions that might harm them.
SHRM
X:12
Monitoring, Surveillance, Privacy
Employment-at-Will
Currently, under common law, “employment relationships are presumed to be ‘at will’ in all US states except Montana.”17 The concept of employment-at-will allows the company or the worker to break the work relationship at any point in time, with or without any particular reason, as long as in doing so, no law is violated.18 This is one of management’s rights in organizations, meaning the employer does not have to have cause (reasons) to terminate an employment relationship with an individual worker. If an organization states that employment in the firm is at-will, then it is typically presumed that the worker has no contractual rights to a continuing job with the firm.
However, employment-at-will is in reality a fairly weak law because courts in many jurisdictions in the United States have for many years ruled that employment-at-will is limited. The courts have specifically stated that there are three standard exceptions to employment-at-will.19 Public policy exceptions to employment-at-will include such things as being terminated for filing a legitimate worker’s compensation claim, refusing to lobby for a particular political candidate just because your boss likes the candidate, or refusing to violate a professional code of ethics. In other words, if the organization were violating vital public interests, and if the worker refused to participate, then the organization would not have a right to terminate the individual’s employment based on employment-at-will.
The courts have also noted that frequently, there is at least some evidence of an implied contractbetween the employee and the employer. For instance, if the company were to note in its employee handbook that “our organization values hard work, and many of our employees who perform well have been with us for many years,” that might be considered an implied contract stating, “If you work hard, we will continue to employ you.” This implication of a contract could negate the employment-at-will rights of the employer.
A third case in which courts have ruled that there are exceptions to employment-at-will occurs when employers are suspected of lack of good faith and fair dealing in the employment relationship. In other words, if the employer does something that will benefit them significantly but will harm the individual employee, that action would create a lack of good faith and fair dealing. For instance, we might release an older employee shortly before they become eligible for a company-sponsored retirement plan in order to hire a younger (and cheaper) employee in the same position and thus not have to pay the retirement benefits. This would be lack of good faith and fair dealing, in addition to probably being against age discrimination laws.
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SHRM
B:30
Employment-at-Will Doctrine
Orientation (Probationary) Periods
Organizations have a right to set up an orientation, or introductory, period for new employees. Many of you may be familiar with the older term probationary period. This term has fallen out of favor with organizations due to the fact that courts have said that completion of a probationary period may give employees additional rights in the workplace, even if employment in the workplace is ostensibly at-will. Regardless of what it is called, the orientation period allows the organization a certain amount of time in which to assess new employees and their capabilities, before fully integrating them into the organization. The orientation period usually runs from 60 to 90 days, but it can be much longer in some organizations that provide significant training to new entrants.
SHRM
I:14
Job Offers: Employment-at-Will, Contracts, Authorization to Work
Drug Testing
As we first noted in
Chapter 6
, “Most employers have the right to test for a wide variety of substances in the workplace.20 The primary reason for drug testing will generally be workplace safety.” However, some states have passed laws restricting drug testing, so HR managers need to be aware of these potential limitations. Even so, drug testing is another major employer right. But always remember that drug testing needs to be done in either a universal or a random form.
WORK
APPLICATION 9-10
How long is the typical orientation period where you work or have worked?
WORK
APPLICATION 9-11
How do you feel about companies giving drug tests? Does an organization you work for or have worked for require drug tests?
COACHING, COUNSELING, AND DISCIPLINE
LO 9-3
Briefly describe the coaching, counseling, and progressive discipline processes and how they are used
Managing people is an important part of HR leadership,21 because engaging employees leads to high performance.22 As a manager, it’s your job to have employees meet objectives and standards23 and follow the rules.24 Your most valuable resource is your employees, and you want them to meet their full potential,25 so how you manage people will determine your success.26
Ongoing employee development has three parts—coaching, counseling, and disciplining—but not all three parts are needed in all cases. As discussed in
Chapter 8
, managers need to continually coach virtually all employees to improve performance. Sometimes, employees will have on- or off-the-job problems, and the manager should get them professional counseling through the HR department. Some employees will break the code of conduct, and the manager will need to take disciplinary action; in some cases, managers will need to terminate these employees. Also, if employees cannot meet job standards, they should be terminated. Kimberly-Clark improved its monitoring of employee performance to identify any laggards and prevent deadwood free-riding.27 In this section, we discuss employee development through coaching, counseling, disciplining, and (if necessary) termination.
HRM in Action
Disciplining an Employee
9-2 APPLYING THE CONCEPT
Management Rights
Review the list of rights below and then write the letter corresponding to each right before the statement or situation involving that right.
a. code of conduct
b. workplace monitoring
c. employment-at-will
d. orientation period
e. drug testing
____ 7. I’m sorry, but you’ve been with us for a month and you haven’t been able to meet the standards of your job, so we are letting you go.
____ 8. Our records show that you have been using your computer for an average of an hour and a half per day on personal things.
____ 9. We seem to have a personality conflict, so you’re fired.
____ 10. As part of the selection process, you will have to pass a physical exam that includes a urinalysis.
____ 11. I found out that you paid a bribe to get that sales order with the Acamey company. Come with me to the HR department for disciplinary action.
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SHRM
H:9
Performance Improvement Programs
Coaching
Many people who hear the word coaching immediately think of athletes, but coaching is also an important management skill that is used to get the best results from each employee.28 A survey found coaching to be a key focus of business.29 It is an increasingly popular approach to building leadership skills.30 NetApp Americas CEO Mark Weber says leaders have to play the role of coach.31 Coaching is the process of giving motivational feedback to maintain and improve performance.32
SHRM
Q:1
Coaching
Coaching focuses on helping employees succeed by monitoring performance and giving feedback.33 Such feedback should be immediate, continuous, and motivational.34 It is intended to praise progress and celebrate success,35 to redirect inappropriate behavior, and to counsel employees on how to improve.36 Employees who are given more immediate, frequent, and direct feedback perform at higher levels than those who are not given such feedback.37 Studies also verify that “organizations with strong coaching cultures have higher engagement and performance.”38
DETERMINING CORRECTIVE COACHING ACTION. Coaching is needed when performance falls below aspirational levels.39 When an employee is not performing up to potential, even when acceptable standards are being met, the first step is to determine why,40 using the performance formula: Performance = Ability × Motivation × Resources. When lack of ability is holding back performance, training is needed. A good manager is also a good teacher, so when something isn’t done properly, we should teach employees how to do it correctly.41 When motivation is lacking, motivational techniques, such as coaching, may help.42 Talk to the employee to try to determine why motivation is lacking, and develop a plan together to improve performance.43 If motivational coaching does not work, you may have to use discipline,44 which will be discussed later. Finally, when resources are lacking, you should work to obtain them.
THE COACHING MODEL. Coaching is a way to provide ongoing feedback to employees about their job performance.45 However, ask managers what they tend to put off doing, and they’ll likely say that they put off advising weak employees that they must improve their performance. Procrastinating managers often hope that the employees will turn around on their own, only to find—often too late—that the situation just continues to get worse. Part of the problem is that managers don’t know how to coach or are not good at coaching,46so let’s take a look at a simple coaching model that’s designed to improve performance.47
Model 9-1
presents a four-step coaching model.
MODEL 9-1 COACHING MODEL
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Step 1: Describe current performance. Using specific examples, describe the current behavior that needs to be changed. Tell the employees exactly what they are not doing as well as they can. Notice the positive; don’t tell them only what they are doing wrong.
For example, don’t say, “You are picking up the box wrong.” Say, “Billie, there is a more effective way of picking the box up off the floor than bending at the waist.”
Step 2: Describe desired performance. Tell the employees exactly what the desired performance is, in detail. Show how they will benefit from following your advice.
If performance is ability related, training is needed. Good managers know that training is a large part of their job, and they constantly look at situations as training opportunities. If the employees know the proper way, then the problem is motivational, and training is most likely not needed. The manager may just describe the desired performance and ask the employees to state why the performance is important. So if the issue is one of ability, you might tell the employees, “If you squat down and pick up the box using your legs instead of your back, it is easier and there is less chance of injuring yourself. Let me demonstrate for you.” But if the issue is one of motivation, you might ask the employees, “Why should you squat and use your legs rather than your back to pick up boxes?”
WORK
APPLICATION 9-12
Assess your present or past boss’s coaching skills. Did the boss follow the steps in the coaching model?
Step 3: Get a commitment to the change. When dealing with an ability issue, it is not necessary to get employees to verbally commit to the change if they seem willing to make it. However, if employees defend their way and you’re sure it’s not as effective as another way, explain why your proposed way is better. If you cannot get the employees to understand and agree, then get a verbal commitment.48 This step is also important for motivational issues, because if the employees are not willing to commit to the change, they will most likely not make the change.49 Simply telling employees what to do doesn’t always work; but asking questions to get the employee to say, “Yes I will do it,” improves their commitment to the desired behavior.50
So if the issue is one of ability, the employee will most likely be willing to pick up boxes correctly, and you can skip this step. But if the issue is one of motivation, then you might get a commitment from the employee by asking, “Will you squat rather than use your back from now on?”
Step 4: Follow up. Remember that some employees (those with low and moderate capability for self-control) do what managers inspect (imposed control), not what they expect. You should follow up to ensure that employees are behaving as desired.
When dealing with an ability issue, if the person was receptive and you skipped step 3, say nothing. However, watch to be sure that the activity is done correctly in the future. Coach again, if necessary. For a motivation problem, make a statement that you will follow up and that there are possible consequences for lack of progress. You may also want to set up a follow-up meeting to review progress, especially if the behavior is complex.51
SHRM
H:8
Diagnosing Problems
Counseling
When you are coaching, you are fine-tuning performance. But when you are counseling and disciplining, you are dealing with an employee who is not performing to organizational standards. Good organizations realize the need to help employees with problems.52
When most people hear the term counseling, they think of psychological counseling or psychotherapy. That type of sophisticated help should not be attempted by a noncounseling professional such as a manager.53 Instead, management counseling is the process of giving employees feedback (so they realize that a problem is affecting their job performance) and referring employees with problems that cannot be managed within the work structure to the organization’s employee assistance program.
TYPES OF PROBLEM EMPLOYEES. How people feel determines how they behave,54 so emotions often lead to performance-related problems from counterproductive work behavior.55 Problem employees have a negative effect on performance.56 Good human resource management skills can help you avoid hiring problem employees,57 but even so, you will most likely have to confront problem employees as a manager.58 Problem employees display behavioral and performance-related issues. They do poor-quality work, they don’t get along with coworkers, they display negative attitudes, and they frequently don’t show up for work.59 Recent research has verified again that low performers weaken companies and drive out high performance coworkers. Among the findings were:60
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• Low performers hurt workplace morale.
• Low performers stifle innovation.
• Low performers in management positions directly affects attrition.
There are four types of problem employees:
1. Employees who do not have the ability to meet the job performance standards. Having such employees on staff is an unfortunate situation, but if such employees cannot do a good job even after receiving extra training, they should be dismissed. Keeping an individual who cannot do a particular job not only harms the organization; it also harms the individual employee. Continued inability to perform will always lead to frustration, and frustration ultimately leads to lower job satisfaction and employee engagement.
2. Employees who do not have the motivation to meet job performance standards. These employees often need discipline.
3. Employees who intentionally violate the rules or the code of conduct. As a manager, it is your job to enforce the rules through disciplinary action when employees intentionally violate rules, regulations, or procedures.61
4. Employees with problems. These employees may have the ability to do their job, but they have a problem that affects their job performance. The problem may not be related to the job. It is common for personal problems, such as child care problems and relationship/marital problems, to affect job performance. Employees with problems should be counseled before they are disciplined.
Exhibit 9-3
lists some problem employees you may encounter as a manager. It is not always easy to distinguish between the types of problem employees. Therefore, it is often advisable to start with coaching/counseling and change to discipline if the problem persists.
Exhibit 9-3 PROBLEM EMPLOYEES
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WORK
APPLICATION 9-13
Identify a problem employee you have observed on the job. Describe how the person affected the department’s performance.
PERSONAL PROBLEMS AND PERFORMANCE. Most managers do not like to hear the details of their employees’ personal problems, in many cases because they don’t know what to do about those problems. Taking action on such personal problems is not a requirement. Instead, the manager’s role is to help employees realize that they have problems, to show them how those problems affect their work, and to get the employees back on track so that they can perform at an acceptable level.
The manager should not give advice on how to solve personal problems such as relationship difficulties. When professional help is needed, the manager should refer the employee to the human resources department for professional help through the employee assistance program.62 Employee assistance programs (EAPs) provide a staff of people who help employees get professional assistance in solving their problems. Most large businesses have an EAP to help manage employees’ personal problems. EAPs are valuable employee interventions that have savings of about $4 for every $1 spent of these programs,63 so they are more of an investment than an expense.
To make the referral, a manager might say something like, “Are you aware of our employee assistance program? Would you like me to set up an appointment with Jean in the HR department to help you get professional assistance?” However, if the employee’s job performance does not return to standard, discipline is appropriate because it often makes the employee realize the seriousness of the problem and the importance of maintaining job performance. Some time off from work—with or without pay, depending on the situation—often helps the employee deal with the problem.
A manager’s first obligation is to the organization’s performance rather than to individual employees. Not taking action with problem employees—because you feel uncomfortable confronting them, because you feel sorry for them, or because you like them—does not help you or the employee.64 Not only do problem employees negatively affect their own productivity, but they also cause more work for managers and other employees,65 as noted at the beginning of this section. Problem employees lower morale, as others resent them for not pulling their own weight. Thus, it is critical to take quick action with problem employees.66
Disciplining
Coaching, which includes counseling, should generally be the first step in dealing with a problem employee. However, if an employee is unwilling or unable to change or a rule has been broken,67discipline is necessary.68 Managers can’t allow employees to engage in counterproductive work behavior,69 to violate significant organizational norms,70 or to show other deviant behavior.71Discipline can also be appropriate if an employee is guilty of doing personal tasks (many employees spend hours per day on the phone and computer for personal reasons) while on company time.72Many organizations have found it necessary to fire employees for inappropriate use of time and resources.73 You don’t have to be liked to be an effective manager; sometimes you have to be the bad guy.74 It’s the manager’s job to enforce the rules,75 but you need to enforce them consistently (remember the OUCH test),76 without favoritism77 so you may have to discipline your friends.
DISCIPLINE. Discipline is corrective action designed to get employees to meet standards and the code of conduct. The major objective of coaching, counseling, and disciplining is to change behavior.78Secondary objectives may be to let employees know that action will be taken when standing plans or performance requirements are not met, and to maintain authority when challenged. Narcissistic employees often cause problems,79 and so do narcissistic abusive supervisors.80 Generally, abusive supervisors81 who yell82 and hold grudges83 encounter more discipline problems among their subordinates than do nonabusive supervisors.84
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The human resources department handles many of the disciplinary details and provides written disciplinary procedures. These procedures usually outline grounds for specific sanctions and dismissal, based on the types of violations. Common offenses include theft, sexual or other types of harassment, verbal or substance abuse, and safety violations.85 However, in unionized environments, you have to be careful because some union contracts allow employees to delay or block disciplinary action.86
But how do we know as managers that we are being fair in applying discipline? Let’s take a look at one mechanism for determining whether or not to discipline an errant employee and what level of discipline is appropriate—Just Cause.
JUST CAUSE. Just Cause is actually a set of standard tests for fairness in disciplinary actions—tests that were originally utilized in union grievance arbitrations. However, many companies other than unionized companies have adopted tests for Just Cause in their own nonunion disciplinary processes to try to ensure fairness and due process in applying discipline with their employees. Just Cause standards try to ensure that we investigate any disciplinary infraction fully and fairly and provide disciplinary action that matches the level of the offense.
The seven tests for Just Cause are as follows:
1. Did the company give the employee forewarning or foreknowledge of the possible or probable disciplinary consequences of the employee’s conduct?
With this test, we basically want to determine whether or not the employee was given any knowledge beforehand that the action was prohibited. If they were told in some form, such as through the employee handbook or a posting in the workplace, then we meet this first test for Just Cause.
2. Was the company’s rule or managerial order reasonably related to (a) the orderly, efficient, and safe operation of the company’s business and (b) the performance that the company might properly expect of the employee?
Here we want to find out whether the rule was reasonable. We look at orderly, efficient, and safe operations to see whether the rule or order is reasonable or not. We also look at whether or not the employee should be expected to act in a certain manner in order to follow the rule or order. If the rule was reasonable and the employee should have been expected to act a certain way, then we have met the second test.
3. Did the company, before administering discipline to an employee, make an effort to discover whether the employee did, in fact, violate or disobey a rule or order of management?
Test 3 deals with investigation of the alleged infraction. The supervisor needs to investigate what happened and why it happened. If, upon investigating, the supervisor finds that there is reasonable evidence that the individual did violate the rules, then we’ve passed the third test.
4. Was the company’s investigation conducted fairly and objectively?
In test 4, we’re looking for evidence that the investigation was conducted in the same manner as any other investigation into similar circumstances would have been. Are we utilizing facts, figures, and knowledge of the events (the OUCH test), or is the supervisor basing the investigation on some emotional reaction to the supposed infraction? If we determine that the investigation was conducted in a reasonably fair and objective manner, we meet the fourth test.
5. Upon investigation, was there substantial evidence or proof that the employee was guilty as charged?
Test 5 asks whether or not we have substantial evidence or proof of guilt on the part of the employee. Substantial evidence (some companies refer to the legal term “clear and convincing evidence,” which means “substantially more likely to be true than untrue”87) is a large body of circumstantial information showing that the individual probably committed the offense. In a disciplinary action, we don’t have to meet court standards of proof of guilt. We only have to have a substantial amount of evidence that the infraction was committed. If we have proof, then we meet this test; but if we have substantial evidence, we still meet the requirements of test 5.
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SHRM
A:22
Investigations
6. Has the company applied its rules, orders, and penalties evenhandedly and without discrimination to all employees?
Test 6 tries to identify whether or not the rule is applied in an equitable manner. If the company punishes one person for an infraction with a written reprimand and punishes another person for the same infraction with a disciplinary discharge, then the company may not have been evenhanded in its disciplinary action. Does this mean that we have to punish every person in the exact same way for the exact same infraction? The answer is no—and that is where we get into test 7.
WORK
APPLICATION 9-14
Assess how well your boss and the organization you work or worked for follows the Just Cause standards.
7. Was the degree of discipline administered by the company in a particular case reasonably related to (a) the seriousness of the employee’s proven offense and (b)the record of the employee’s service with the company?
Test 7 is where we are allowed to provide a different punishment to different people based on past history. It says that the discipline has to be related to the seriousness of the offense but that we also have to take into account the employee’s past record. So if we have two employees who have committed the same infraction and one of the employees has never been in trouble while the other has repeatedly committed the same infraction, then we have the flexibility to provide a different punishment for the two different offenders.
GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE.
Exhibit 9-4
lists eight guidelines for effective discipline.
PROGRESSIVE DISCIPLINE. If discipline is deemed necessary after going through the Just Cause standards, what type of discipline is warranted? Most organizations today have a series of progressively more severe disciplinary actions that they typically use to deal with minor disciplinary infractions. Progressive discipline is a process in which the employer provides the employee with opportunities to correct poor behavior before terminating them. Many organizations have a series of progressively more severe disciplinary actions.88
Progressive discipline is typically used only in cases of minor behavioral infractions such as arriving late to work89 or insubordination with a superior. The progressive disciplinary steps are (1) informal coaching talk, (2) oral warning, (3) written warning, (4)suspension, and (5) dismissal. The first four steps are commonly followed for minor violations,90 but for more important violations, such as stealing, steps may be skipped. Be sure to document each step.91 If problem employees don’t change behavior, they should be fired to avoid more problems.92
Exhibit 9-4 GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE
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9-3 APPLYING THE CONCEPT
Guidelines for Effective Discipline
Identify which guideline is being followed—or not being followed—in the following statements. Use the guidelines in Exhibit 9-4 as the answers, writing the letter of the guideline (A–H) on the line before the statement involving it.
____ 12. “Are you kidding me? Can you really fire me just for being late for work once?”
____ 13. “I didn’t know that I’m not supposed to make a personal call while I’m working. Can’t you let it go this one time?”
____ 14. “Some days, my boss comments about my being late, but other days, she doesn’t say anything about it.”
____ 15. “Let’s get back to the way things were before I had to discipline you, OK?”
____ 16. “Let’s go to my office so that we can discuss your rule violation now.”
____ 17. “I missed it. Why was the boss yelling at Rita?”
____ 18. “The boss comes back from break late all the time and nothing happens to him; so why do I get in trouble for being late?”
____ 19. “When I come to work late, the manager reprimands me. But when Latoya is late, nothing is ever said.”
____ 20. “The boss gave me a written warning for being late for work and placed it in my permanent record file.”
In some limited cases, we may add a sixth option between suspension and dismissal. We will discuss this option shortly. On the other hand, suspension may not appear in the progressive discipline process—as at Walmart, where any employee with more than three unauthorized absences in 6 months is disciplined with a warning and those with seven unauthorized absences are fired.93 Let’s briefly discuss each step in progressive discipline.
Step 1: Informal coaching talk. As we noted, the first step in progressive discipline is an informal coaching talk. In an informal talk, the supervisor may see an employee coming in late to work and just ask them what is going on and why they are late. Typically the manager won’t even write down a recording of such conversations for their own use, although they can do so in the critical incident file (Chapter 8). They’re just in an information-gathering and recognition mode at this point, and they hope to avoid any further disciplinary problems.
WORK
APPLICATION 9-15
Assess how well your boss and the organization where you work or have worked follows the eight guidelines for effective discipline.
Step 2: Oral warning. In the second step, the supervisor formally tells the employee that their behavior is currently unacceptable and also tells them what they need to do to correct the behavior. In this situation, even though the supervisor does not write a report for the individual to sign, they will keep a formal record in their own files of this conversation. The oral warning is the first of our formal methods of disciplining an employee.
Step 3: Written warning. The third step is a written warning. In this situation, the supervisor writes up the facts of the situation (typically organizations have a standard form for documentation of written warnings). They identify the unacceptable behavior for the individual and identify ways to correct the behavior. The supervisor then speaks with the employee using the written document to assist the employee in correcting their actions. Typically here, we ask the employee to sign the written warning, acknowledging that their actions are under review and not currently acceptable. This signed paper (documentation) is then put into the employee’s permanent file.94
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Step 4: Disciplinary suspension. As a fourth step, we may move on to a disciplinary suspension of the employee for a period of from one day to typically a maximum of one week. Though most companies use an unpaid suspension, some companies have experimented with a paid day off to allow the employee to think of the suspension not as punishment but as time to figure out whether or not they wish to continue working for the organization. There is some evidence that these paid suspensions work, although the conclusions are slightly mixed.
OTHER OPTIONS BEFORE TERMINATION. Next, we have a couple of limited options we noted at the top of this section—options that would typically not be used but might be valuable in certain cases.
SHRM
A:1
Disciplinary Actions: Demotion, Disciplinary Termination
We can sometimes demote an individual to a lower position in the organization. In some cases, this may be valuable because the employee may be overwhelmed at the higher-level position. In general, however, demotion creates even more job dissatisfaction within the individual employee, and we may see their performance deteriorate even further.
Alternatively, we may choose in some cases to transfer an employee from one part of the organization to another. The only time when you should use a transfer as a progressive discipline measure would be when you know that there is a personality conflict between the employee and another employee in the unit or between the employee and their supervisor. Transfers should never be used simply to get rid of a problem employee from your department or division. If this is the reason for the transfer, the manager should not transfer the employee but should correct the problem behavior.
WORK
APPLICATION 9-16
Describe progressive discipline where you work or have worked.
Step 5: Termination. The last resort is discharge. If the employee’s behavior does not improve over time as a result of verbal and written warnings, suspensions, demotions, or a transfer, we may be forced to let the employee go. However, if we followed the progressive discipline process, we will have sufficient evidence to limit the employee’s opportunity to bring an unlawful termination lawsuit against us.
THE DISCIPLINE MODEL. You should follow the steps of the discipline model below each time you must discipline an employee. The five steps are presented here and summarized in
Model 9-2
.
Step 1: Refer to past feedback. Begin the interview by refreshing the employee’s memory. Ifthe employee has been coached/counseled about the behavior, or if they have clearly broken a known rule, state that fact.
For example, refer to your prior coaching by saying, “Billie, remember my telling you about the proper way to lift boxes with your legs?” Or if there has been a rule violation, say, “Billie, you know the safety rule about lifting boxes with your legs.”
Step 2: Ask why the undesired behavior occurred. Giving the employee a chance to explain the behavior is part of getting all the necessary facts before you administer discipline. If you used prior coaching and the employee committed to changing the behavior at that time, then ask why the behavior did not change. If the behavior had changed, discipline would not be needed. Again, be sure to describe specific critical incidents to support your contention that behavior has not changed at all or has not changed enough to be at standard.
MODEL 9-2 THE DISCIPLINE MODEL
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For example, if there was prior coaching, say, “Two days ago, you told me that you would use your legs, rather than your back, to lift boxes. Why are you still using your back?” Or if there has been a rule violation, say, “Why are you breaking the safety rule and using your back, rather than your legs, to lift the box?”
Step 3: Administer the discipline. If there is no good reason for the undesirable behavior, administer the discipline. The discipline will vary with the stage in the disciplinary progression.
For example, if there has been prior coaching, say, “Because you have not changed your behavior, I’m giving you an oral warning.” If there has been a rule violation, say, “Because you have violated a safety rule, I’m giving you an oral warning.”
Step 4: Get a commitment to change and develop a plan. Try to get a commitment to change. If the employee will not commit, make a note of that fact in the critical incidents file or use the procedures for a written warning. If you have developed a change plan for the employee in the past, try to get the employee to commit to the plan again. Or develop a new plan, if necessary. A statement such as “Your previous attempt has not worked; there must be a better way” is often helpful. With a personal problem, offer professional help again. Offer recommendations for change and develop a plan to improve.95
For example, if there has been prior coaching or a rule violation, say, “Will you lift with your legs from now on? Is there a way to get you to remember to use your legs instead of your back when you lift?”
Step 5: Summarize and state expected follow-up. Summarize the discipline and state the follow-up disciplinary action to be taken. Part of follow-up is to document the discipline. At all stages, get the employee’s signature verifying the disciplinary action taken. If necessary, take the next step in the discipline model: dismissal.
For example, if there has been prior coaching or a rule violation, say, “So you agree to use your legs instead of your back when you lift. If I catch you again, you will be given a written warning, which is followed by a suspension and dismissal if necessary.”
WORK
APPLICATION 9-17
Assess how well your present orpast boss used the discipline model with employees.
Terminating
Unfortunately, the coaching, counseling, and disciplining process will not always work to make a problem individual into a productive employee. Because this is the case, HR managers have to understand the process of termination, which is the final disciplinary step. We do not want to terminate individuals employed by the organization because, as we noted in Chapter 1, turnover is extremely expensive for the organization. We also need to insure that if we do decide to terminate an employee, we are treating them the same way as others who have committed the same types of infractions and have similar disciplinary histories. Otherwise we are violating the last two Just Cause tests. However, if an individual cannot be made into a productive member of the workforce, we have no other choice, and there is a benefit to turnover when you replace poor workers with better job matches.96
SHRM
M:3
Retention
First, let’s take a look at some of the offenses that might be cause for dismissal immediately upon completion of an investigation of the facts. Then we will discuss the dismissal process for nonmanagerial employees, managerial employees, and executives.
GROSS NEGLIGENCE AND SERIOUS MISCONDUCT. Organizations are generally allowed to set up their own rules, listing violations that are grounds for immediate termination without progressive discipline. For example, many firms list stealing money or other assets from the organization as cause for immediate dismissal. In companies that promote open and honest communications, there might be a rule that anyone caught lying will be fired.
Two of the more common situations in which we might immediately dismiss employees would be in cases of gross negligence or serious misconduct. What constitutes gross negligence or serious misconduct? Gross negligence is a serious failure to exercise care in the work environment. It is a reckless disregard for circumstances that could cause harm to others—a lack of concern for safety or life. So if in the course of work, someone failed to exercise care in a way that would be likely to hurt or kill others, then they would be guilty of gross negligence. For example, if an employee who was an electrician left a live high-voltage electrical line dangling into a hallway, they would be guilty of gross negligence because the live electrical line could seriously injure or kill someone who happened to come by and contact it.
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Serious misconduct is a little different from gross negligence. Where negligence is a failure to take care, misconduct is intentionally doing something that is likely to harm someone or something else. So, serious misconduct is intentional behavior that has the potential to cause great harm to another or to the company. An example of serious misconduct is bringing a weapon to work. This intentional action has the potential to cause great harm to others. One example that resulted in termination is the case of a police officer who, while intoxicated, engaged in a conversation with a group of men in public in which he used obscenities and racial slurs, showed his badge, and told the men to “stop blowing weed in my face,” all while being filmed with a smartphone.97 These types of incidents could be cause for termination of the individual responsible—of course only after an investigation to ensure that they actually did what they are accused of.
WORK
APPLICATION 9-18
Give examples of reasons why employees can be terminated where you work or have worked.
TERMINATION OF NONMANAGERIAL EMPLOYEES. If employee offenses do not fit into the gross negligence or serious misconduct categories, should we still consider dismissal? Well, there are certainly times when we have to dismiss employees from the firm, such as when they fail to perform their job satisfactorily even after being thoroughly trained, or if they continually disregard rules or policies. But here, too, we have to make sure we follow the OUCH test, unlike the sheriff who terminated a deputy who attended a cookout and “liked” on Facebook the sheriff’s opponent in an upcoming election.98
©iStockphoto.com/Zinkevych
Losing a job is difficult, but in some cases, people go on to more satisfying jobs.
Why do we need to dismiss employees who perform poorly or don’t follow reasonable rules? Again, it is because these types of behavior can be contagious in the organization, especially in the lower ranks of employees, and we can’t afford to have a large number of our employees failing to do their jobs correctly. In some cases, it only takes a few individuals to hurt or even destroy job satisfaction and employee engagement throughout the company. As managers in the organization, it is our job to make sure that this doesn’t happen, so we sometimes have to go through a termination process.
One of the things that we have to be concerned with is the legal risk to the organization when an employee is terminated. Employment-at-will can mitigate these risks, but it doesn’t completely eliminate them. As a result, we would usually want to use Just Cause procedures to analyze the situation and to make a determination concerning whether or not an employee’s action was sufficiently harmful to the organization to result in termination.
Once the initial determination is made (usually by the individual’s immediate supervisor), we usually want to subject the evidence to a review by another organizational manager. This individual may be the next person up the chain of command from the supervisor, it may be the company’s legal counsel, or it may be an HR representative. Regardless of who it is, the second reviewer will make an attempt to ensure that the supervisor’s decision was made in an objective fashion (following the OUCH test) and not based on an emotional reaction to the employee or to something they did.
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MANAGERIAL OR EXECUTIVE EMPLOYEES. What if the individual to be terminated is a manager or executive in the firm? Do we need to handle this process differently than we would with a lower-level employee? The answer is yes, because management in the organization typically works under different circumstances than do the lower-level employees. The basic process of analyzing the individual’s actions using Just Cause procedures should still be followed. However, in many cases, managerial employees will be hired through a contractual process. If the manager has a contract with the organization, that contract will typically identify when the manager may be terminated by the firm.
However, even managerial employees who are not under contract may need to be dealt with in a slightly different manner than one would deal with a normal employee. For one thing, managerial employees are usually held to higher ethical and behavioral standards by the firm than are lower-level employees.99 So an action that might not cause a lower-level employee to be terminated could quite possibly create a termination situation for a managerial or executive employee. As would happen in any other case, a judgment concerning the individual’s actions will have to be made, and an appropriate level of reaction by the firm will be identified.
There is one more thing that makes managerial terminations different from others. In reality, in most cases when a managerial worker has failed to perform successfully or has committed a disciplinary infraction that would cause termination, they are usually given the option to resign rather than face termination by the organization. Whether this is right or wrong, it is a common practice in most industries. The only time that this would typically not happen is in a case where circumstances are so egregious that the organization is forced to terminate the individual in order to avoid other more serious consequences, such as lawsuits against the organization for the individual’s behavior. You may remember that the founder of Uber, Travis Kalanick, was basically forced to “resign” as CEO because of a list of scandals at the company.100 He would likely have been terminated if he had not chosen the option of resignation.
In public companies, the board of directors must agree to dismissal of executives. Another factor that must be considered is the fact that in many cases, company executives will have a noncompete clause as part of their employment agreement. This matters because in some situations, if a noncompete case goes to court, the judge will determine whether or not the company is allowing the former executive the opportunity to make a living. If the judge feels that the noncompete clause makes it impossible for the former executive to become gainfully employed, the noncompete clause may be removed from the employment agreement. So we have to be very concerned that if we terminate a managerial-level employee, that executive will bring knowledge about our operations to a rival firm, which then will compete more effectively against our company.
One last concern in termination of managerial or executive employees is the fact that these employees typically have access to company files, records, and computers and may have broad knowledge of the firm’s operations. Because of this, there’s the potential for managerial or executive employees to be able to harm the organization if they know they’re going to be dismissed. So, managerial and executive dismissals must include the concern that company files and records be protected to an extra degree to avoid potential sabotage or misappropriation of information.
Coaching, Counseling, and Discipline May Differ Globally
Do coaching, counseling, and discipline work the same way around the world? Not always. Much of the process of employee development will vary based on national culture, including behavioral norms. A recent article notes that “It is clear cultural competency will be a prerequisite for managers in the future.”101 We must keep this in mind if we wish to become successful coaches, counselors, and disciplinarians.
There are certainly cultural issues that need to be understood in global coaching and counseling sessions. For instance, in high power-distance cultures, it may be impossible for the manager to ask a lot of questions of the employee about what they might think of a situation. In these societies, the manager (coach) is considered to have more and better knowledge of what is necessary in an organizational context than the employee does. So if the manager asks the employee what they think should be done, the manager will quite likely lose the respect of the employee.
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However, the most important thing in any successful interaction between the coach and the recipient of coaching is probably an understanding of the individual, not the culture that the individual comes from.102 This is because no matter what culture a person belongs to, individual personalities may or may not adhere to cultural norms and values. Therefore, two of the most significant issues that the coach needs to attempt to determine are the individual’s personality type and their motivators.103Once we know the individual, we can add in the cultural context to understand what is likely to happen based on a specific set of coaching actions. From these pieces of information, a good coach can design a program that will improve performance.
LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
LO 9-4
Identify the factors that positive leadership takes into account to be successful.
Leadership is a topic of great interest to both scholars and managers,104 and leadership is ranked in the top five skills that companies value in new hires.105 Why? Because leadership is an important factor contributing to organizational success.106
WORK
APPLICATION 9-19
Assess the leadership skills of your present or past boss. How effective was the boss at influencing employees to achieve the organization’s goals?
Leadership
Leadership is the process of influencing employees to work toward the achievement of organizational objectives. It is commonly believed that success or failure is based on top management leadership. Do you believe Apple would be the company it is today without its co-founder Steve Jobs or Microsoft without Bill Gates? Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett is best known as the investment guru, but his management record is just as good. Buffett has more than 60 operating units; he buys companies and turns them around and makes good companies even better.107
Over the past 50 years or so, leadership has been one of the most widely taught subjects in business schools around the globe.108 Also, business sections of bookstores are full of books on the latest leadership gimmicks and fads,109 unfortunately most are not based on scientific research like the theories you will learn in this book. In a survey, managers were asked to agree or disagree with the following statements; here is the percentage of “agree” answers.110
• My company screens external candidates on the basis of leadership ability— 77% agreed.
• My company devotes significant resources to leadership development— 63% agreed.
• My company is effective at building a leadership pipeline—71% agreed.
• My company evaluates employees on their leadership potential—87% agreed.
People tend to use the terms manager and leader interchangeably. However, managers and leaders differ.111 Leading is just one of the five major management functions that we originally noted in Chapter 1. Management gives position power and is broader in scope than leadership, but leadership is critical to management success.112 A manager can have this position without being a true leader. There are managers—you may know of some—who are not leaders because they do not have the ability to influence others. There are also good leaders who are not managers. An informal leader, for example a member of an employee group, is a case in point. You may have worked in a situation (or been on a sports team) where one of your peers had more influence than the manager.
Apple’s Steve Jobs was viewed as a leader in his ability to influence others to make great products, but he was not viewed as a good manager. Chief Operating Officer (COO) Tim Cook did most of the management at Apple; and as CEO today, he is viewed as both a good manager and a good leader.113In fact, Cook was given the title “The World’s Greatest Leader” by Fortune in 2015.114
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SHRM
Q:7
Leadership Development
Situational Management
There are several leadership theories, which are beyond the scope of this book. Here we focus on one: “how to” lead effectively as a situational manager. Management is typically understood as taking place in a situation,115 so leaders need to change their behavior to meet the situational characteristics.116This is often called contingency leadership or situational leadership.117 Hewlett-Packard (HP)CEO Meg Whitman says that she is a big believer in situational leadership.118 Duke Universitybasketball Coach K says you have to adjust your leadership to the composition of your team.119 But it is not easy, as managers are expected to treat followers uniformly and consistently, while considering individual needs and sometimes making exceptions.120 Thus, leaders need to use situational control.121
Leaders have to take into account a variety of contingency factors. There are many contingency factors in modern organizations. Some of the common contingencies that we deal with in leadership include the leader’s personality characteristics and style, follower ability and motivation, and the complexity of the situation, among many others.
We use models to represent the world of managers,122 and there are many academic models of leadership.123 But before you learn about the situational management model and how to use it with individuals and teams, complete the self-assessment to determine your preferred management style.
According to contingency theorists, there is no best management style for all situations.124 Instead, effective managers adapt their styles to individual capabilities or group situations.125
USING THE SITUATIONAL MANAGEMENT MODEL. A leadership model is a short (one-page) summary of the theory to be used when selecting the appropriate leadership style for a given situation.126 Now let’s learn how to use the situational management model, which promotes positive leadership, to select the most appropriate management style in a given situation; see
Model 9-3
.
Employee capability. There are two distinct aspects of employee capability:
• Ability. Do employees have the knowledge, experience, education, skills, and training to do a particular task without direction?
• Motivation. Do the employees have the confidence to do the task? Do they want to do the task? Are they committed to performing the task? Will they perform the task without encouragement and support?
Employee capability may be measured on a continuum from low to outstanding. As a manager, you assess each employee’s capability level and motivation on a scale from C1 to C4; see Model 9-3.
Employees tend to start working with low capability, needing close direction. As their ability to do the job increases, managers can begin to be supportive and can probably cease close supervision. As a manager, you must gradually develop your employees from low to outstanding levels over time.
Manager/employee interactions. Managers’ interactions with employees can be classified into two distinct categories of behavior:
• Directive Behavior. The manager focuses on directing and controlling behavior to ensure that tasks get done and closely oversees performance.
• Supportive Behavior. The manager focuses on encouraging and motivating behavior without telling the employees what to do. The manager explains things and listens to employee views, helping employees make their own decisions by building up their confidence and self-esteem.
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9-1 SELF ASSESSMENT
Your Preferred Management Styles
Following are 12 situations. Select the one alternative that most closely describes what you would do in each situation. Don’t be concerned with trying to pick the right answer; select the course of action you would really use. Circle a, b, c, or d. (Ignore the C ____ preceding each situation and the S ____ following each answer choice; these will be explained later in this section in “Apply the Most Appropriate Management Styles,” on p. 328.)
C ____ 1. Your rookie crew seems to be developing well. Their need for direction and close supervision is diminishing. What do you do?
a. Stop directing and overseeing performance unless there is a problem. S ____
b. Spend time getting to know them personally, but make sure they maintain performance levels. S ____
c. Make sure things keep going well; continue to direct and oversee them closely. S ____
d. Begin to discuss new tasks that are of interest to them. S ____
C ____ 2. You assigned Jill a task, specifying exactly how you wanted it done. Jill deliberately ignored your directions and did it her way. The job will not meet the customer’s standards. This is not the first problem you’ve had with Jill. What do you decide todo?
a. Listen to Jill’s side, but be sure the job gets done right. S ____
b. Tell Jill to do it again the right way, and closely supervise the job. S ____
c. Tell her the customer will not accept the job, and let Jill handle it her way. S ____
d. Discuss the problem and solutions to it. S ____
C ____ 3. Your employees work well together and are a real team; the department is the top performer in the organization. Because of traffic problems, the company president has approved staggered hours for departments. As a result, you can change your department’s hours. Several of your workers are in favor of changing. What action do you take?
a. Allow the group to decide the new hours. S ____
b. Decide on new hours, explain why you chose them, and invite questions. S ____
c. Conduct a meeting to get the group members’ ideas. Select new hours together, with your approval. S ____
d. Send out a memo stating the hours you want. S ____
C ____ 4. You recently hired Bill, but he is not performing at the level expected after a month’s training. Bill is trying, but he seems to be a slow learner. What do you decide to do?
a. Clearly explain what needs to be done and oversee his work. Discuss why the procedures are important; support and encourage him. S ____
b. Tell Bill that his training is over and it’s time to pull his own weight. S ____
c. Review task procedures and supervise his work closely. S ____
d. Inform Bill that his training is over and that he should feel free to come to you if he has any problems. S ____
C ____ 5. Helen has had an excellent performance record for the last 5 years. Recently, you have noticed a drop in the quality and quantity of her work. She has a family problem. What do you do?
a. Tell her to get back on track and closely supervise her. S ____
b. Discuss the problem with Helen. Help her realize that her personal problem is affecting her work. Discuss ways to improve the situation. Be supportive and encourage her. S ____
c. Tell Helen you’re aware of her productivity slip and that you’re sure she’ll work it out soon. S ____
d. Discuss the problem and solution with Helen and supervise her closely. S ____
C ____ 6. Your organization does not allow smoking in certain areas. You just walked by a restricted area and saw Joan smoking. She has been with the organization for 10 years and is a very productive worker. Joan has never been caught smoking before. What action do you take?
a. Ask her to put the cigarette out, and then leave. S ____
b. Discuss why she is smoking and what she intends to do about it. S ____
c. Give her a lecture about not smoking and check up on her in the future. S ____
d. Tell her to put the cigarette out, watch her do it, and tell her you will check on her in the future. S ____
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C ____ 7. Your employees usually work well together, with little direction. Recently, a conflict between Sue and Tom has caused problems. What action do you take?
a. Call Sue and Tom together and make them realize how this conflict is affecting the department. Discuss how to resolve it and how you will check to make sure the problem is solved. S ____
b. Let the group resolve the conflict. S ____
c. Have Sue and Tom sit down and discuss their conflict and how to resolve it. Support their efforts to implement a solution. S ____
d. Tell Sue and Tom how to resolve their conflict and closely supervise them. S ____
C ____ 8. Jim usually does his share of the work with some encouragement and direction. However, he has migraine headaches occasionally and doesn’t pull his weight when they happen. The others resent doing Jim’s work. What do you decide to do?
a. Discuss his problem and help him come up with ideas for maintaining his workload; be supportive. S ____
b. Tell Jim to do his share of the work and closely watch his output. S ____
c. Inform Jim that he is creating a hardship for the others and should resolve the problem by himself. S ____
d. Be supportive but set minimum performance levels and ensure compliance. S ____
C ____ 9. Barbara, your most experienced and productive worker, came to you with a detailed idea that could increase your department’s productivity at a very low cost. She can do her present job plus this new assignment. You think it’s an excellent idea. What do you do?
a. Set some goals together. Encourage and support her efforts. S ____
b. Set up goals for Barbara. Be sure she agrees with them and sees you as being supportive of her efforts. S ____
c. Tell Barbara to keep you informed and come to you if she needs any help. S ____
d. Have Barbara check in with you frequently so that you can direct and supervise her activities. S ____
C____10. Your boss asked you for a special report. Frank, a very capable worker who usually needs no direction or support, has all the necessary skills to do the job. However, Frank is reluctant because he has never done a report. What do you do?
a. Tell Frank he has to do it. Give him direction and supervise him closely. S ____
b. Describe the project to Frank and let him do it his own way. S ____
c. Describe the benefits to Frank. Get his ideas on how to do it and check his progress. S ____
d. Discuss possible ways of doing the job. Be supportive; encourage Frank. S ____
C____11. Jean is the top producer in your department. However, her monthly reports are constantly late and contain errors. You are puzzled because she does everything else with no direction or support. What do you decide to do?
a. Go over past reports, explaining to Jean exactly what is expected of her. Schedule a meeting so that you can review the next report with her. S ____
b. Discuss the problem with Jean and ask her what can be done about it; be supportive. S ____
c. Explain the importance of the report. Ask her what the problem is. Tell her that you expect the next report to be on time and error-free. S ____
d. Remind Jean to get the next report in on time, without errors. S ____
C____12. Your workers are very effective and like to participate in decision making. A consultant was hired to develop a new method for your department using the latest technology in the field. What do you do?
a. Explain the consultant’s method and let the group decide how to implement it. S ____
b. Teach the workers the new method and supervise them closely as they use it. S ____
c. Explain to the workers the new method and the reasons it is important. Teach them the method and make sure the procedure is followed. Answer questions. S ____
d. Explain the new method and get the group’s input on ways to improve and implement it. S ____
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To determine your preferred management style, circle the letter you selected for each situation.
Now add up the number of circled items per column. The column with the most items circled suggests your preferred management style. Is this the style you tend to use most often?
Your management style flexibility is reflected in the distribution of your answers. The more evenly distributed the numbers, the more flexible your style. A total of 1 or 0 for any column may indicate a reluctance to use that style.
As a manager, you can focus on directing (getting the task done), supporting (developing relationships), or both.
Management styles. Based on the employee capability level and the type of behavior they need, we select the most appropriate management style for the situation; see Model 9-3 and the list below for a description of each of the four management styles.
• An autocratic style is highly directive and low in supportiveness. Using the autocratic style is appropriate when interacting with low-capability employees. Give very detailed instructions describing exactly what the task is and when, where, and how to perform it. Closely oversee performance and give some support. The majority of your time with the employees should be spent giving directions and supervising their performance. Make decisions without input from the employees.
• A consultative style involves highly directive and highly supportive behavior, and it is appropriate when interacting with moderately capable employees. Give specific instructions and oversee performance at all major stages of a task. At the same time, support the employees by explaining why they should perform the task as requested and answering their questions. Work on building relationships with the employees as you explain the benefits of completing the task your way. Give fairly equal amounts of time to directing and supporting employees. When making decisions, you may consult employees individually, but you must retain the final say. Once you make the decision, which can incorporate employees’ ideas, you should direct and oversee employees’ performance.
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MODEL 9-3 SITUATIONAL MANAGEMENT
• A participative style is characterized by low directive behavior and high supportive behavior, and it is appropriate when interacting with employees with high capability. Spend a small amount of time giving general directions and a great deal of time giving encouragement. Spend limited time overseeing performance, letting employees do the task their way while focusing on the end result. Support the employees by encouraging them and building up their self-confidence. If a task needs to be done, don’t tell them how to do it; ask them how they will accomplish it. Make decisions together or allow employees to make decisions subject to your guidelines and approval.
• An empowering style requires providing very little direction or support to employees, and it is appropriate when interacting with outstanding employees. You should let them know what needs to be done and answer their questions, but it is not necessary to oversee their performance. Such employees are highly motivated and need little, if any, support. Allow them to make their own decisions, which can be subject to your approval. Other terms for empowerment are laissez-faire and hands off. A manager who uses this style lets employees alone to do their own thing.
APPLY THE MOST APPROPRIATE MANAGEMENT STYLES. As part of Skill Builder 9-3, or on your own, return to 9-1 Self-Assessment (p. 325), where you determined your preferred management style. Identify the employee capability level for each of the 12 items and indicate the capability level by placing a number from 1 to 4 on the line marked “C” before each item. The number 1 indicates low capability, 2 indicates moderate capability, 3 indicates high capability, and 4 indicates outstanding capability. Next, indicate the management style represented in each answer choice by placing the letter A (Autocratic), C (Consultative), P (Participative), or E (Empowering) on the line marked “S” following each answer choice. Will your preferred management style result in the optimum performance of the task?
p.329
Let’s see how you did by looking back at the first situation.
1. C ____ 1. Your rookie crew seems to be developing well. Their need for direction and close supervision is diminishing. What do you do?
a. Stop directing and overseeing performance unless there is a problem. S ____
b. Spend time getting to know them personally, but make sure they maintain performance levels. S ____
c. Make sure things keep going well; continue to direct and oversee them closely. S____
d. Begin to discuss new tasks that are of interest to them. S ____
WORK
APPLICATION 9-20
Assess how well your present or past boss was at using the appropriate management style for your capability level and those of a couple of other employees.
• As a rookie crew, the employees’ capability started at a low level, but they have now developed to the moderate level. If you put the number 2 on the Cline, you were correct.
• Alternative (a) is E, the empowering style, involving low direction and support. Alternative (b) is C, the consultative style, involving both high direction and high support. Alternative (c) is A, the autocratic style, involving high direction but low support. Alternative (d) is P, the participative style, involving low direction and high support (in discussing employee interests).
• If you selected (b) as the management style that best matches the situation, you were correct. However, in the business world, there is seldom only one way to handle a situation successfully. Therefore, in this exercise, you are given points based on how successful your behavior would be in each situation. In situation 1, (b) is the most successful alternative because it involves developing the employees gradually; answer (b) is worth 3 points. Alternative (c) is the next-best alternative and is worth 2 points, while (d) is worth 1point. That’s because it is better to keep things the way they are now than to try to rush employee development, which would probably cause problems. Alternative (a) is the least effective and is worth 0 points. That’s because choosing that option would mean you are going from one extreme of supervision to the other, and the odds are therefore great that this approach will cause problems that will diminish your management success.
The better you match your management style to your employees’ capabilities, the greater are your chances of being a successful manager.
TEAMS AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
LO 9-5
Briefly discuss the stages of the change process, and how we can overcome our own and others’ resistance to change.
Modern companies must be designed to utilize teams, and they are constantly faced with the need to change. Therefore, companies are adopting team-based organizational designs.127 Why are teams an absolute requirement in today’s firms? The answer lies in complexity of the environment. In a massively changing, technologically shifting world, no single individual has all of the skills necessary to meet those challenges. A strong team of people with complimentary skill sets, however, can provide the company with all of the necessary skills. Teamwork skills are based on your ability to work well with others (human relations skills, Chapter 1), by developing relationships.128 Necessary business competencies include team skills,129 as the ability to work collaboratively is an important skill company recruiters seek in job applicants.130
In addition to teams, disruption of historical business processes is an ongoing issue, requiring almost constant change management efforts in most companies today. Progress is impossible without change,131 and change continues to get faster.132 Managers have to be change agents, individuals who lead change efforts on behalf of the organization andwho do not allow others to remain in the past, using old techniques and technologies. So let’s take a quick look at how modern managers lead others in facing these two issuesnow.
p.
330
SHRM
A:7
Managing Teams
Building Effective Work Teams
Although firms are relying on team creativity to innovate change,133 some US workers do not like having to work in teams due to the individualistic nature of American culture. But today, we usually don’t have any choice, either as leaders or as followers, about whether or not we work in teams. The major reason is that in most cases, you can’t succeed without an effective team effort, and organizations are using teams to create competitive advantage.134 Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says that he focuses on building teams.135 You can improve important teamwork skills and your ability to develop and build teams.136
Advances in information and telecommunications technologies are allowing new ways of structuring, processing, and distributing work and overcoming the barriers of distance and time with global virtual teams.137 The members of global virtual teams are physically located in different places but work together as a team. Multinational corporations developing new global products, such as GE, Disney, and Google,138 and those with 24/7/365 tech support, such as HP and IBM, and small businesses, such as N2 Publishing and Bumble online dating service, have global virtual teams.139
Organizations need team members who can work well together. Group process, also called group dynamics,140 is about how members get along, not how they do their work. Relationships affect our behavioral interactions in groups,141 and group process affects team performance.142 Thus, firms are working to improve team dynamics through organizational development (OD).143 Team building is probably the most widely used OD technique today,144 and its popularity will continue as more companies use work teams due tothe complexity of the work environment.145 The goals of team-building programs varyconsiderably, depending on the group’s needs and the change agent’s skills.146Some typical goals are as follows:
WORK
APPLICATION 9-21
Assess how well your present boss is or your past boss was at developing employees to perform as an effective team.
• To clarify the objectives of the team and the responsibilities of each team member
• To identify problems preventing the team from accomplishing its objectives
• To develop team problem-solving, decision-making, objective-setting, and planning skills
• To develop open, honest working relationships based on trust and an understanding of group members
Team-building programs also vary in terms of agenda and length, depending on team needs.
SHRM
N:6
Leading Change
Managing the Change Process
Change happens at the individual, team, or organizational level, and it impacts all aspects of organizational life.147 Change is critical for firm performance and survival.148 Adapting to dynamic environments has been identified as a major element in maintaining competitiveness149 with appropriate strategies.150 Any company that fails to change its business model,151 and embrace change will be overtaken by it.152 Research supports the idea that companies that change regularly outperform those that don’t.153 Thus, top managers are inclined to change in order to obtain a competitive advantage.154 John Chambers, Cisco’s former CEO, said that his most important decisions are about adjusting to change.155 So your ability to be flexible enough to change with the diversifying global environment will affect your career success.156
SHRM
N:1
Stages of Change Management
People go through four distinct stages when facing change, so we need to manage change through each stage. The four stages of the change process are denial, resistance, exploration, and commitment. They are presented in
Exhibit 9-5
and are described using HP as an example below. Notice that the stages in Exhibit 9-5 are laid out in a circular formation because change is an ongoing process, not a linear one. People can regress, as the arrows show.
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Exhibit 9-5 STAGES OF THE CHANGE PROCESS
WORK
APPLICATION 9-22
Identify a major change. Assess how well your present or past boss was at managing change through each of the four stages of change.
1. Denial. Changes are often difficult to understand or accept.157 So when people first hear that change is coming, they may deny that it will affect them.
2. Resistance. Once people get over the initial shock and realize that change is going to be a reality, they often resist the change. This stage is so important that in the next subsection, we will present seven ways to help overcome resistance to change.
3. Exploration. When the change begins to be implemented, employees explore the change, often through training—and ideally, they begin to better understand how the change will affect them.
4. Commitment. Through exploration, employees determine their level of commitment to making the change a success. Commitment is necessary to implement the change, but some employees will continue to resist the change.158
SHRM
N:8
Implementing Change
Overcoming Resistance to Change
Let’s face it. As stated by J.C. Penney’s chairman Michael Ullman, “only a baby with a wet diaper likes change.”159 We don’t want to change our habits and routines.160 Some people deliberately attempt to kill good ideas161 and block change efforts.162Most change programs fail because of employee resistance to change.163 Because resistance to change is one of the most difficult factors in successful change implementation, let’s start by discussing our own resistance to change, followed by overcoming others resistance to change.
SHRM
N:4
Building Trust
OUR RESISTANCE TO CHANGE HABITS. Do you really like your daily routine disrupted?164 Are you bound by your habits of repetition?165 If you can’t change your mind and embrace change, you cannot change anything.166So the aim is to cultivate a mind-set that embraces change in ourselves and others.167 Easier said than done, right? Well the first step is to realize we need to take a positive attitude about change. Let’s face it, if we know we have to make a change, resisting it doesn’t help—so accept it and move forward. As Nike says, Just Do It!
Have you ever wondered why people do illogical things? It helps to realize that our brains cling to habit at the exclusion of all else, including common sense. Or our feeling and habits overrule common sense. So to make a change we have to change our thoughts and habit, or make the change a habit to make it successful.168 The reason most people don’t keep their New Year’s resolution is they don’t make it a habit. If you say you will exercise more, but don’t make a scheduled time to work out (routine habit), you won’t work out. When we change our habits, we change our lives. Developing a habit takes conscious planning and effort—schedule time to work out. A habit has three parts, and here are three examples listed A−C.
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Cue
—reminds you to (or not to) do the behavior. (A). Running shoes left near your bed. (B.) Phone dings. (C.) Feel sad.
Routine
—do the behavior. (A.) Run first thing in the morning. (B.) Check your phone. (C.) Eat and/or drink.
Reward
—reinforce doing the behavior to make it a habit. (A.) Endorphin rush, feel good about yourself and healthier, weight loss and more energy, healthy breakfast. (B.)Words with the caller. We crave the ding and the rush of endorphins it promises—that is why most people are addicted to their phones and have to multitask (
Chapter 5
). (C.)Temporary escape from sadness, which often doesn’t work and can lead to other problems and bad habits.
Let’s be realistic. If we try to change a habit, we will most likely slip and not exercise or cheat on our diet. The question is, “How do you handle the slip?” Are you going to give up and go back to your old habits, or will you get back to your new routine? Caution—once you slip, and the more often you slip, the easier it is to go back to your old habits.
Think about it. What is your usual attitude about and level of resistance toward change? Are there any good habits you should develop, or bad self-destructive ones you should drop or replace? Will you work at being more positive about accepting change and consciously develop habits to succeed? Skill Builder Exercise 9-4, Developing a Habit (p. 341), can help.
OTHERS’ RESISTANCE TO CHANGE. Here we focus primarily on overcoming others’ resistance to change, but these seven tips can also apply to ourselves. Companies do create newhabits with changes; they are commonly called procedures and rules for completing new tasks.
1. Develop a positive trust climate for change.
Develop and maintain good human relations. Make employees realize you have their best interests in mind and develop mutual trust.169Constantly look for better ways to do things. Encouraging employees to suggest changes and implementing their ideas are important parts of continuous improvement.
2. Plan. Implementing changes successfully requires good planning. You need to identify the possible resistance to change and plan how to overcome it. View change from the employees’ position. Set clear objectives so employees know exactly what the change is and how it affects them.170 The next four steps should be part of your plan.
3. Clearly state why the change is needed and how it will affect employees.
Employees want and need to know why the change is necessary and how it will affect them, both positively and negatively.171 So you need to communicate clearly what you want to do.172 Employees need to understand why the new, changed method is more legitimate than the existing method of doing things.173 Be open and honest with employees. Giving employees the facts as far in advance as possible helps them to overcome fear of the unknown.174
4. Create a win-win situation.
We have a desire to win.175 The goal of human relations is to meet employee needs while achieving departmental and organizational objectives. To overcome resistance to change, be sure to answer the other parties’ unasked question, “What’s in it for me?” When people can see how they benefit, they are more willing to change.176 If the organization is going to benefit from the change, so should the employees—so provide incentives for change.177
5. Involve employees.
To create a win-win situation, involve employees. A commitment to change is usually critical to its successful implementation.178 Employees who participate in developing changes are more committed to those changes thanare employees who have changes dictated to them. To get employee involvement and commitment to change, phrase your own ideas as if they were someone else’s.179
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WORK
APPLICATION 9-23
Assess how well your present boss or your past boss used the seven ways to overcome resistance tochange.
6. Provide support and evaluation.
To overcome resistance to change, employees need to know that managers are there to help them cope with the changes. So, relationships matter.180 Managers need to make the learning process as painless as possible by providing training and other support. To ensure that the change is implemented and that employees don’t regress to old habits, performance appraisals (discussed in the next chapter) need to be tied to successful implementation of the change.181
SHRM
N:7
Planning Change Strategy
7. Create urgency.
When you decide on a change, you have to move fast.182 Many people procrastinate on making changes. A feeling of urgency is the primary driver toward taking action. If something is perceived as urgent, it is given a high priority and is often done immediately.183
SHRM
N:3
Communication
As a manager of change, you must anticipate whether resistance will be strong, weak, or somewhere in between. Resistance will be lower if you use the seven methods for overcoming resistance to change. Did you ever hear of BlackBerry (this is the word people used to use to refer to a smart phone) and Nokia? They are the former best-selling cellphone companies. But they didn’t create urgency or implement the other six tips effectively to make the necessary changes to maintain market leadership as Samsung Galaxy and Apple iPhone are now top sellers.
TRENDS AND ISSUES IN HRM
LO 9-6
Discuss the process of providing corrective feedback and identify the problems created by modern social media at work.
In this chapter’s trends and issues, we are first going to review the process of providing corrective feedback—a form of feedback to resolve problem behaviors—and then look at the harm that can be done in the workplace by ready access to social media.
Good Feedback Makes a Good Manager
As you can easily see by reading this chapter, feedback is one of the most critical managerial obligations. Whether we are coaching, counseling, or disciplining an employee or providing feedback to other parts of the organization, good quality feedback is a requirement for maximum effectiveness and efficiency. Let’s explore the general process of providing feedback and give you some hints for providing feedback in difficult situations. You probably noticed a pattern in the corrective feedbackprocess in each of the sections in this chapter where it was discussed: identify what is happening and what is wrong with the current performance; provide information on desired performance; get a commitment to change; follow up. Let’s look at how to use these in a little more depth, because giving corrective feedback is not easy the first few times you do it.
You, as the manager or supervisor, will be the one tasked with starting the feedback conversation. Do not go into the act of providing feedback by accusing the employee of intentionally failing to do what they needed to. Talk with them; see what is going on; ask about issues or problems that you may not know about; but initiate the conversation as soon as possible after you notice something is wrong. Once the conversation starts, you may be faced with a number of reactions, from crying, to anger, to denial that they are at fault and attempting to deflect blame, or just refusing to listen. How should these and other negative responses be handled?
First, as we noted earlier, stick with the facts. Don’t allow your emotions to control your response to the employee. Recall the information on emotional intelligence, or EQ, in
Chapter 7
, and remember to “understand and manage” your emotions. Second, remember that feedback is an attempt to make the employee better at what they do, not an attempt to belittle them. Explain the issues clearly and make sure the employee knows that you are working to help. Third, do not allow the employee to deflect responsibility because of their emotional reaction to the feedback. For instance, if the employee cries, provide emotional support; but do not back off from the facts of the situation. If they yell, let them know that the only reason that you are providing feedback is that you want them to do better. You have no intention of harming them unnecessarily.
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The key to good feedback is control. You have to control your emotions. You have to control the message to the employee. And you have to control their response so that they do not avoid taking responsibility for their actions. So preparation for the meeting is key. A SHRM and Harvard Business Review paper notes that “You’ll feel better prepared if you do your homework in advance and ground your assessments in observations, data, and concrete examples.”184 Good quality feedback is an absolute necessity if you are going to get the best performance out of your employees, and that is why you are there as a manager!
Social Media and the Web Continue to Create Managerial Nightmares
Employee use, and employer monitoring of social media continues to be an issue for many organizations. While, as we noted in the first part of this chapter, employees are concerned with an expected right to privacy, employers must be concerned with both the individual and collective employees as well as the well-being of the organization as a whole. The result of all of the rights, obligations, expectations, and so on, is a delicate balancing act on the part of management.
Nearly every person who has an email account, much less a social media account, has at some point sent something that they almost immediately regretted. One columnist noted that “People were snapping at each other long before the Internet. Email and texting have only made it easier: We can now respond instantaneously, much faster than our rational brain can intervene.”185 This is a problem that we have never faced before. In an age of instant communication, we don’t always think about the damage we may be doing to ourselves or others when we rip off what we consider to be a witty zinger, or a heartfelt complaint—and then the repercussions start rolling in. We can also communicate with thousands or even millions of people (think of any viral video you have seen) whom we don’t know and who don’t know us, and that may also do harm that we didn’t intend.
The problem for the organization comes when—in the eyes of the employer—the individual employee does potential or actual harm to the company or other employees within it. In one well-publicized case, Yelp terminated a young employee who wrote an open letter (one that anyone on the Web could read) to the company CEO telling him how poorly paid and badly treated she and her coworkers were.186 The letter provided anyone who read it with a picture of Yelp that was less than flattering. In another case, employees of a DirecTV contractor (Mastec in Coral Gables, FL) were given incentives to push customers to pay for phone installations that they felt were unnecessary in an attempt to deceive those customers. When the company ignored them, they contacted the local TV news and were interviewed by a reporter. And then the company fired them.187
The actions that the company can or cannot take are not always clear based on law and existing precedent. In the Mastec case, the employees filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB188 (we will discuss this topic in detail in the next chapter) claiming that they were engaged in “protected concerted activity” in connection with the company’s policies. The employees initially lost, but when they appealed to a federal Circuit Court, the court agreed that their treatment had violated labor laws. But in other cases, companies have prevailed in disciplinary actions. If the company spells out in policy when, how, and why they monitor things such as email, and what the potential consequences are to the employee who violates the rules, monitoring is generally legal—at least under federal law. State laws vary widely on this topic. And “Just because you can legally monitor e-mails doesn’t mean that you should or that it is good management practice.”189
So managers have to continue to make judgment calls on when and how to intervene when employees have done potential harm to the company. Management is also responsible for keeping up with changing regulatory guidance and legal changes. And, most of all, managers are responsible for the protection of the company and all of the employees therein. If you as a manager were to come across evidence that one employee was harassing others—whether the reason is religion, race, sexual, or anything else—you would be obligated to act to protect those individuals and the organization.
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DIGITAL RESOURCES
Employee Management*
Discipline in the Workplace
To Post or Not to Post
Employee Rights*
Drug Testing
Employer Rights, Employee Privacy and Aids
Motivating Employees
* premium video only available in the interactive eBook
CHAPTER SUMMARY
9-1. Identify the commonly accepted individual rights in the workplace.
The commonly accepted employee rights of individuals within the workplace include the following:
1. Right of free consent—the right of the individual to know what they are being asked to do, and the consequences of doing it
2. Right to due process—a right to not be punished arbitrarily or without reason. Generally, we use the seven tests for Just Cause to protect this right.
3. Right to life and safety—the right of everyone in the organization to be protected from harm while working
4. Right of freedom of conscience—a general right to not be forced to violate the individual’s personal values and beliefs on the job
5. Right to privacy—a right to protection from unreasonable searches or intrusions into their personal space at work
6. Right to free speech—freedom to express their opinions or concerns within the organization, without fear of harming their work relationship
9-2. Identify the rights that management has in modern organizations.
1. Management first has a right to create and enforce an employee code of conduct.
2. Management has the right to create workplace data and device policies to protect data and to maintain control of its networks.
3. Managers also have a right to monitor the workplace to protect the organization and its employees.
4. The organization can also identify the relationship with workers as one of employment-at-will, which basically allows either party to break the relationship at any time, even without stating a reason.
5. Management also has a right to set up an orientation period and require that new employees attend such orientation.
6. Finally, management has a right to test for drugs in the workplace. In each case, these rights are offered based on the need for managers to be able to protect the organization and the employees from unnecessary danger or harm.
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9-3. Briefly describe the coaching, counseling, and progressive discipline processes and how they are used.
Coaching is designed to give employees feedback to improve their performance over time. This feedback in general should be designed to improve the employee’s motivation to perform for the organization. The coaching process occurs in four basic steps: describing what is presently being done by the employee; describing what the manager wants the employees to change about the way they perform; get a commitment to change; and follow up to ensure that the employee is behaving in the desired manner.
The management counseling process is designed to provide employees with feedback so that they understand that their performance is not currently at an acceptable level, and it’s designed to provide them with guidance on how to improve their performance over time. The purpose of management counseling is to get employees back on track with their work so that they can perform at an acceptable or even exceptional level.
Progressive discipline is usually used for minor disciplinary infractions within the organization. It provides progressively stronger sanctions against an employee who continues to behave in an unacceptable manner in the organization, based on rules or policies. The sequence of progressive discipline is as follows: (1) informal talk, (2) oral warning, (3)written warning, (4) suspension, (5) in some cases, demotion or transfer, and (6) dismissal.
9-4. Identify the factors that positive leadership takes into account to be successful.
The first factor is employee capability, which consists of the ability and motivation to do the job (going from: low, moderate, high, to outstanding). Next, we have to classify manager−employee interactions into directive behavior, which focuses on controlling employee behavior, and supportive behavior, which focuses on encouraging behavior without directly controlling that behavior (high- or low- directive and supportive behavior). Finally, we take into account management style, which can be autocratic (used with low-capability employees; managers use high directive and low supportive behavior), consultative (used with moderate-capability employees; managers use high directive and highly supportive behavior), participative (used with high-capability employees; managers use low directive and high supportive behavior), or empowerment (used with outstanding-capability employees; managers use low directive and low supportive behavior).
9-5. Briefly discuss the stages of the change process, and how we can overcome our own and others’ resistance to change.
The four stages of the change process include denial, resistance, exploration, and commitment. Denial is frequently the first reaction when people hear that changes are going to be made in the workplace. Once employees understand that the change will affect their work, resistance to change often occurs. Next, as the change is implemented, employees may begin to explore how the change affects their work and how they can adapt to the necessary changes. Finally, through the exploration stage, the employees determine their level of commitment to the change process. Recall, however, that the change process is ongoing, not linear.
To change anything, we have to change our thoughts and habits, or change our behavior so that it becomes a habit. Developing a habit takes conscious planning and effort, and a habit has three parts.
Cue−reminds you to (or not to) do the behavior.
Routine−do the behavior.
Reward−reinforce doing the behavior to make it a habit.
There are seven major methods to overcoming resistance to change:
1. Develop a positive trust climate for change.
2. Plan the change.
3. Clearly state why the change is needed and how it will affect employees.
4. Create a win-win situation.
5. Involve employees.
6. Provide support and evaluation.
7. Create urgency.
9-6. Discuss the process of providing corrective feedback and identify the problems created by modern social media at work.
Provide feedback by initiating a conversation, but do not accuse the employee of intentionally failing to do something. Ask about problems or issues and follow the general guidelines in the feedback model. Stick with the facts, and don’t respond emotionally. Remember that feedback is designed to make things better. Don’t allow the employee to deflect responsibility for their actions. And finally, maintain control or your emotions, your message, and the process by preparing ahead of the feedback session.
The major problem with social media is the ability to instantly communicate without rationally analyzing what we should say. Other problems include the ability to communicate with very large groups of people who may not know what we intended to say, or the background on which our communication is based. Open letters, able to be read by anyone, can paint a harmful picture of the company, and the company has to respond because of that potential harm. In addition, laws in this area are constantly changing, so managers have to continually make judgment calls on when and how to intervene when employees put out potentially harmful information.
KEY TERMS
coaching 312
discipline 315
employee assistance programs (EAPs) 315
employment-at-will 310
gross negligence 320
Just Cause 316
leadership 323
management counseling 313
privileges 304
progressive discipline 317
rights 304
serious misconduct 321
stages of the change process 330
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KEY TERMS REVIEW
Complete each of the following statements using one of this chapter’s key terms.
1. __________ are things that individuals are allowed to do based on asking permission from an authority.
2. __________ are things a person in society is allowed to do without any permission required from an authority.
3. __________ allows the company or the worker to break their work relationship at any point in time, with or without any particular reason, as long as in doing so, no law is violated.
4. __________ is the process of giving motivational feedback to maintain and improve performance.
5. __________ is the process of giving employees feedback (so they realize that a problem is affecting their job performance) and referring employees with problems that cannot be managed within the work structure to the organization’s employee assistance program.
6. __________ provide a staff of people who help employees get professional assistance in solving their problems.
7. __________ is corrective action to get employees to meet standards and the code of conduct.
8. __________ is a set of standard tests for fairness in disciplinary actions—tests that were originally utilized in union grievance arbitrations.
9. __________ is a process whereby the employer provides the employee with opportunities to correct poor behavior before the individual is terminated.
10. __________ is a serious failure to exercise care in the work environment.
11. is intentional employee behavior that has thepotential to cause great harm to another or to the company.
12. __________ is the process of influencing employees to work toward the achievement of organizational objectives.
13. are denial, resistance, exploration, and commitment.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
The following critical-thinking questions can be used for class discussion and/or for written assignments to develop communication skills. Be sure to give complete explanations for all answers.
1. Do you think that organizations should provide more rights or fewer rights to employees than those listed in the chapter? If more, what would you add? If fewer, which rights do you think are unimportant?
2. Should companies make a strong attempt never to violate the privacy rights of an employee? Why or why not?
3. Do you think codes of conduct have any effect on employees’ activities? What would make them more or less effective in an organization?
4. Is employment-at-will fair, or should companies have to have a legitimate reason to discharge their employees? Justify your answer.
5. Should coaching, counseling, and discipline processes be utilized by the firm, or should we just terminate the employment of workers who are not doing their job? Explain your answer.
6. Is it really necessary to follow all of the Just Cause standards rigorously, or is it a waste of time? Explain your answer.
7. Do you feel that progressive discipline processes actually work to improve employee performance in most cases? Why or why not?
8. In your opinion, should there be any situations in which you might not immediately terminate a worker’s employment as a result of gross negligence or serious misconduct? Explain why you feel this way.
9. Do you think leadership can be learned, or is it just a personal characteristic that some people have? Why do you think this way?
10. What are some of the methods you have seen managers or others use to overcome resistance to change? Were these methods successful? Why or why not?
CASE 9-1 BALANCING RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES
Nancy Chandler has been employed by the DEG Corporation, an online textbook sales company, as a sales representative for two years. Her sales manager, Clyde Dodd, informed her when she started to work that the company’s established email communication and Internet system is to be used by employees for “business reasons only.” The company’s email system policy states:
The DEG Corporation’s communication system provides internet access and e-mail services for the sole purpose to conduct our business and is not to be used for any personal or non-job related purposes. DEG Corporation has an established policy of monitoring employees’ use of the internet and e-mail system in communicating with customers for evaluation of employees’ customer relations performance and for identifying training and development needs for sales representatives.
The DEG Corporation also has a nonsolicitation policy as follows:
The DEG Corporation prohibits the solicitation, distribution and posting of materials on or at Company property by any employee or non-employee without the express permission of management. The sole exceptions to this policy are charitable and community activities sponsored by the DEG Corporation management.
The management of the company is aware that on occasion, employees send out email messages to other employees announcing party invitations, charitable fundraising events, and selling Girl Scout cookies. Yet, no employee has been reprimanded or disciplined for these occasional uses of the company’s email system.
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Recently, Nancy has become actively involved with a group of disgruntled employees who have an interest in forming a union and organizing the company’s 30 sales representatives for collective bargaining purposes. During her unpaid lunch period, Nancy sent out an email correspondence to the other sales representatives announcing an upcoming union organizing meeting to determine the level of interest in forming and joining a labor union. The company intercepted her email correspondence; and her manager, Clyde Dodd, issued Nancy a written warning informing her that any further violations of the company’s email system and nonsolicitation policies will be considered grounds for termination of her employment.
Questions
1. Should Nancy Chandler have a reasonable expectation of a right to privacy in this case? Explain your answer.
2. If Nancy Chandler has not received any prior, formal disciplinary action, is there “Just Cause” for the company to impose a written warning for this offense? Explain the reasoning for your answer to this question.
3. Assuming that Nancy Chandler, as well as the other sales representatives, are “at-will” employees and she is discharged for this infraction of the company’s rules, what possible recourse might she have to challenge the termination?
4. Considering the facts in this case, should the company review and revise these two policies? Explain what, if any, revisions should be made to the email system and nonsolicitation policies.
Case created by Robert F. Wayland, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
CASE 9-2 OFF-DUTY MISCONDUCT
The small Southwestern city of Happy Hollow, with a population of approximately 17,000 people, is a modern bedroom community that is located just a 15-minute drive away from a major city. Happy Hollow maintains a fire department with one fire station serving an area of 12 square miles. It is staffed with 15 full-time firefighters and 15 volunteer firefighters. The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) represents all permanent, full-time employees of Happy Hollow’s fire department.
Four years ago, Tim Nelson was hired as a firefighter and licensed paramedic for Happy Hollow’s fire department. Previously, he worked for 3 years as a firefighter for another small city. After getting off work at 4:30 p.m. one evening, he joined a friend at a restaurant in the major city a 15- or 20-minute drive from where he lives and works. Nelson and his friend had dinner and several drinks at the restaurant and stayed there until after midnight, when Nelson drove the friend home and then started on the drive to his own home.
Upon receiving calls at 12:43 a.m. about someone driving erratically in a pickup truck at a high rate of speed, Happy Hollow’s police department dispatched a police officer to investigate. Officer Brian Jones observed someone driving the described truck at an excessive rate of speed. He followed for approximately one-half mile while observing erratic driving before stopping the truck. Officer Jones detected a strong odor of alcohol coming from the pickup truck when he approached it. Officer Jones then recognized the driver as firefighter Nelson, who appeared fatigued, with red, watery eyes. He noticed that Nelson had difficulty performing the simple task of retrieving his driver’s license and proof of insurance coverage, and his speech was slurred. Officer Jones concluded that Nelson appeared to be intoxicated. Meanwhile, another Ford pickup truck and a second city patrol vehicle driven by Sgt. David Martinez arrived on the location. The driver and passenger in the other pickup advised the police officers that the truck driven by Nelson had sideswiped their vehicle before being stopped by Officer Jones, and they also said that Nelson had failed to stop after the accident. The collision caused damage to both trucks, ripping the mirrors from the passenger side of the truck driven by Nelson and the driver’s side of the other truck.
Officer Jones determined that there was probable cause for arrest and advised Nelson that he was being arrested for driving under the influence (DUI) and leaving the scene of an accident. Upon arrival at the police station, Nelson elected to refuse to submit to a Breathalyzer test for measuring his blood alcohol. He was cited for a DUI and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in property damage to another vehicle. He was booked into jail and stayed for a few hours before he was released on bond.
Firefighter and paramedic Tim Nelson was subsequently placed on administrative leave with pay while the matter was being investigated. Following a 3-day investigation, the fire department held a predisciplinary hearing where Nelson had an opportunity to further describe his version of what had happened leading up to his early-morning arrest. Nelson described feeling a sudden jolt when his truck hit something while he was driving home, but he claimed that he did not know what he had hit or if he had hit anything at all. Nelson acknowledged that he had too much to drink that evening and that he should have had someone drive him home. He said that although the incident had occurred while he was off duty, he was willing to do anything necessary to keep his job.
Fire Department Chief Calvin Moore pointed out that he had known that Nelson had been previously arrested for a DUI while working as a firefighter for the other small city but that he had hired Nelson as a firefighter for the Happy Hollow Fire Department anyway. Chief Moore explained that he had already given Nelson a second chance when he hired him, and he was unwilling to give Nelson a third chance. Chief Moore stated that Nelson had violated several rules and policies of the fire department and had failed in his obligation to the public as a firefighter and paramedic by not stopping to check to see if he had injured anyone in the collision that he caused that night. The incident also garnered significant media attention, including reports in Happy Hollow’s local newspaper and on at least one news report from a local television station—thus potentially undermining the public’s trust in the Happy Hollow Fire Department. For these reasons, Chief Moore informed Nelson that his employment was being terminated “for cause.”
The union filed a grievance alleging that Nelson’s punishment was too severe since the incident occurred while he was off duty. The union requested Nelson’s reinstatement with punishment, such as a reasonable suspension without pay and a warning. The city’s management responded that they had a duty to ensure the public trust in the fire department. They also said that the city’s rules and policies, as written in the union–management labor agreement, stated, “Employees shall conduct themselves off duty in such a manner as to show respect as a member of the fire department. Conduct unbecoming a member of the Happy Hollow Fire Department will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal.”
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Questions
1. May an employer take disciplinary action (including discharge) against an employee for illegal off-duty misconduct?
2. Which particular employee rights discussed in the chapter may be asserted by the employee and his labor union representative in this case?
3. What rights does the city management have in this case?
4. When conducting an investigation of an employee’s off-duty misconduct, what are important factors for the investigator to consider before recommending disciplinary action?
5. When considering disciplinary action for an employee’s off-duty misconduct, what difference would it make if an employee is or is not represented by a labor union?
Case created by Robert Wayland, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
SKILL BUILDER 9-1 COACHING
Objective
To develop coaching skill using the coaching model
Skills
The primary skills developed through this exercise are as follows:
1. HR management skills—Conceptual and design
2. SHRM 2016 Curriculum Guidebook—L: Training and development
Procedure 1 (2–4 minutes)
Break into groups of three. Make some groups of two, if necessary. Each member selects one of the following three situations in which to be the manager and a different one in which to be the employee. In each situation, the employee knows the standing plans; the employee is not motivated to follow them. You will take turns coaching and being coached.
Three Problem Employee Situations
1. Employee 1 is a clerical worker who uses files, as do the other 10 employees in the department. The employees all know that they are supposed to return the files when they are finished so that others can find them when they need them. Employees should have only one file out at a time. The supervisor notices that Employee 1 has five files on the desk, and another employee is looking for one of them.
2. Employee 2 is a server in an ice cream shop. The employee knows that the tables should be cleaned up quickly after customers leave so that new customers do not have to sit at dirty tables. It’s a busy night. The supervisor finds dirty dishes on two of this employee’s occupied tables. Employee 2 is socializing with some friends at one of the tables.
3. Employee 3 is an auto technician. All employees know that they are supposed to put a paper mat on the floor of each car so that the carpets don’t get dirty. When the service supervisor got into a car that Employee 3 had repaired, the car did not have a mat and there was grease on the carpet.
Procedure 2 (3–7 minutes)
Prepare for coaching to improve performance. Each group member writes an outline of what they will say when coaching Employee 1, 2, or 3, following the steps below:
1. Describe current performance.
2. Describe desired performance. (Don’t forget to have the employee state why it is important.)
3. Get a commitment to the change.
4. Follow up.
Round 1 (5–8 minutes)
Role-playing. The manager of Employee 1, the clerical worker, coaches that employee as planned. (Use the actual name of the group member playing Employee 1.) Talk—do not read your plan. Employee 1 should put themselves in the worker’s position. Both the manager and the employee will have to ad lib. The person not playing a role is the observer. This person makes notes as the observer for each step of the coaching model listed above. The manager should coach the employee and try to make positive comments and point out areas for improvement. The observer should give the manager alternative suggestions about what could have been said to improve the coaching session.
Feedback. The observer leads a discussion of how well the manager coached the employee. (This should be a discussion, not a lecture.) Focus on what the manager did well and how the manager could improve. The employee should also give feedback on how they felt and what might have been more effective in motivating change. Do not go on to the next interview until you are told to do so. If you finish early, wait for the others to finish.
Round 2 (5–8 minutes)
Same as Round 1, but change roles so that Employee 2, the server, is coached. The job is not much fun if you can’t talk to your friends. As the supervisor, coach Employee 2. Again, the observer gives feedback after the coaching.
Round 3 (5–8 minutes)
Same as Rounds 1 and 2, but change roles so that Employee 3, the auto technician, is coached. As the supervisor, coach Employee 3. Again, the observer gives feedback after the coaching.
Apply It
What did I learn from this exercise? How will I use this knowledge in the future?
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
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SKILL BUILDER 9-2 DISCIPLINING
Objective
To develop your ability to discipline an employee using the discipline model
Skills
The primary skills developed through this exercise are as follows:
1. HR management skills—Conceptual and design
2. SHRM 2016 Curriculum Guidebook—L: Training and development
Note that this is a continuation of Skill Builder Exercise 9-1. Coaching didn’t work, and you have to discipline the employee.
Procedure 1 (2–4 minutes)
Break into groups of three. Make some groups of two, if necessary. Each member selects one of the three situations from Skill Builder 1. Decide who will discipline Employee 1, the clerical worker; Employee 2, the ice cream shop server; and Employee 3, the auto technician. Also select different group members to play the employee being disciplined and the observer.
Procedure 2 (3–7 minutes)
Prepare for the discipline session. Write a basic outline of what you will say to Employee 1, 2, or 3; follow the steps in the discipline model below.
1. Refer to past feedback. (Assume that you have discussed the situation before, using the coaching model.)
2. Ask why the undesired behavior occurred. (The employee should make up an excuse for not changing.)
3. Administer the discipline. (Assume that an oral warning is appropriate.)
4. Get a commitment to change, and develop a plan.
5. Summarize and state the follow-up.
Round 1 (5–8 minutes)
Role-playing. The manager of Employee 1, the clerical worker, disciplines that employee as planned. (Use the actual name of the group member playing the employee.) Talk—do not read your plan. Both the manager and the employee will need to ad lib. As the supervisor, discipline Employee 1.
The person not playing a role is the observer. This person makes notes on the five steps of the discipline model above. For each of the steps, try to make a statement about the positive aspects of the discipline and a statement about how the manager could have improved. Give alternative things the manager could have said to improve the discipline session. Remember, the objective is to change behavior.
Feedback. The observer leads a discussion of how well the manager disciplined the employee. The employee should also give feedback on how they felt and what might have been more effective in motivating change. Do not go on to the next interview until you are told to do so. If you finish early, wait until the others finish or the time is up.
Round 2 (5–8 minutes)
Same as Round 1, but change roles so that Employee 2, the ice cream server, is disciplined. As Employee 2, put yourself in the worker’s position. As the supervisor, discipline Employee 2. As the observer, give feedback.
Round 3 (5–8 minutes)
Same as Rounds 1 and 2, but change roles so that Employee 3, the auto technician, is disciplined. As Employee 3, put yourself inthe worker’s position. As the supervisor, discipline Employee 3. As the observer, give feedback.
Apply It
What did I learn from this exercise? How will I use this knowledge in the future?
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
SKILL BUILDER 9-3 SITUATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Objective
To learn how to use the situational management model to develop skill at selecting the most appropriate management style in a given situation
Skills
The primary skills developed through this exercise are as follows:
1. HR management skills—Conceptual and design
2. SHRM 2016 Curriculum Guidebook—L: Training and development
Assignment
As stated back in the chapter subsection on Situational Management, select the most appropriate management style for each of the 12 situations in Self-Assessment 9-1, using the situational management model. Be sure to fill in the C _____ (1-2-3-4) and S _____ (1A-2C-3P-4E) lines as instructed in the text on p. 328, in “Apply the Most Appropriate Management Styles.”
Apply It
What did I learn from this exercise? How will I use this knowledge in the future?
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
Your instructor may review the situational management model, complete more of the situations in class, and/or ask you to do this Skill Builder in class by breaking into groups of two or three to select or discuss your answers. If so, the instructor will provide you with any necessary information or additional instructions.
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SKILL BUILDER 9-4 DEVELOPING A HABIT
Objective
To develop a new habit.
Skills
The primary skills developed through this exercise are as follows:
1. HR management skills—Conceptual and design
2. SHRM 2016 Curriculum Guidebook—L: Training and development
Assignment
Realizing the importance of having a positive attitude and thoughts about a change, select a new habit you want to develop, such as A. better study habits or B. losing weight. Now set an objective, for example: To study nine hours a week or To lose five pounds by June 30. Next develop a cue, routine, and reward like the examples below.
Cue−reminds you to (or not to) do the behavior. A. Set a schedule of study in your appointment book/calendar to remind you it’s time to study. B. Put a note about diet on fridge.
Routine−do the behavior. A. Study on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday from 6:00 to 9:00. B. Drink water (no sugar/diet drinks) and no snacks—eating between meals.
Reward−reinforce doing the behavior to make it a habit. A and B. Feel better about yourself. A. Better grades. B. Special snack on Sunday. Lower weight resulting in looking and feeling better.
Let’s be honest. We will most likely slip and miss a study session or cheat on our diet. The question is, How do you handle the slip? Are you going to give up and go back to your old habits, or will you get back to your new routine? Caution—once you slip, and the more often you slip, the easier it is to go back to your old habits.
Apply It
What did I learn from this exercise? How will I use this knowledge in the future?
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
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©iStockphoto.com/Jacob Wackerhausen
|
10 |
Employee and Labor Relations |
Media Library
CHAPTER 10 Media Library
PREMIUM VIDEO
HRM in Action
The No Tips Rule
LICENSED VIDEO
Importance of Unions
Unions and the Global Economy
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:
10-1.
Discuss the value of trust and communication in organizations. How do the message-sending and the message-receiving processes help improve trust?
PAGE
344
10-2.
Discuss the primary reason why measuring job satisfaction is so difficult, identify the best tool for getting employees to tell the truth about their level of satisfaction, and list the major determinants of job satisfaction.
PAGE 350
10-3.
Identify the major labor laws in the United States and the other legal issues in labor relations.
PAGE 353
10-4.
Briefly discuss the union certification process, the NO TIPS rules for labor elections, and the concept of collective bargaining.
PAGE
361
10-5.
Briefly discuss what management can do to limit union organizing efforts.
PAGE
365
10-6.
Identify the five conflict management styles. How is each described in terms of win or lose?
PAGE
366
10-7.
Describe the negotiation process. Briefly explain the processes of mediation and arbitration and the major difference between the two.
PAGE
371
10-8.
Discuss recent NLRB rulings dealing with the employer/employee relationship and briefly discuss the issue of union avoidance and suppression.
PAGE
375
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Labor Relations: A Function of
Trust and Communication
Trust and Communication
Sending Messages
Receiving Messages
Job Satisfaction
Job Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction and Performance
Measuring Job Satisfaction
Determinants of Job Satisfaction
Legal Issues in Labor Relations
The Railway Labor Act (RLA) of 1926
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 (Wagner Act)
The Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) of 1947 (Taft-Hartley Act)
The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (Landrum-Griffin Act or LMRDA)
The
Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (WARN Act)
Labor Laws
Vary Significantly From Country to Country
Other Legal Issues in Labor Relations
Unions and Labor Rights
Union Organizing
Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining
Grievances
Management Rights and
Decertification Elections
Limiting Union Organizing Efforts
Lockouts and Replacement Workers
Decertification Elections
Managing
Conflict
Conflict
Conflict Management
Styles
Initiating Conflict Resolution
Negotiations
The Negotiation Process
Planning the Negotiation
Negotiate
Alternative Dispute Resolution
: Mediation and Arbitration
Trends and Issues in HRM
The NLRB Is Redefining the Employer/Employee Relationship
Are Union Avoidance or Suppression Policies Ethical?
p.343
Practitioner’s Perspective
Cindy says: Few issues bring HR professionals out in force to voice their opinion like labor relations. The divide between management and labor may be wide, yet there is a very fine line separating management rights from unacceptable labor practices. Cindy’s good friend Leah’s company was facing a labor organization drive. IT reported that one of the employees had been posting complaints about her job on her Facebook page. At the weekly executive meeting, one director demanded that the employee be told to remove the offensive comments immediately or face being discharged from the company. Fortunately, Leah’s boss listened to her suggestion that they consult professional legal counsel before reacting to the posts.
Why wasn’t the ultimatum to the employee a good idea? Are there restrictions on the actions a company may take to counter a labor organization campaign?
Chapter 1
0
takes on another critical legal liability portion of HR management—labor relations.
SHRM
HR CONTENT
See Appendix: SHRM 2016 Curriculum Guidebook for the complete list
A. Employee and Labor Relations (required)
2. Alternative dispute resolution
8. Union membership
9. Union-related labor laws
10. Union/management relations
11. Union decertification and deauthorization
12. Collective bargaining issues
13. Collective bargaining process
14. Negotiation skills
15. Conflict management
16. Grievance management
17. Strikes, boycotts, and work stoppages
18. Unfair labor practices
19. Managing union organizing policies and handbooks
21. Attitude surveys
B. Employment Law (required)
11.
Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA)
12.
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA)
13.
Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (LMRA)
14.
Railway Labor Act of 1926 (RLA)
16. Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (WARN Act)
18. Contractual and tort theories
20. Employer unfair labor practices
22. Agency relationships/quasi-contracts
23. Employment contracts
28. Whistle-blowing/retaliation
C. Ethics (required)
15.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX)
16.
False Claims Act
M. Workforce Planning and Talent Management (required)
4. Retention: Voluntary turnover, job satisfaction, withdrawal, alternatives
Get the edge on your studies.
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• Take a quiz to find out what you’ve learned.
• Review key terms with eFlashcards.
• Watch videos that enhance chapter content.
p.344
LABOR RELATIONS: A FUNCTION OF TRUST AND COMMUNICATION
LO 10-1
Discuss the value of trust and communication in organizations. How do the message-sending and the message-receiving processes help improve trust?
Managers and labor have to work together to accomplish goals.1 For this to happen successfully, people in organizations must be able to communicate with each other.2 Both companywide and individual communications are vital.3
Communications
is the foundation of human relations skills4 (Chapter 1), and it is a transferable skill.5 HR professionals rated interpersonal-communication skills as the most valuable knowledge, skill, or ability for career success.6 However, companies say that communication and other soft skills are difficult to find in job applicants.7
Whenever people communicate to accomplish a goal, the sender and receiver must establish trust to avoid creating barriers in the communication process.8 In this section, we begin with an overview of trust and communications and then provide details of sending and receiving messages when communicating.
Trust and Communication
Trust is simply faith in the character and actions of another. In other words, it is a belief that another person will do what they say they will do, and not take advantage of us—every time. There is evidence of a “crisis of trust” in business today.9 So how do we get others to trust us? We must do what we say we will do consistently, over a period of time.
Happiness and success in our personal and professional lives are based on our relationships. Good relationships are based on trust.10 Do you have good relationships with people you can’t trust? Employees’ trust in managers affects their motivation to engage in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).11 A survey revealed that 74% of engaged employees trust their manager, while only 14% don’t trust their boss.12 Would you go above and beyond what is expected (work harder) for a boss you don’t trust?
p.
345
In turn, managers need to be able to trust employees.13 Trust is absolutely necessary to strong management–labor relations. It engenders respect between all of the individuals in the organization; and research shows that companies that have the trust of their employees have “lower turnover [and] higher revenue, profitability, and shareholder returns.”14 As soon as trust goes, loyalty to the company goes with it.15
Since a person must consistently do what they say they will over a period of time, trust isn’t created immediately. But ask yourself a slightly different question: How quickly can we lose trust in another person? This can happen almost immediately—as soon as the other person fails to do something that we trusted them to do. So, trust takes a while to create but takes only an instant to lose. So, the bottom line is this: If we want to improve others’ level of trust in us, we need to be open and honest with people.16 If people catch you in a lie, they may never trust you again. To gain and maintain trust and credibility, always get the facts straight before you communicate; and send clear, complete messages.17
WORK
APPLICATION 10-1
Select a present or past boss and describe how much you trust that person. Be sure to give specific examples of things your boss did, or didn’t do, that created or destroyed your trust.
Good managers are good communicators.18Communication is the process of transmitting information and meaning. Communication involves successfully providing information to others as a sender and as a receiver of messages. As managers, we need our employees to trust us when we communicate with them. In any communication, receivers consider the trust they have in the senders, as well as the senders’ credibility.19 When receivers do not trust senders, or do not believe senders know what they are talking about, then the receivers are reluctant to accept the message.20
You can send your messages verbally, nonverbally, or in writing. We are expected to work well in groups and communicate with ease.21 But if asked, “Are you a good communicator?” most people would likely say “yes.” However, the truth is that most people have lots of miscommunications,22which can result in damaging trust. Let’s take a look at some tips that can help us be better communicators, as both senders and receivers.
Sending Messages
Every time we talk, we are sending messages.23 We are constantly pitching our ideas.24 The vast majority of messages you send and receive in the workplace are simple, straightforward messages like “Please copy this document,” “I’ll call you when I’ve reviewed these specifications,” and “I put the report you requested on your desk.” You transmit many such messages face-to-face or in a brief memo, email, or fax. Such straightforward messages need minimal planning, because they are routine.
However, sometimes the message you need to transmit is difficult, unusual, or especially important. For example, you may have the difficult task of communicating to someone that they are to be laid off. Or perhaps you need to communicate to workers at one plant about the changes that will be occurring there as a result of closing a second plant and moving its processes to that one—an unusual situation and an important communication.
So before sending a message, we should answer five basic questions: What, who, how, when, and where? What is the goal of our communication, and what is the desired end result? Who is affected by the communication? How are we sending the message—in verbal or written form? When does the message need to be sent? And where should we send it—your office, mine, or a neutral site? When sending messages, be careful in the vocabulary you use to convey your message because words make a difference,25 as poor wording drains money due to miscommunication.26
THE MESSAGE-SENDING PROCESS. Oral communication channels (channels where we speak to others directly) are richer than other channels, and face-to-face oral communication is the best channel to use when the message you must transmit is a difficult or complex one. When sending a face-to-face message, you can follow the steps in the message-sending process shown in
Model 10-1
.
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346
MODEL 10-1 THE MESSAGE-SENDING PROCESS MODEL
WORK
APPLICATION 10-2
Select a present or past boss and describe how well that person sent messages. Did the boss essentially follow the steps in the message-sending process described here?
Step 1: Develop rapport. Begin by putting the receiver at ease by creating a harmonious relationship. It is usually appropriate to begin communication by making a connection with the receiver through an opening conversation that’s related to the message you’re trying to convey.27
Step 2: State your communication objective. It is helpful for the receiver if you explain the objective (end result) of the communication before you explain the details.
Step 3: Transmit your message. Calmly and with respect, tell the receiver(s) whatever you want them to know. It may be helpful to also provide written directives and/or to ask the receiver to take some notes.
Step 4: Check the receiver’s understanding. When giving information, ask direct questions and/or paraphrase. Simply asking, “Do you have any questions?” does not check understanding. (The next subsection describes how to check understanding.)
Step 5: Get a commitment and follow up. If the message involves assigning a task, make sure that the message recipient can do the task and have it done by a certain time or date. Finally, follow up to ensure that the necessary action has been taken.
WORK
APPLICATION 10-3
Select a present or past boss and describe how effective that person is at getting feedback and paraphrasing. How often did you get the task done right the first time versus having to redo it?
CHECKING UNDERSTANDING: FEEDBACK.Feedback is information provided by the receiver that verifies that a message was transmitted successfully. We tend to assume we are good communicators and that if no one asks a question, the communication is complete.28 But as senders of messages, we need to get feedback from the receiver to make sure they “really” understand the message. The best way to get feedback is to ask for it.29Questioning, paraphrasing, and inviting comments and suggestions are all means of obtaining feedback that check understanding.30 So, we should get feedback by paraphrasing and asking questions, and inviting questions.
PARAPHRASING. Paraphrasing is the process of restating a message back to the original sender in the receiver’s own words. Paraphrasing can often avoid the problem of the sender saying things like, “This isn’t what I asked for.” So taking a minute to get feedback to ensure understanding can help ensure that the task will get done right the first time. You have to ask good questions to get good answers.31How we ask for feedback is important because we don’t want to make the receiver defensive, so we should say something like this: “Would you tell me what you are going to do so that I can be sure that I explained myself clearly?”
Receiving Messages
We need to be as effective at receiving messages as we are at sending them. Successfully receiving and interpreting messages is harder than most of us think.32 First you have to listen,33 as it is an important part of communications.34 Ever hear the advice that we should “listen more and talk less?”35 that “you learn more when your mouth is closed and your ears are open.”36 Putting it bluntly: “Shut up and listen.”37 Here we discuss listening skills and the message-receiving process so we can round out our communication skills.
LISTENING SKILLS. If someone were to ask us if we are good listeners, most of us would say yes. However, unfortunately, we are naturally poor listeners,38 because we don’t remember what was said. How’s your memory?39 A recent survey found that the number one thing lacking in new college grads is listening skills.40 Find out how good a listener you are by completing the listening skills self-assessment. By using the message-receiving process, you can learn to become a better listener.
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©iStockphoto.com/Geber86
With mobile technology, employees are constantly connected and communicating.
THE MESSAGE-RECEIVING PROCESS. The message-receiving process includes active listening, analyzing, and then checking for understanding. Recall that active listening is the intention and ability to listen to others, use the content and context of the communication, and respond appropriately. If you apply the following tips, you can improve your listening skills. The message-receiving process is illustrated in
Model 10-2
.
Step 1: Active listening. Active listening (sometimes called empathetic listening), is about giving your full attention (meaning 100% of it) to the message sender for the entire time of the message sending.41 Constant multitasking is degrading our ability to pay attention and listen for very long.42Multitasking causes us to become distracted, whether we realize it or not, and to miss the message being communicated. So, put the phone away and stop multitasking.43 As the speaker sends the message, you should be doing the eight things listed in the first column of Model 10-2. If you find your mind wandering by thinking of other things (something that happens to all of us), bring it back to pay attention. One way to pay attention is to repeat in your mind what the sender is saying.
Business communications usually require taking appropriate action based on the message. How can we take action if we don’t understand or remember the message? Frank Felberbaum, president of Memory Training Systems, says that to understand and remember the message, we have to concentrate. We remember what we see better than what we hear. The primary reason we get distracted and lose our ability to pay attention and remember things is the separation of the use of our eyes and mind. When they are not working together as a team, we cannot concentrate at all.44Think about this. If you are listening to someone talking as you check your phone (or look somewhere else), what happens? Loss of concentration. Can you see how multitasking kills concentration and memory? So, to maximize listening, you need to look the person (including professors in class) in the eye and concentrate with your mind to what they say. If your eyes are looking but your mind is wondering, bring it back. Try repeating what the person is saying word for word in your mind as they speak. Active listening can help you concentrate and remember messages.
p.348
10-1 SELF ASSESSMENT
Listening Skills
For each statement, select the response that best describes how often you actually behave in the way described. Place the letter A, U, F, O, or S on the line before each statement to indicate your response.
_____ 1. I like to listen to people talk. I encourage others to talk by showing interest, smiling, nodding, and so forth.
_____ 2. I pay closer attention to people who are similar to me than to people who are different from me.
_____ 3. I evaluate people’s words and nonverbal communication ability as they talk.
_____ 4. I avoid distractions; if it’s noisy, I suggest moving to a quiet spot.
_____ 5. When people interrupt me when I’m doing something, I put what I was doing out of my mind and give them my complete attention.
_____ 6. When people are talking, I allow them time to finish. I do not interrupt, anticipate what they are going to say, or jump to conclusions.
_____ 7. I tune out people who do not agree with my views.
_____ 8. While another person is talking or a professor is lecturing, my mind wanders to personal topics.
_____ 9. While another person is talking, I pay close attention to that person’s nonverbal communication so I can fully understand what they are trying to communicate.
_____ 10. I tune out and pretend to understand when the topic is difficult for me to understand.
_____ 11. When another person is talking, I think about and prepare what I am going to say in reply.
_____ 12. When I think there is something missing from or contradictory in what someone says, I ask direct questions to get the person to explain the idea more fully.
_____ 13. When I don’t understand something, I let the other person know I don’t understand.
_____ 14. When listening to other people, I try to put myself in their position and see things from their perspective.
_____ 15. During conversations, I repeat back to the other person, in my own words, what the other person says; I do this to be sure I understand what has been said.
If people you talk to regularly answered these questions about you, would they have the same responses that you selected? To find out, have friends answer the questions using your name rather than “I.” Then compare answers.
To determine your score, do the following:
For statements 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14, and 15, give yourself 5 points for each A, 4 for each U, 3 for each F, 2 for each O, and 1 for each S.
For statements 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, and 11, give yourself 5 points for each S, 4 for each O, 3 for each F, 2 for each U, and 1 for each A.
Write your score for each letter response on the line next to the letter. Now add up your total number of points. Your score should be between 15 and 75. Note where your score falls on the continuum below. Generally, the higher your score, the better your listening skills.
Step 2: Analyzing. Analyzing is the process of thinking about, decoding, and evaluating the message. Poor listening is caused in part by the fact that we speak at an average rate of 120 words per minute, but we are capable of listening at a rate of 600 words per minute.45 The ability to comprehend words more than five times faster than the speaker can talk allows our mind to wander. As the speaker sends the message, we should be doing the three things listed in the second column of Model 10-2. So while active thinking involves mental paraphrasing, empathy involves putting yourself in the other person’s position to understand where they are coming from.
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MODEL 10-2 THE MESSAGE-RECEIVING PROCESS MODEL
WORK
APPLICATION 10-4
Select a present or past boss and assess that person’s listening skills. Be sure to give specific examples of when your boss was not listening effectively.
Step 3: Checking understanding by responding when appropriate. Checking understanding by responding when appropriate is the process of giving feedback to the sender. Although the sender is responsible for conveying the message, it is our job to help by giving them feedback, whether they ask for it or not.
After you have listened to the message (or while listening to it, if it’s a long message), check your understanding of the message by paraphrasing it. When we can repeat back a sender’s message correctly, we convey that we have listened to and understood the sender.46 Now we are ready to offer our ideas, advice, solutions, decisions, or whatever else is relevant to the sender’s message. As you speak, pay attention to the other person’s nonverbal communication. If the person does not seem to understand what you are talking about, clarify the message before finishing the conversation. The sender and receiver roles can continue to alternate throughout the conversation.
IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS. Do you talk more than you listen? Ask people who will give you an honest answer—perhaps your boss, your coworkers, or your friends. Regardless of how much you listen, if you follow the guidelines discussed in this section, you will become a better listener. Review items 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14, and 15 in Self-Assessment 10-1, which are the statements that describe good listening skills; the other numbered statements are things not to do. Select a couple of your weaker areas, the ones with lower numbers, and work to improve them.
10-1 APPLYING THE CONCEPT
Communications
Identify whether each strategy listed below is an effective or ineffective aid to communications.
a. effective
b. ineffective
____ 1. When listening to instructions, if you don’t understand something being said, you should not do or say anything until you have received the entire set of instructions.
____ 2. You should repeat back what the other person said word-for-word when you paraphrase.
____ 3. After you finish giving instructions, you should ensure understanding by asking the person, “Do you have any questions?”
____ 4. When giving instructions, you should tell the receiver your communication objective before giving the details of what is to be done to complete the task.
____ 5. We should multitask while receiving messages face-to-face so that we can get more than one thing done at a time.
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JOB SATISFACTION
LO 10-2
Discuss the primary reason why measuring job satisfaction is so difficult, identify the best tool for getting employees to tell the truth about their level of satisfaction, and list the major determinants of job satisfaction.
Job satisfaction, as we first noted in Chapter 1, is a feeling of well-being and acceptance of our place in the organization, and it is generally measured along a continuum from satisfied/positive/high to dissatisfied/negative/low. Remember that job satisfaction is important to us because it affects many other factors at work.47 It can have a direct effect on all of our other dependent variables discussed in Chapter 1—productivity, absenteeism, and turnover—so high job satisfaction is beneficial for firm value.48 Studies have also found that dissatisfied employees are more apt to break the rules and sabotage coworker performance.49 In a 2017 SHRM survey,50 the greatest contributors to job satisfaction were: Respectful treatment of all employee at all levels (65% said this was very important); Trust between employees and senior management (61%); tied with Compensation (61%).
WORK
APPLICATION 10-5
Review your answers to the Listening Skills, 10-1 Self-Assessment. What are your two weakest areas, and how will you improve them?
Notice that two of the top three contributors to job satisfaction were trust and respect—two things we have already mentioned in this chapter. In addition, recalling the information on communication and especially the section on active listening and empathy, you can easily see that without successful communication we can’t maintain trust and respect between employees and management.
Job Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction and Performance
It is very difficult to have good employee/labor relations when employees don’t like their jobs, and there are many other potential consequences of poor job satisfaction, including lower levels of health and wellness, higher levels of alcohol and other substance abuse, physical or psychological withdrawal on the part of the employee, and high levels of theft and sabotage.51 Even attempts to unionize a workforce could be the result of collective job dissatisfaction, so managers are wise to pay attention to employee satisfaction levels. So, organizations do strive for employee job satisfaction.52
SHRM
M:4
Retention: Voluntary Turnover, Job Satisfaction, Withdrawal, Alternatives
It is known that employees with the personality traits of optimism and positive self-esteem tend to have greater job satisfaction.53 Although there has long been a debate over the expression, “A happy worker is a productive worker,” there is some support for the idea of a positive relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), employee efforts that go above and beyond the call of duty,54 which can then lead to high-level results.55 In fact, in US companies ranked in the 100 best to work for, total annual stock returns were also 2–3% higher than peer companies,56 so there is evidence of direct financial benefit to the organization. However, there is also some support for the assertion that lower job satisfaction (or higher job dissatisfaction levels) can lead to lower productivity.57
WORK
APPLICATION 10-6
Select a present or past job. Pick a person who had low job satisfaction and another who had high job satisfaction. How did their different levels of job satisfaction affect their job performance?
Also, low job satisfaction is a prominent indicator of a desire to leave the firm.58 In fact, in the SHRM survey noted above, two out of five employees were considering leaving their organization within the year due to low satisfaction with one or more factors.59 Women are more likely than men to be satisfied with their entry-level career, but the opposite is true at senior levels, as women hit the glass ceiling.60 Job satisfaction can also affect an individual’s satisfaction away from the job, as people tend to take their jobs home with them.61
Gary Vaynerchuk of New York–based digital media agency Vaynermedia notes that62 “I’ve learned that employee happiness and well-being come before everything else—including signing on new clients.” And he may be on to something—he has “taken two businesses from $3 million to $60 million in revenue, each in less than five years. . . .”
Measuring Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction can be measured through an organizational development survey, but we have to remember that a survey is an indirect measurement. Since job satisfaction is an attitude, we can’t directly see or measure it. We can experience only behaviors directly, not attitudes. We have to indirectly evaluate attitudes—we have to ask people about their attitudes. This is the primary reason why job satisfaction is so difficult to measure accurately. As a result of the inability to observe job satisfaction, we must rely on individuals to self-report their level of satisfaction. However, this brings up a big question: Will employees tell us whether or not they are satisfied with their job?
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A:2
1
Attitude Surveys
As with so many management questions, the answer is that it depends. If managers and employees trust each other, then the employees may tell their managers the truth. However, as noted earlier in this chapter, if there isn’t strong trust between the two, then employees may think that if they say they are dissatisfied, their manager will get rid of them because they are “disgruntled workers.”
Because of this question of trust, it’s always a good idea to ensure that any job satisfaction surveys that are done within the organization remain completely anonymous. If the surveys are anonymous, and if the employees know that is the case, then they are much more likely to tell the truth when they take the survey.
There are two common types of job satisfaction surveys or questionnaires, with a fairly new method that can be used for either of the two. Let’s briefly review each of them now.
THE FACES SCALE OF JOB SATISFACTION MEASUREMENT. The first and simpler survey is called the “faces scale.”63 It’s pretty much what it sounds like: a series of pictures of several faces on a sheet of paper, with the face at one end of the scale looking very happy and the face at the other end of the scale looking unhappy or angry. All that the employee is asked to do is circle the face that most closely matches their satisfaction with their job.
Exhibit 10-1
shows an example of the faces scale.
THE QUESTIONNAIRE JOB SATISFACTION MEASUREMENT. The second type of survey or questionnaire—the organizational development survey—is more complex and more comprehensive. An example of this type of survey is the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS). Take a look at
Exhibit 10-2
, which shows some of the questions from the JSS.64 There are many different surveys of this type, and this is one of only a few that have been shown to be valid and reliable when used to measure job satisfaction in a work environment.65 The JSS includes nine factors: pay, promotion, supervision, benefits, contingent rewards, operating procedures, coworkers, nature of work, and communication.
PULSE SURVEYS. This type of short survey method—sometimes as short as a single question—is now being used by many companies.66 We can use a pulse survey to gain either a general picture of employee satisfaction or to spot problem areas so it can supplement either the faces scale or a job satisfaction survey. A single question pulse survey might be used to gauge general employee satisfaction on a recurring basis—as often as several times per week. If we see indications that there is an increase in dissatisfaction, we may want to change the pulse questions to try to determine in what areas our employees are dissatisfied.
These pulse questions may pop up on the employee’s computer screen at random times during the work day, where they can be quickly answered and the worker can move on with what they are doing. Because millennial and post-millennial employees are used to continual feedback, pulse surveys are catching on with companies that need to routinely engage these employees. Since the employee doesn’t think much about the single question, we may get a more generalizable idea of their satisfaction levels. Qualtrics—a survey company—notes that organizations may run full-scale employee engagement or satisfaction surveys every year or so, but that the pulse survey can complement those long evaluations on a more frequent basis so that we don’t miss a change in employee sentiment.67
Exhibit 10-1 FEMALE FACES SCALE
Source: “Development of a female faces scale for measuring job satisfaction” by Randall B. Dunham and Jeanne B. Herman, Journal of Applied Psychology, 60(5), October 1975, 629–631.
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Exhibit 10-2 SAMPLE OF JOB SATISFACTION SURVEY (JSS) QUESTIONS
Source: P. Spector (1985), “Measurement of human service staff satisfaction: Development of the job satisfaction survey,” American Journal of Community Psychology 13(6), pp. 693–713.
WORK
APPLICATION 10-7
Select an organization where you work now or where you worked in the past. Does the organization measure job satisfaction? If yes, state how it is measured and the level of job satisfaction. If not, what level of satisfaction do employees feel on a scale of 1 (low) to 6 (high)?
WHICH JOB SATISFACTION MEASUREMENT SHOULD WE USE? Since there are two types of measurement options here, which one should we use? Again, it depends. If we want a quick analysis of the basic level of job satisfaction in our organization, the faces scale has been shown to be quite accurate, and the pulse survey can be used for this purpose while being even faster.68 However, if we need a more in-depth analysis of job satisfaction, including what aspects of the job our employees may be dissatisfied with, the more complex and comprehensive JSS (or another longer survey instrument) would be the appropriate choice. Each tool has its value, and in combination, they can help us keep track of organizational job satisfaction levels over time.
Determinants of Job Satisfaction
WORK
APPLICATION 10-8
Identify the three most important determinants of your job satisfaction, and explain why they are important to you.
Although compensation (pay and benefits) is important to job satisfaction, research historically has not strongly supported the idea that pay is the only, or even the primary determinant of job satisfaction in many cases; or that people in high-paying jobs are more satisfied than employees in low-paying jobs. Even though when asked, employees often reply that compensation is a primary satisfier for their work,69 money may not necessarily make employees happy.70 Although employee engagement and job satisfaction has been rising for the past few years, according to recent studies, the top reasons for job dissatisfaction are a lack of trust in management, poor communication between employees and senior managers, and failure to provide respectful treatment to all employees.71
Seven major determinants of job satisfaction are presented in Self-Assessment 10-2: Job Satisfaction. Complete it to find out what is important to you and your own level of job satisfaction. You can have an overall high level of job satisfaction and still not like some aspects of your job; this is common.
IMPROVING YOUR JOB SATISFACTION. Remember that job satisfaction is, to a large extent, based on personality and perception, so it can be changed. If you work at being more positive by focusing on the good parts of your job and spend less time thinking about problems, and especially complaining to others about your job, then you may increase your job satisfaction.72 Improving your communications and human relationship skills can help you to get along better with coworkers and managers and increase your job satisfaction. It can also increase your chances for growth and your opportunities for advancement and higher compensation.
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10-2 SELF ASSESSMENT
Job Satisfaction
Select a present or past job. Identify your level of satisfaction with that job by placing a check at the appropriate position on the continuum for each determinant of job satisfaction.
Overall Job Satisfaction
When determining your overall job satisfaction, you cannot simply add up a score based on the above seven determinants, because they are most likely of different importance to you. Rank your top three factors below:
1.
_______________________________________________________
________________________________
2. _______________________________________________________________________________________
3. _______________________________________________________________________________________
Now, think about your job and the above factors, and rate your overall satisfaction with your job below:
LEGAL ISSUES IN LABOR RELATIONS
LO 10-3
Identify the major labor laws in the United States and the other legal issues in labor relations.
As with most management processes, a number of legal issues affect labor relations. Let’s discuss the major facets of the major labor laws at this point. All managers need to understand the constraints set by these labor laws to successfully do their job. In this section, we will introduce you to the major labor laws in the United States. See
Exhibit 10-3
for a brief overview of the five major labor laws.
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10-2 APPLYING THE CONCEPT
Job Satisfaction
Correctly match each statement with its determinant of job satisfaction, writing the letter corresponding to each determinant before the statement associated with it.
a. personality
b. work itself
c. compensation
d. growth
e. coworkers
f. management
g. communications
____ 6. There is a job opening in the metal fusion shop, and I am going to apply for the position.
____ 7. I really enjoy fixing cars to help people get around.
____ 8. I’m mad at my manager because he didn’t give me the good performance review that I deserved.
____ 9. Of course I can do that task for you.
____ 10. The thing I like best about my job is the people I work with.
SHRM
A:9
Union-Related Labor Laws
The Railway Labor Act (RLA) of 1926
The Railway Labor Act was originally enacted to significantly limit the potential for railroad strikes to affect interstate commerce by hindering the general public’s ability to procure goods and services. Railroads were the primary means of moving goods from one state to another in 1926. Airlines were added to the act in 1936 because much of the US mail was beginning to be delivered with the help of airlines, and an airline disruption would affect the delivery of the mail. Airlines are subject to basically the same negotiation and mediation processes as were the railroads.73
SHRM
A:10
Union/Management Relations
The act also provides protection for workers’ right to join a union,74 and it requires that in so-called major disputes—disputes involving rates of pay, work rules, or working conditions—management and labor must participate in a fairly long negotiation and mediation process before a labor strike may be called. A strike is a collective work stoppage by members of a union that is intended to put pressure on an employer. This negotiation process is designed to force the two parties to come to an agreement without resorting to a strike, in almost all cases.
Exhibit 10-3 MAJOR LABOR LAWS
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SHRM
B:14
Railway Labor Act of 1926 (RLA)
In 1934, the National Mediation Board (NMB) was created in an amendment to the RLA. If management and labor fail to negotiate a settlement to their disagreement, the NMB is tasked by the act with mediating the two parties’ disagreements. The NMB can, in fact, “keep the parties in mediation indefinitely, so long as it feels there’s a reasonable prospect for settlement.”75
SHRM
A:17
Strikes, Boycotts, and Work Stoppages
Even after the NMB determines that there’s no reasonable prospect for settlement through mediation, it can push the two parties to submit to an arbitration process. However, both parties must consent to arbitration. Finally, if arbitration is unsuccessful or is rejected, the NMB has the authority to refer the dispute to the president of the United States, who can create a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) as a mechanism to investigate the disagreement.
It should probably be obvious by now that the intent of the act is to draw out the bargaining process between management and labor and push the two sides to resolve a labor disagreement without having to resort to a strike. In fact, in most cases involving minor disputes (disputes over items other than collective bargaining rights such as pay, work rules, or working conditions), strikes are prohibited under this law because a disruption in railroad or airline traffic could have such a devastating effect on the general public.
SHRM
B:12
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA)
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 (Wagner Act)
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA; frequently called the Wagner Act) was the first major modern US law to deal with the legal issue of workers’ employment rights in the general workforce (workers who were not covered by special laws such as the Railway Labor Act) in the United States. The act states:
SHRM
A:18, B:20
Employer Unfair Labor Practices
Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment.76
The NLRA was considered to be very one-sided by employers when it originally passed because it identified five “unfair labor practices” (prohibitions) for employers but identified no unfair labor practices for employee unions or labor organizations. The act was later amended to include unfair labor practices by employees and their representatives.
The employer unfair labor practices identified by the NLRA include the following:
1. Interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in the NLRA
2. Dominating or interfering with the formation or administration of any labor organization, or contributing financial or other support to it
3. Discriminating in regard to hiring or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization (with some specific exceptions)
4. Discharging or otherwise discriminating (retaliating) against an employee because that person has filed charges or given testimony under the NLRA
5. Refusing to bargain collectively with the legitimate representatives of employees
The NLRA is enforced by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which was created by the act. According to its website, the NLRB has five primary functions: conducting elections, investigating charges, facilitating settlements, deciding cases, and enforcing orders.77 The NLRB has authority over all elections to either certify or decertify unions within a particular employer’s workforce. It is also tasked with investigating any unfair labor practice charges and resolving those charges. In addition, when complaints of unfair labor practices cannot be settled, the case will typically be heard by an NLRB administrative law judge, whose ruling is subject to review by the NLRB itself. Board decisions may be appealed to a US Court of Appeals and, ultimately, to the US Supreme Court if the parties are still unsatisfied. The last of the NLRB’s tasks is enforcing orders. When a circuit court, an appeals court, or the US Supreme Court issues a decision in a labor relations case, the NLRB is the enforcement arm of the US government.
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SHRM
B:13
Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (LMRA)
The Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) of 1947 (Taft-Hartley Act)
The Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), also called the Taft-Hartley Act, was passed by Congress as an amendment to the 1935 NLRA. Whereas the NLRA identified a series of employee rights and employer unfair labor practices, the LMRA attempted to rebalance employer and employee rights.
SHRM
B:11
Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA)
The LMRA included a number of new provisions that limited union and labor rights in the United States. It outlawed several types of union actions that had been used since passage of the Wagner Act. These included jurisdictional strikes,78 which union members used to push companies to provide them with certain types of jobs; wildcat strikes,79 where individual union members participated in strikes that were not authorized by the union; secondary boycotts,80 in which a union participating in a strike against a company would pressure other unions to boycott organizations that did business with that company; and closed shops, which provided for “the hiring and employment of union members only.”81 In addition, the law limited union shops,82 where every employee was required to become a member of the union within a certain time period. Finally, the LMRA provided that supervisors had no right to be protected if they chose to participate in union activities, so if a supervisor participated in unionizing activities, the company was allowed to terminate them.
The LMRA, as noted in the beginning of this section, also created a set of unfair labor practices for unions and labor. Unfair union/labor practices include the following:83
• Restraining or coercing (a) employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed in the NLRA or (b) an employer in the selection of his representatives for negotiations
• Causing or attempting to cause an employer to discriminate against an employee who is not a union member
• Refusing to bargain collectively with an employer, provided the union is the elected representative of its employees
• Engaging in or encouraging any individual to engage in a secondary boycott of an employer
• Requiring dues that the NLRB finds excessive or discriminatory
• Causing or attempting to cause an employer to pay for more workers than necessary or pay for services that are not performed (this is called featherbedding)
• Picketing or threatening to picket an employer for the purpose of forcing the employer to bargain with the labor organization, unless the labor organization is certified as the employees’ representative
In addition to the limitations on unions and labor, the LMRA created mechanisms for decertifying unions through an election process, and it allowed the states to pass a right-to-work law. Missouri became the 28th US state to pass right-to-work legislation in 2017.84 Right-to-work laws work directly against union shops by declaring that every employee in a company has a right to work, even if they choose not to join the union representing the shop.85 Union shops cannot be set up in states that pass right-to-work laws.
The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (Landrum-Griffin Act or LMRDA)
The LMRDA came about as the result of a congressional investigation in the 1950s that linked organized crime with some national labor unions. The act required specific disclosures by union officials and provided certain rights to union members.
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Among the important provisions of the law were these:86
• A statement of worker rights for union members as well as all other workers in organizations whose members are represented by a union agreement
• The right of all organization members (not just union members) to receive and evaluate collective bargaining agreements
• Freedom of speech when it comes to union activities
• Requirements for periodic secret ballot elections of union officers
• Requirements for unions to file copies of their constitution, bylaws, and annual financial reports with the federal government
• Requirements that any officers of the union who receive loans or other benefits from union funds, who have financial interests in employers whose members the union represents, or who deal with the union must file declaration forms stating such facts
• A prohibition against using union funds to support any specific candidate for union elections
• A declaration that union officers have a duty to manage funds and property of the union solely for the benefit of the members. If union officials fail in this fiduciary duty, they’ve committed a federal crime that can be punished with a fine of up to $250,000.
SHRM
B:16
Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (WARN Act)
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (WARN Act)
The last of the major federal labor laws that we will discuss here is the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. The WARN Act was designed to protect workers in the case of a plant closing or large-scale layoff. The act says that management has to give employees notice of a plant closing or layoff at least 60 days ahead of time if more than 50 people will be laid off and if there are more than 100 full-time employees at the workplace. All workers are entitled to notice under WARN, including hourly and salaried workers as well as managers.87
If we don’t give our workers notice of a layoff or plant closing, can we still lay them off? In fact, we can do that by accepting the penalty provided in the law. The penalty provision says that an employer who fails to provide notice “is liable to each aggrieved employee for an amount including back pay and benefits for the period of violation, up to 60 days,” plus a fine of up to $500 per day of violation.88What this means is if we lay people off with fewer than 60 days’ notice, we have to pay them as if they were still employed for the 60 days anyway.
Why would we consider releasing employees but still paying them for 60 days? Well, some workers might have the ability to sabotage the organization, and therefore, we need to get them out of the company before they have a chance to hurt it. If we were to give them 60 days to stay and they had the ability to harm the organization, some of them might take advantage of that because they felt betrayed by the company. For example, if we were going to lay off a group of computer programmers, should we allow them to have access to the company computer system, knowing that they are going to lose their jobs in 60 days? Someone may potentially sabotage the system because they are mad at the company. So in some cases, we will say, “OK, I know that I am going to have to pay you anyway, but I am going to lay you off today even though I am required to give you 60 days’ notice.” However, if your employees are not likely to do harm to the organization in their last 60 days, you need to give them notice in accordance with the WARN Act, because that is just the right thing and a “fair and reasonable thing” to do.
Labor Laws Vary Significantly From Country to Country
Unfortunately, no text can provide a brief on the labor laws of each country or even generalize some aspects of labor law that would be valuable to managers in multiple countries. There are simply too many variables in labor law to be able to do so. However, we can provide an example of how labor and employment law differs by providing you with a sampling of some general differences. Take a look at
Exhibit 10-4
for a brief review of major differences between EU, Mexico, and US labor rules. This will show you some key differences that will help you understand how labor law can vary from location to location.
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10-3 APPLYING THE CONCEPT
Labor Laws
Identify each statement by the law it is discussing, writing the letter corresponding to each law before the statement discussing it.
a. RLA of 1926
b. NLRA of 1935
c. LMRA of 1947
d. LMRDA of 1959
e. WARN of 1988
____ 11. Featherbedding is illegal. The union can’t put in the contract that we have to pay for services that we really don’t get. We should call in the National Labor Relations Board to investigate.
____ 12. The union president is afraid that I will speak up at the discussion to vote on the contract and influence the members to vote it down. So I think he had a few of his boys warn me to keep my mouth shut.
____ 13. I think we should call in the National Labor Relations Board to investigate the action that management is taking to stop us from unionizing.
____ 14. The company can’t give us a notice today, with our paychecks, that our factory is being closed next week and all 500 of us will be without a job.
____ 15. As pilots, we shouldn’t go on strike. Let’s get the National Mediation Board to help us.
Other Legal Issues in Labor Relations
In addition to the major labor laws, we need to do a quick review of some of the other issues in labor relations. There are several organizational issues that have become items of concern to companies either because of years of common law decisions or because they are associated with other federal laws that limit businesses in their ability to manage their workforce. Some of the more common issues that you might run into in your company include corporate whistle-blowers, wrongful discharge, constructive discharge, express contracts, implied contracts, and quasi-contracts.
Exhibit 10-4 SAMPLE LABOR LAW VARIANTS
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359
WORK
APPLICATION 10-9
Select an organization you work or have worked for and explain how the five major labor laws apply to that firm. What can and can’t the firm do under each law?
CORPORATE WHISTLE-BLOWERS AND THE LAW. A whistle-blower is an individual who tells an authoritative organization (such as a TV station or a government agency) outside the individual’s own company about actions within the company that the individual believes to be illegal. Among the many laws that deal with protection for whistle-blowers who expose fraud are the federal False Claims Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and, most recently, the Dodd-Frank Act. In fiscal year 2016, the US Department of Justice collected $4.7 billion in settlements and judgments from companies under the federal False Claims Act. Over $2.9 billion of the $4.7 billion was recovered with the help of whistle-blowers, who were paid an additional $519 million as their share in the recovery from the fraudulent acts.89 This shows the magnitude of the potential loss to organizations from whistle-blowers.
SHRM
B:28
Whistle-Blowing/Retaliation
Because there are incentives for whistle-blowing in many federal and state laws, organizations need to devise policies and create cultures that encourage employees to bring complaints of fraud or other illegal activities to the attention of the organization’s management, and that encourage managers to then investigate such claims. Research shows that about 97% of individuals who ultimately acted as whistle-blowers and reported company wrongdoing outside the firm first tried to report the illegal actions internally.90
SHRM
C:15
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX)
Here are six things that can encourage internal reporting and, as a result, limit outside reports of wrongdoing by the firm:91
1. Create and maintain a company culture that values reporting of unethical and illegal activities. If potential whistle-blowers feel that the company listens, they are less likely to take action outside the company.
2. Have a written policy on actions to be taken by the organization when reports of illegal or unethical activities occur. This policy should include information on avoiding adverse employment actions and should specifically address retaliation, a direct violation of many of the whistle-blower laws.
SHRM
C:16
False Claims Act
3. Routinely train all employees, especially managers and supervisors, on the contents of organizational policies concerning the reporting of illegal and unethical activities.
4. Provide multiple ways to report suspected illegal or unethical activities. As with sexual harassment, an individual’s supervisor may be the person suspected of illegal activity, and therefore, the supervisor should not be the only person designated to take reports of such activities. There needs to be a mechanism to allow the individual to avoid directly confronting the supervisor in such a case.
SHRM
B:18
Contractual and Tort Theories
5. Create and follow clear guidelines for investigation of reports and keep the whistle-blower informed of the progress in the investigation. The Just Cause procedures provided in
Chapter 9
can be used in this situation to ensure that a fair investigation is conducted.
6. Maintain confidentiality if at all possible during and after the investigation. In some cases, the individual reporting the suspicious activity may have to be identified in the course of a thorough investigation or in the case of a criminal complaint; but unless it is absolutely necessary, the whistle-blower’s identity should be protected.
SHRM
B:23
Employment Contracts
EXPRESS CONTRACTS, IMPLIED CONTRACTS, AND QUASI-CONTRACTS. Good labor relations also require an understanding of the concepts of both formal and informal agreements. Each of these legal concepts means something slightly different, and all of them can affect employment contracts. Let’s take a quick look at the differences between the terms.
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WORK
APPLICATION 10-10
Select an organization you work for or have worked for and give an example of an express, implied, and quasi-contract that may have existed there (between you and the firm or between the firm and others).
An express contract is a transaction in which the agreement between two parties is specifically stated,92 whether orally or in writing. Generally, in employment and labor relations, any express contracts should probably be in writing due to the complex nature of the relationships between individuals. An implied contract exists when “the parties form an agreement from their actions rather than from a specific oral or written agreement.”93 Every manager needs to understand the concept of an implied contract. Nothing has to be written down; the parties don’t have to sign an agreement. All that has to happen is that the two parties act in a way that creates an agreement. In many cases, managers and supervisors don’t even realize that they have created an implied contract with their employees, but in fact have done so, and as a result cost the company significant amounts of money.
SHRM
B:22
Agency Relationships/Quasi-Contracts
For instance, if by words and actions a supervisor lets an employee know that if they perform well, they will be promoted, the supervisor may have entered into an implied contract that the employee can then require to be enforced. If it is not enforced by the supervisor and the organization, the employee may then resort to the courts. As managers, we need to be aware of the concept of an implied contract and avoid situations that would create an organizational obligation to our employees.
Finally, a quasi-contract is a contract that doesn’t really exist, but a court may create it to avoid an unfair situation. A quasi-contract is a court-ordered implied agreement to prevent one party in an action from benefiting at the expense of another party. Why would a judge or a court create an implied contract when one doesn’t exist? The answer basically comes down to a question of fairness regarding goods or services provided by one party to another. One of the more common examples of a quasi-contract in HR law would be an agency relationship. Agents are individuals who act on behalf of an organization. An agent may act on behalf of the organization in a way that a quasi-contract might be judged to exist. For example, assume that our organization has a relationship with an employment firm that frequently provides us with new employees with specific computer talents. Assume further that one of our managers saw the owner of the employment agency at the grocery store two weeks ago, on Sunday. During their conversation, our manager mentioned the need for a systems analyst to help with an ongoing project. The employment agency owner thought that he was being asked to find a systems analyst, and as a result, he started a search. The employment agency spent significant time finding a systems analyst and presented our manager with a candidate’s information this morning. Our manager protested that she hadn’t asked the employment agency to find this individual; but our manager also had knowledge of the historical informal relationship between the employment agency and our firm, and she should have known that such a conversation would result in the employment agency owner’s beginning a search. In this case, a judge might determine that a quasi-contract existed and cause our company to pay for the search undertaken by the employment agency.
10-4 APPLYING THE CONCEPT
Labor Contracts
Identify each statement by the type of contract being discussed, writing the contract type’s letter before the statement(s) describing the contract type.
a. express contract
b. implied contract
c. quasi-contract
____ 16. You must sign the standard 1-year contract if you take the job. You can join the union if you want to, but it is not a requirement to get the job.
____ 17. If you can get the task done today, I will let you leave an hour early tomorrow.
____ 18. Neal, you have been doing a good job. Keep it up and I will give you a raise during your next performance review.
____ 19. After 3 months of negotiations, the union president and CEO have signed the new collective bargaining agreement.
____ 20. I know I told you we are changing our health insurance carrier and that you have our business. Sorry, but I changed my mind—plus, we never signed anything.
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Organizational managers, and certainly HR managers, must be aware of the concepts of express contracts, implied contracts, and quasi-contracts. Obviously, managers can obligate the firm to pay significant expenses by not knowing these terms. We always have to be careful of the way in which we phrase communications with others to avoid creating a contractual liability when none is intended.
WRONGFUL DISCHARGE AND CONSTRUCTIVE DISCHARGE. The last of our legal issues concerns employee termination or discharge. There are two specific issues that we have to be concerned with to maintain good labor relations—wrongful discharge and constructive discharge. Wrongful discharge is simply terminating an individual employee for an illegal reason, either in violation of a contract or in violation of state or federal law. Even in situations where employment is at-will, employers can’t violate laws or contracts to terminate employees. Many labor contracts have clauses concerning actions that constitute wrongful discharge. Employers must understand the terms of such clauses in order to avoid a contract violation.
Constructive discharge, on the other hand, is not really a direct corporate termination of employment at all. Recall from
chapter 3
that constructive discharge exists when an employee is put under such extreme pressure by management that continued employment becomes intolerable and, as a result, the employee quits, or resigns from the organization. In this case, other members of the organization may put significant enough pressure on an individual or make it so difficult for the individual to continue normal work activities that the employee quits. This type of pressure generally occurs in retaliation for some action from the individual that harmed the employees and/or the organization.
For instance, if the individual acted as a whistle-blower and reported the company to government authorities, then managers or supervisors in the organization might retaliate by making it virtually impossible for the individual to do their assigned work. Examples of such retaliation could include constantly interrupting the individual’s work efforts and then reporting poor productivity, failing to provide necessary tools and equipment, or continually harassing the individual. If pressure from the other members of the organization is of such duration and/or intensity (severe and pervasive) that the individual could no longer reasonably do their job, then constructive discharge has probably occurred. Because such actions frequently occur as a result of retaliation against the individual for some legally protected action, constructive discharge is a serious offense that company managers need to be aware of. As HR managers, we must guard against constructive discharge.
UNIONS AND LABOR RIGHTS
LO 10-4
Briefly discuss the union certification process, the NO TIPS rules for labor elections, and the concept of collective bargaining.
The United States has a fairly strong history of unions and labor rights. Workers in the United States enjoy more rights and freedoms than do workers in many other countries, including the right to form and become members of unions. However, over the past 40 years, union membership has declined, and it continues to do so.94 In 2016, only 10.7% of American workers (approximately 14.6 million) were union members.95 Therefore, most businesses do not have unions as part of their HR process.
SHRM
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Union Membership
People join unions for a variety of reasons, including increasing pay and benefits, especially good health care coverage and retirement plans. There are certainly both good and bad components to unions and unionization of organizational workforces. On the positive side, unions are tasked with providing their members with jobs in which they are provided fair wages and good benefits, as well as protecting them from arbitrary disciplinary or other actions by employers. On the negative side, unions frequently drive up employer costs, protect subpar employees, and may disrupt organizational work through strikes and other work stoppages. Let’s take a look at unions and their impact on organizations.
Union Organizing
The most prominent unions are those whose members are public sector employees such as teachers and police officers.96 Labor union membership in the private sector has decreased dramatically in the past 40 years in the United States, to the point where only about 6.4% of the private sector US workforce belongs to unions.97 Public sector unions have also been on the decline, with legal changes in some states having significantly cut their membership. When Wisconsin passed a law in 2012 making public sector union membership optional, membership in AFSCME (one of the largest public sector unions) in the state dropped by 45%.98 However, some experts believe that union organizing is beginning to increase.
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©iStockphoto.com/FireAtDusk
Members of a union may go on strike to put pressure on an employer to improve working conditions.
If employees decide they want to join a union, what steps do they take? Usually, the employees will go through a union organizing process (
Exhibit 10-5
). In this process, employees will select a union to represent them and then ask for a vote of employees concerning whether or not they desire to be represented by the union. The primary method for union elections is a secret ballot. The NLRA (discussed earlier in the chapter) gives employees the right to bargain collectively with their employer and to choose a union as their representative.99 The NLRA is the primary federal law governing union organizing and elections in private firms.
An election is authorized if at least 30% of the employees in an appropriate bargaining unit sign authorization cards allowing a union to negotiate employment terms and conditions on the employees’ behalf. The union then presents these cards to the NLRB as an election petition. Once this happens, the NLRB sharply limits what management can say and do without being accused of an unfair labor practice.
A combination of strongly pro-labor NLRBrulings and mandates has recently made it much easier to organize new bargaining units. One decision that has caused significant concern for companies is the micro-bargaining unit decision that was recently upheld in NLRB v. Fedex Freight, Inc., in which the 3rd US Circuit Court allowed a small part of the employer’s workforce to constitute a bargaining unit.100 The NLRB has noted that these units would be “presumptively appropriate” unless other employees share an “overwhelming community of interests.”101 There is some evidence that union organizers win more often with smaller groups of employees voting, so this ruling could lead to stronger unionization efforts of small groups. The concern is that this micro-unit bargaining could lead to companies having to deal with several different union contracts within one company. This could create an untenable situation due to the time cost of bargaining with multiple unions each year.
WORK
APPLICATION 10-11
Describe your experience with a union. If you have no experience, interview someone who has union experience to find out their views of the union. What do they like and dislike about the union?
The NLRB has also now agreed on a “quickie election” rule that allows union votes within 10 to 21 days of the date of the petition for election. The previous average time between the election petition and the vote was an average of about 38 days.102What this does is limit the company’s ability to provide employees with information that would be favorable to the organization before the vote is held. This rule is often referred to as the “ambush election” rule because employers feel like they are being ambushed without the opportunity to defend their current employment arrangement. Be aware, though, that there are current efforts in the US Congress to undo the ambush election rule.103 If these are successful, companies will have more time to respond to union organizing efforts.
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Exhibit 10-5 THE UNION ORGANIZING PROCESS
THE NO TIPS RULES. What practices are prohibited from the point of providing the authorization cards to the NLRB? A lot of organizations use the acronym NO TIPS to identify what the company and its managers can’t do. NO TIPS stands for no Threats, no Interrogations, no Promises, and no Spying.104An example of each of these factors will help you understand what management can and can’t do under the NO TIPS rules:
• No Threats. Managers in the firm can’t threaten employees by telling them that the company will shut down a facility that votes for unionization and send the work elsewhere, maybe overseas.
• No Interrogations. The manager is prohibited from calling individual employees into the manager’s office and asking them about union organizing activities on the part of others in the workforce.
• No Promises. Management cannot promise employees that if they vote against union authorization, they will receive raises or changes in their benefits package.
• No Spying. Management is prohibited from planting individuals in union organizing meetings or other activities so that those individuals can report back to management on what is being discussed or who attends the meetings.
Remember, however, that these are just examples of things that are prohibited by the NLRA.
There is also one final limitation on actions by the organization and its managers in the last 24 hours prior to the union authorization election. Management is prohibited from holding group meetings with employees who will vote on unionization during this 24-hour period.
Once the election is held, a simple majority of those voting determines the success or failure of the campaign. In other words, if only 51 workers in a bargaining unit of 200 vote, and if 26 of the voters desire union membership, then membership in the union will be authorized.
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Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining
Labor relations are the interactions between management and unionized employees. Labor relations are also called union-management relations and industrial relations. Since there are many more nonunionized than unionized employees, most organizations don’t have to manage labor relations, but all have to manage employee relations as noted in Chapter 9.
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Collective Bargaining Issues
Collective bargaining is the negotiation process resulting in a contract between union employees and management that covers employment conditions. The most common employment conditions covered in contracts are compensation, hours, and working conditions; but a contract can include almost any condition that both sides agree to. Job security continues to be a major bargaining issue for many unions.105
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Collective Bargaining Process
Grievances
A grievance is a formal complaint concerning pay, working conditions, or violation of some other factor in a collective bargaining agreement. Grievance procedures help protect employees against arbitrary decisions by management regarding discipline, discharge, promotions, or benefits. They also provide labor unions and employers with a formal process for enforcing the provisions of their contracts. Grievance procedures provide a mechanism to allow an individual to bring up a complaint and have the company resolve the complaint in a timely manner.
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Grievance Management
Providing a grievance mechanism will generally encourage employees to raise concerns about fairness, working conditions, or contract provisions directly with management, which in turn allows managers to resolve such problems quickly and efficiently. Do you remember earlier, in Chapter 9, when we discussed tests for Just Cause? Those procedures are used if a grievance involves questions of fairness in disciplinary actions.
WORK
APPLICATION 10-12
Describe a complaint that you brought to your supervisor and how it was handled. If you have never had a complaint, interview someone who has and describe the complaint and how it was handled.
As part of a labor contract, a formal grievance process will usually provide a mechanism to escalate discussion of the issue through successively higher layers of organizational management until the problem is resolved. It begins with an employee making a complaint to the supervisor in accordance with the labor contract provisions. The supervisor has a limited amount of time in which to investigate and respond to the complaint or to send it further up the management chain. If the complaint cannot be resolved quickly to the satisfaction of the employee, a union representative (usually the shop steward) will become the representative of the employee in further negotiations to resolve the issue. The grievance can continue up the chain until it reaches the head of the firm or the local plant manager. If it still can’t be resolved, there is frequently an arbitration clause in the union contract that requires both sides to submit the grievance to an arbitrator. The arbitrator’s decision on the matter is generally final—the parties cannot dispute it legally.
As a manager, when you have an employee come to you with a complaint, you can follow the steps in
Model 10-3
: The Employee Complaint Resolution Model. Note that in step 2, you don’t have to agree to implement the recommendation; and in steps 4 and 5, unless the employee is totally wrong in the complaint, you should try to resolve the complaint.
MODEL 10-3 THE EMPLOYEE COMPLAINT RESOLUTION MODEL
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MANAGEMENT RIGHTS AND DECERTIFICATION ELECTIONS
LO 10-5
Briefly discuss what management can do to limit union organizing efforts.
Of course, management also has some rights concerning union organizing and labor relations. As in all areas of business, managers have to deal with the protection of the firm and all of its stakeholders when union and labor issues arise. What tools do managers have at their disposal to manage their interaction with unions and labor? Let’s find out in this section.
Limiting Union Organizing Efforts
Union organizing at a business can be disruptive to the work being done, so management has some ability to limit union organizing activities in the workplace. Here is what managers can legally do to limit union organizing efforts.
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Managing Union Organizing Policies and Handbooks
NO UNIONIZATION ON COMPANY TIME. The first thing management can do is limit the ability of union organizers to solicit employees during working hours and on company time. The organization is within its rights to prevent solicitation of employees as long as it is consistent with company solicitation policies and the company handbook. So for example, the company cannot limit union organizers’ rights to solicit employees, but then later allow a charitable organization to solicit employees for donations. In 1992, a famous case involving Lechmere Inc. went to the US Supreme Court. The court verified the company’s right to limit solicitations on company property as long as the company’s policies were consistent with all solicitors.106 However, the company cannot limit the rights of employees or union organizers to discuss unionization efforts outside of normal work hours, such as during lunch breaks and before or after work.
MANAGEMENT’S POSITION ON UNIONIZATION. Management of the firm can identify the costs associated with union membership (such as dues), as well as limits that may be imposed on promotions or compensation increases based on merit if the employees choose to unionize. Management can meet with employees to explain the company’s position on unionizing efforts and to tell employees the truth about what might happen to the company and its employees as a result of a successful organizing effort. Remember, though, that the company cannot threaten that the facility will close or that massive layoffs will occur or make any other threat to try to stop employees from voting for unionization (per the No Threats part of NO TIPS).
CHANGE AGREEMENTS AND USE OF NONUNION EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION. Management also has a right to change working agreements, even during a period when union organizers are soliciting their workforce, to show that they are responsive to their employees’ needs. This can include something called nonunion employee representation (NER), in which management gives employee representatives a voice in such things as working conditions, pay and benefits, job security policies, promotion, and grievance resolution.107 NER policies can sometimes effectively gut a unionization effort since the areas covered by NER are the most common areas of concern that lead to unionization of the workforce in any organization.
WORK
APPLICATION 10-13
Describe any management attempts to stop unionization that you are aware of from any source.
Lockouts and Replacement Workers
Unions have the potential to strike against an employer if collective bargaining efforts have failed, but management also has a right to prevent employees from working in certain cases. Two significant tools in management’s arsenal are lockouts and replacement workers.108
A lockout occurs when management stops all work and physically prevents workers from entering the workplace. Lockouts can put economic pressure on members of the union due to the fact that employees may not be paid during the period of a lockout.109 If management and union representatives have made a legitimate attempt to come to an agreement on a contract but have reached an impasse in their collective bargaining process, then management is allowed to use a lockout. If negotiations have not reached a stalemate, a lockout is likely to be illegal.110 A good example of a lockout occurred in a dispute between the National Football League and the unionized NFL officials. You may remember that a blown call in a September 2012 game between Seattle and Green Bay put pressure on the NFL to settle the lockout.111
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Union Decertification and Deauthorization
Another tool that management may employ in the case of a strike is the hiring of replacement workers. This action is generally legal. However, whether or not striking employees have to be offered their jobs back depends on the type of strike action undertaken by the union and its members. An economic strike is a work stoppage over authorized collective bargaining issues such as pay or working conditions. In the case of an economic strike, “an employer may not discriminate against a striker, but the employer is not obligated to lay off a replacement worker to give a striker his job back.”112 Alternately, a strike may be called because an employer engages in unfair labor practices as defined under the NLRA. In the case of an unfair labor practices strike, the employees are protected from being permanently replaced and must be offered their jobs back when the strike concludes.
Decertification Elections
Decertification elections can be held to remove a union as the representative of company workers. This cannot happen within a year of a previous failed attempt at decertification, and management of the company can’t bring a decertification petition up on its own. Management cannot even directly encourage this action on the part of the employees; but it can provide information to employees regarding decertification processes if they request it, “as long as the company does so without threatening its employees or promising them benefits.”113
Employees or other groups such as another union or labor organization must bring decertification petitions forward. “Any impetus for decertification must come from the workers rather than the employer.”114 In a recent case, managers of Enterprise Leasing Co. personally encouraged an employee who was leading a decertification drive to “go back and get more” signatures when they found that the employee did not have enough signatures for the decertification effort to go through. Just this encouragement was enough to cause a decision that the company acted illegally.115 In general, if there is an existing labor contract in effect and the duration of that contract is 3 years or less, a petition can’t be brought to the NLRB until a window between 60 and 90 days before the end of the contract.116
What happens in a decertification process? First, 30% of covered employees must sign a petition for decertification of the union. Once this happens, the election process proceeds in pretty much the same way as the process for voting for union representation. Remember, though, that the employer cannot directly or indirectly encourage the decertification process. To avoid any implications of influence over the process, companies need to require that signatures on the decertification petition be collected in the same manner as are signatures for a certification petition—on nonwork time and in nonwork areas.
MANAGING CONFLICT
LO 10-6
Identify the five conflict management styles. How is each described in terms of win or lose?
Certainly, labor and management don’t intentionally create conflict, but the chance of conflict occurring is significant when two parties have to work in concert in any circumstance but each party has its own set of opposing goals. Incompatible activities occur117 because management wants to keep costs down and employees want to maintain and improve their standard of living. As a result of the potential for conflict, we as managers have to understand it and be able to work our way through conflicting goals. Thus, no chapter on labor relations would be complete without a discussion of conflict and negotiation. So let’s discuss conflict and conflict management styles (including negotiation) in this section, and let’s discuss negotiation in more detail in the next section.
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©iStockphoto.com/EyeJoy
Hostess went bankrupt after failing to resolve disputes between management and labor unions.
Conflict
Remember that conflict exists whenever people are in disagreement and opposition. Conflict is part of every relationship118 and every social system.119 You are in conflict when you get aggravated at someone,120 or when someone does something that bothers you.121 So, you want to manage it effectively122 because, if you don’t, you can hurt feelings, kill important relationships, and damage your career.123 Thus, conflict management is an important skill in your personal and professional lives.124
On a personal level, in any relationship, we have expectations of what we will do and what the other party will do (the psychological contract). As long as people meet our expectations, everything is fine. We are in conflict when people don’t meet our expectations, and this happens for three major reasons. First, we fail to let others know our own expectations, and we don’t ask others for their expectations. Second, we assume that others have the same expectations that we have. Last, sometimes we don’t know our expectations until people do things in opposition to us. Thus, it is important to share information and communicate expectations.
WORK
APPLICATION 10-14
Give an example of when you were in conflict at work. Describe how expectations were not met.
FUNCTIONAL VERSUS DYSFUNCTIONAL CONFLICT.People often think of conflict as “fighting” and view it as disruptive.125 However, conflict can frequently be beneficial,126 or functional, when it helps the organization meet its goals of increasing performance.127 On the other hand, conflict that prevents the achievement of individual and organizational objectives is called dysfunctional conflict.128 Conflict between management and labor often degrades into dysfunctional conflict, because of significantly different objectives. This can produce severe negative consequences for individuals and organizations. Conflict of ideas generally lead to changes that improve performance—functional conflict. Conversely, personal conflict tends to hurt relationships and decrease performance—dysfunctional conflict.
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Conflict Management
Conflict Management Styles
When we are faced with conflict, we have five basic conflict management styles to choose from. The five styles are based on two dimensions of concern: concern for others’ needs and concern for our own needs, and being cooperative or not. Various levels of concern and cooperation result in three types of behavior: passive (taking no action or permissively giving in to others), assertive (defending our position while considering others’ needs), and aggressive (fighting for what we want without considering others’ needs, or taking advantage of others).
Each conflict management style results in a different win-loss pattern. The five styles are presented in
Exhibit 10-6
. Note that there is no right or wrong style. Each style has its advantages and disadvantages and is appropriate to use in different situations. However, collaborating is the ideal situation.
AVOIDING. The user of an avoiding conflict style attempts to passively ignore the conflict rather than resolve it.129 When we avoid a conflict, we are being passive and generally uncooperative. We avoid conflict when we refuse to take a stance, when we mentally withdraw, or when we physically leave. A “lose-lose” situation results because the conflict is not resolved.
ACCOMMODATING. The user of an accommodating conflict style attempts to resolve conflict by passively giving in to the opposing side. When we use the accommodating style, we are being passive but cooperative. We attempt to satisfy the needs of others but neglect our own needs by letting others get their own way. We create a “lose-win” situation—we lose and allow the other party to win.
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Exhibit 10-6 CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STYLES
AVOIDING VERSUS ACCOMMODATING. A difference between the two styles is this: When we avoid, we just don’t say or do anything. How many times have you heard someone say something dumb and you just ignored it, rather than get into an argument? When we accommodate, we do something we don’t really want to do. For example, if you and another person are working on a project together and you go along with that person’s way of doing a particular task, even though you disagree with it, then you are using the accommodating style. Isn’t accommodating part of friendship? We often have to accommodate our bosses, especially when they use a forcing style.
WORK
APPLICATION 10-15
Select a present or past boss and identify which conflict management style the boss uses most often when in conflict with employees. Give a typical example conflict and how the style is used.
FORCING. Users of a forcing conflict styleattempt to resolve conflict by using aggressive behavior to get their own way. When we use the forcing style, we are aggressive and uncooperative; we do whatever it takes to satisfy our own needs at the expense of others. Forcers use authority, threaten, intimidate, and call for majority rule when they know they will win.
Forcers commonly enjoy dealing with avoiders and accommodators. If we try to get others to change without being willing to change ourselves, regardless of the means, then we use the forcing style and create a “win-lose” situation in which we win but everyone else loses. Being in a position of authority, some managers tend to use this style frequently to get their way quickly.
NEGOTIATING. The user of the negotiating conflict style, also called the compromising style, attempts to resolve conflict through assertive give-and-take. When we use the negotiating style, we are moderate in assertiveness and cooperation, and we create a situation in which each side achieves a partial victory through compromise. This is a “win-some, lose-some” form of conflict resolution. Negotiation is how collective bargaining works, and we will discuss it in more detail in the next major section.
COLLABORATING. The user of a collaborative conflict style, also called the problem-solving style,assertively attempts to resolve conflict by working together with the other person to find an acceptable solution. When we use the collaborative approach, we are being highly assertive and cooperative. Whereas avoiders and accommodators are concerned about others’ needs and forcers are concerned about their own needs, the collaborators are concerned about finding the best solution that is satisfactory to all. Unlike the forcer, the collaborator is willing to change if a better solution is presented. While negotiating is often based on secret information, collaboration is based on open and honest communication. This is the only style that creates a true “win-win” situation.
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WORK
APPLICATION 10-16
Which one of the five conflict management styles do you tend to use most often? Should you be using another style more often? Why or why not?
NEGOTIATING VERSUS COLLABORATING. A difference between these two options lies in the solution each option leads to. Again, suppose you and another person are working on a project and she wants to do a task in a way that you disagree with. With the negotiating style, you might do this task her way and the next task your way; you each win some and lose some. With the collaborating style, you work to develop an approach to the task that you can both agree on. The key to collaboration is agreeing that the solution picked is the best possible one. Thus, you create a win-win situation. Unfortunately, we can’t always collaborate.
USING THE MOST APPROPRIATE STYLES. Again, there is no one best style for resolving all conflicts. A person’s preferred style tends to meet their needs. Some people enjoy forcing; others prefer to avoid conflict. Managerial and personal success lies in one’s ability to use the appropriate style to meet the situation. For most people, the two most difficult styles to develop are the negotiating and collaborating styles. Thus, we discuss these two skills in more detail next and in the next major section.
Initiating Conflict Resolution
The way you express conflict will influence perceptions and reactions, changing the way the conflict process unfolds, and subsequently outcomes.130 Conflict resolution models have also been shown to be effective in managing conflict, so when initiating a conflict resolution process, you may want to use the collaborative conflict resolution model. Research suggests that collaborative conflict resolution skills can be developed. The steps of the model are illustrated in
Model 10-4
.
10-5 APPLYING THE CONCEPT
Conflict Management Styles
Identify the most appropriate conflict management style to use in each situation, writing the letter corresponding to each style before the situation(s) where it is appropriate.
a. avoiding style
b. accommodating style
c. forcing style
d. negotiating style
e. collaborating style
____ 21. As you leave your office, you see at the other end of the work area your employee Ricky, who is goofing off instead of working. You’re on your way to an important meeting and running late.
____ 22. You’re over budget for labor this month. The work load is light, so you ask Terri, a part-time employee, to leave work early. Terri says she doesn’t want to go because she needs the money.
____ 23. You have joined a committee to make contacts. You have little interest in what the committee actually does. At a meeting, you make a recommendation that is opposed by Jim. You realize that you have the better idea, but Jim is using a forcing style.
____ 24. You are on a task force that has to select a new computer cloud service. The three alternatives will all do the job; but team members disagree about the company, price, and service they need.
____ 25. As the sales manager, one of your competent salespeople, Anna, is trying to close a big sale. The two of you are discussing the sales call she will make. You disagree on the strategy to use to close the sale.
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MODEL 10-4 INITIATING CONFLICT RESOLUTION MODEL
Consider an example: Suppose that you don’t smoke and are in fact allergic to cigarette smoke. Some of your coworkers do smoke; and although they are allowed to do so in the employees’ lounge, most of them avoid smoking when you are in the lounge. One coworker, however, persists in smoking in your presence. This is a problem—you can’t always avoid going into the lounge during breaks or lunch. You decide to initiate a collaborative solution to this problem. You begin by asking the smoker to help you solve your problem. This approach reduces defensiveness and establishes an atmosphere that will help maintain a good relationship.
Step 1. The first step in the collaborative conflict resolution model is to express the problem in a BCF statement—that is, a statement that describes a conflict in terms of behaviors (B), consequences (C), and feelings (F)—in a way that maintains ownership of the problem.
There are three things you should not do in the BCF statement:
1. Don’t make judgments.131 Do you like people telling you what you should or shouldn’t do, or that you are wrong or at fault? Do you like to hear, “You never/always/constantly do it.” This can make the person defensive.
2. Don’t make threats.132 This should be a last, not first, option.
3. Don’t give solutions. Do you like people telling you what to do? This is done in step 3.
Regarding the smoker, we should make statements like “When you smoke around me (B), I have trouble breathing and become nauseous (C), and I feel ill and stressed (F).” We don’t want to make statements like “You are inconsiderate of others, you shouldn’t smoke, and you are going to get cancer. So just quit smoking.”
Note that you can vary the sequence if a situation warrants it. For example, you can say, “I fear (F) that some viewers will respond negatively to this advertisement (B) and we will lose money by running it (C).”
Now, what exactly does “maintaining ownership of the problem” mean? Think about it—is it you or the smoker who has the problem? Since the smoker is allowed to smoke in the lounge, the problem is yours. Maintaining ownership of the problem means expressing it without assigning blame or making assumptions about who is right or wrong. Fixing blame only makes people defensive, which is counterproductive in conflict resolution. Your BCF statement should be descriptive, not evaluative, and it should deal with a single issue.
Before confronting the other person, practice your BCF statement. Also, think of some possible solutions you might suggest. But be sure your ideas take into consideration the other person’s point of view, not just your own. Remember to practice empathy—try to put yourself in the other person’s position. If you were that person, would you like the solutions you have thought of?
Step 2. You cannot resolve a conflict if the other person does not even acknowledge that it exists. After stating the problem, let the other person respond. Your coworker might say, “Oh, I didn’t realize you reacted so strongly to cigarette smoke,” or “Well, that explains why everybody puts out their cigarettes when you’re around.” On the other hand, the coworker could say, “What’s the big deal? You can just stay away from the lounge if smoke bothers you.” If the other person doesn’t understand or acknowledge the problem, you’ll need to be persistent. Repeat your statement in different terms, if necessary.
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Step 3. Once the other person acknowledges the problem, ask them how the conflict might be resolved. Perhaps the person will suggest something that you can agree to; if so, you’re well on your way to a resolution of the conflict. If not, be prepared with your own suggestions. However, remember that you are collaborating, not simply trying to change the other person. If they acknowledge the problem but seem unwilling to resolve it, appeal to common goals. Try to make the other person realize how they might also benefit from a solution to this conflict.
Step 4. The final step in the collaborative conflict resolution model is to come to an agreement. Determine what specific actions you will each take to resolve the conflict. Perhaps your coworker will agree not to smoke in your presence, now that he knows how it affects you. Perhaps you’ll suggest changing your lunch hour, so you don’t run into each other in the lounge. Clearly state whatever actions you each agree to. Skill Builder 10-1, at the end of this chapter, can help develop your conflict resolution skills.
NEGOTIATIONS
LO 10-7
Describe the negotiation process. Briefly explain the processes of mediation and arbitration and the major difference between the two.
In this section, we discuss the negotiation process so you will know how to negotiate effectively in your personal and professional lives. There are times when negotiations are appropriate and maybe even necessary, such as in management–union collective bargaining, when buying and selling goods and services, and when discussing a job compensation offer.133
Negotiating
is not about being unethical for personal gain,134 or being a narcissist and deceiving people to create an “I win and you lose” situation.135 It’s about building trust so that everyone gets a good deal.136 Negotiation skills are an important part of human relations skills (Chapter 1).137 Thus, negotiating is an essential career skill.138
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Negotiation Skills
The Negotiation Process
NEGOTIATING. Negotiating is a process in which two or more parties in conflict attempt to come to an agreement. If there is a set “take it or leave it” deal, there is no negotiation, so good managers generally want to try to avoid making such statements.139 Also, not all negotiations end with an agreement.
Negotiation is often a zero-sum game in which one party’s gain is the other party’s loss.140 For example, every dollar less that you pay for a cellphone is your gain and the seller’s loss. Ideally, however, negotiation should be viewed by all parties as “I win some and you win some,” rather than a win-lose situation; all parties should believe they got a good deal.141 If union employees believe that they lost and management won, they may become dissatisfied with their jobs, which could result in lower performance in the long run. You can develop your negotiation skills by implementing the negotiation process below.
THE NEGOTIATION PROCESS MODEL. Not everyone is born a great negotiator, but the skill can be developed. Following the steps in the negotiation process can help you develop your negotiation skills.142 The negotiation process has three and possibly four parts. These steps are summarized in
Model 10-5
and discussed throughout this section. We discuss the process in two parts to reflect the planning and actual negotiation in which you may or may not postpone or agree to make a deal. In the course of actual negotiations, you may have to make slight adjustments to the steps in the process.
Planning the Negotiation
Success or failure in negotiating is usually based on preparation.143 Planning has four steps:
Step 1: Research the other parties to the negotiation. Do your homework.144 Know the key power players, and make sure you are dealing with the right people. Try to find out what the other parties want and what they will and will not be willing to give up before you negotiate,145 and what they expect in return.146 Find out, through your networking grapevine, their personality traits and negotiation style. You can also Google, Facebook, et cetera, the people for information.147 The more you know about those with whom you will be negotiating, the better your chances are of reaching an agreement. If you have worked with some of the people before, think about what worked and what did not work in the past. Know what your deal is really worth before you negotiate.148 Doing your homework can result in realizing whether or not it’s worth the time and effort negotiating.149
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MODEL 10-5 THE NEGOTIATION PROCESS
Step 2: Set objectives. In some negotiations, your objective will be to change someone’s behavior; at other times, you may be negotiating salary or benefits or a better price from a supplier. Know what you want to get out of the deal.150 Be clear about what it is you are negotiating. Is it price, options, delivery time, sales quantity, or something else entirely? Set limits—what price and other key terms do you need to make a deal?151 In any case, you want to set three objectives:
• A specific lower limit that you are unwilling to give up (say, a certain behavior on the part of your peer in the department or a minimum price from your supplier). You must be willing to walk away from negotiations if this lower limit is not agreed to.
• A target objective that represents what you believe is fair
• An opening objective that is more than you actually expect but that you may achieve
Remember that the other person or party is probably also setting these kinds of objectives. The key to successful negotiation is for each person or party to achieve something between their minimum objective and their target objective—that is, to win some and lose some.
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Step 3: Try to develop options and trade-offs. In some negotiating situations, you may find that you are in a position of power to achieve your target objective. For example, when negotiating prices with a supplier or applying for jobs, you may be able to quote other prices or salary offers and get the other person to beat them. If you have to give up something or cannot get exactly what you want, be prepared to ask for something in return.152 When GM, Eastern Airlines, and others were having financial difficulties, the company asked employees to take a pay cut. Rather than simply accept a cut, the employees asked for company stock in a trade-off. Based on your research, you should be able to anticipate the kinds of trade-offs you might expect from the other person.
Step 4: Anticipate questions and objections and prepare answers. Very likely, the other party to negotiations wants an answer to the unasked question, “What’s in it for me?” Focus on how the negotiations will benefit the other person.153 Speak in terms of “you” and “we” rather than “I.”
There is a good chance that the other person will raise objections.154 Unfortunately, not everyone will be open about their real objections. Thus, you need to listen and ask questions to find out what is preventing an agreement. It will also help to project an attitude of enthusiasm and confidence. If the other person does not trust you, you will not reach an agreement.
Negotiate
After you have planned, you are ready to negotiate the deal. Face-to-face negotiations are generally preferred because you can see the other person’s nonverbal behavior and better understand objections.155 However, negotiations by telephone and written negotiations (email) work, too.
It will help to keep the following in mind as you negotiate:
Step 1: Develop rapport and focus on obstacles, not on the person. Use the other person’s name as you greet them. Relationships are always wrapped up in underlying influences,156 so it is appropriate to open with small talk and develop a relationship.157 How long you wait before getting down to negotiations will depend on the particular situation and the other person’s style.
Never attack the other person’s personality or use negative statements such as, “You always bad-mouth me to the boss” or “You’re being unfair to ask for such a price cut.” Statements like these will make the other person defensive, which will make it harder to reach an agreement.158 During negotiations, people look for four things: inclusion, control, safety, and respect. If people perceive that you are pushing them into something, threatening them, or belittling them, they will not trust you and will be unlikely to come to an agreement with you.159
Step 2: Let the other party make the first offer. Letting the other party make the first offer often gives you the advantage, because if the other party offers you more than your target objective, you can close the agreement.160 Of course, the other party may pressure you to make the first offer; for example, the person may say, “Give us your best price, and we’ll decide whether to take it.” If so, you can counter with a question such as, “What do you expect to pay?” You should let the other party go first so that if you get a better offer than you expected, you can take it and get more than your target. If the offer is lower than your target, you can negotiate to get more.
Step 3: Listen and ask questions to focus on meeting the other party’s needs. Create an opportunity for the other person to disclose reservations and objections. Focus on how your deal will benefit the other party.161 When you give people what they want, they tend to give you what you want.162 Zig Ziglar said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”163 When you ask questions and listen, you gather information that will help you overcome the other party’s objections. Determining whether the objection is a “want” criterion or a “must” criterion will help you decide how to proceed.
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©iStockphoto.com/ferrantraite
Negotiations are common, making good negotiation skills important for personal and professional success.
Step 4: Don’t be too quick to give in, and remember to ask for something in return. Those who ask for more often get more.164 But many people—especially many women—are reluctant to ask for what they deserve. You want to satisfy the other party without giving up too much yourself; remember not to go below your minimum objective and be prepared to walk away if that minimum can’t be met. If you are giving something, you ought to get something in return.165 When you are not getting what you want, having other options can help give you bargaining power.
Though you don’t want to be quick to give in, you might want to be the first to make a concession, particularly when you are negotiating complex deals. A concession makes the other party feel obligated, which gives you negotiating power. However, before making a concession, it’s essential to know what all of the other party’s demands are. And avoid unilateral concessions.
WORK
APPLICATION 10-17
Assess how well you plan for and run a negotiation. Which steps do and don’t you follow? How can you improve your negotiating skills?
Be reluctant to lower your price. If you have to, ask for something in return, which means giving something and getting something else. For example, if you are offered a job at $35,000 but your target is higher and the other side will not or cannot come up, ask for more vacation days, more retirement, or more benefits. If you are buying a car and the sales rep will not come down in price, ask for an extended warranty, new tires, and so on. Skill Builder 10-2 can help develop your negotiation skills.
SHRM
A:2
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Alternative Dispute Resolution: Mediation and Arbitration
Labor and management are required by law to bargain with each other in good faith, and companies need to maintain effective employee relations—but when in conflict, we cannot always resolve our dispute alone. In these cases, we can use something called alternative dispute resolution. Alternative dispute resolution includes a series of tools, most commonly either mediation or arbitration, which parties in conflict can use to resolve their disagreements without going through the process of litigation. The US government’s Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) is often used as an alternative dispute resolution resource. For more information about the FMCS, visit its website at
. At this point, let’s take a little more detailed look at both mediation and arbitration.
WORK
APPLICATION 10-18
Describe a conflict that you could not resolve on your own and that a neutral third party (a teacher, coach, or boss) got involved in to help you resolve. Assess how helpful the mediator or arbitrator was.
In many cases in an organization where conflicts occur, a mediator may be used. A mediator is a neutral third party who helps resolve a conflict but has no authority to impose a solution to the conflict. As a manager, you may often be called upon to serve as a mediator between two employees. In this case, remember that you should be a mediator, not a judge. Your task is to get the employees to resolve the conflict themselves, if possible. You will need to work diligently to remain impartial, unless one party is violating company policies.
When bringing employees who are in conflict together, focus on how the conflict is affecting their work. Discuss the issues by addressing specific behavior that bothers the other person and not discussing personalities. If a person says, “We cannot work together because of a personality conflict,” ask the person to identify the specific behavior that is the root of the conflict. The discussion should make the parties aware of their behavior and of how its consequences are causing the conflict. What expectations are not being met?
In the mediation process, the purpose of the mediator is to assist the parties in overcoming barriers to communication as well as other barriers that are keeping the parties from resolving their differences. Facilitation is one of the major tools available to the mediator. When people act as facilitators, their primary purpose is to help individuals or groups who are in conflict to overcome hurdles that are keeping the conflict from being resolved.
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As in most cases, an example will help you understand how a mediator might act in the role of facilitator. Let’s assume that an individual employee and their supervisor are in conflict over how to resolve a grievance concerning unsafe tools in the workspace. The employee, in fact, filed a grievance based on a concern for their own safety and the safety of others, while the supervisor is under the impression that the employee just wants newer and nicer tools. The employee’s grievance was initially denied by the supervisor, and the contract with the labor union allows a mediation process between the direct supervisor and the employee prior to going up the chain of command to higher-level managers.
In this case, the mediator could step in and assist by acting as a facilitator of communication between the two parties. While the employee is concerned with safety, the supervisor is concerned with the overall cost of buying new tools or equipment. Part of the supervisor’s job is to control costs in the work area, and the tools that would have to be replaced are very expensive. However, the supervisor did not initially know the details concerning how the existing tools were unsafe, and the employee had not successfully explained the nature of the problem in the initial grievance. The mediator helps the two parties communicate with each other about their concerns—the mediator helps the supervisor relay their concern for cost controls while also providing the employee with assistance in identifying the specific problem with the tools that makes them unsafe. The result might be that both parties successfully communicate their concerns, but the supervisor realizes that the issue of safety is much more significant than the issue of cost and therefore agrees to buy the new tools that the employee has requested.
If the conflict cannot be resolved by mediation, an arbitrator may be used as a follow-up. An arbitrator is a neutral third party who resolves a conflict by making a binding decision. Many business contracts require the use of an arbitrator rather than seeking relief by way of the court system. An arbitrator basically acts like a judge in a civil hearing. The arbitrator will hear arguments from both parties in a conflict, may ask questions of each of the parties in order to clarify issues, and will then make a decision on which party will “win” the case.
The most significant difference between the processes of mediation and arbitration is that the result of an arbitration process is binding on the parties who are in conflict. Mediation, on the other hand, is merely a process designed to assist the parties in coming to an agreement on their own. The mediator has no authority to impose a solution on the two parties in conflict. Because of this difference, the use of arbitration should be kept to a minimum because it is not a collaborative process.
TRENDS AND ISSUES IN HRM
LO 10-8
Discuss recent NLRB rulings dealing with the employer/employee relationship and briefly discuss the issue of union avoidance and suppression.
It’s time to take a look at this chapter’s trends and issues. We will first take a quick look at how recent NLRB decisions are changing how businesses must operate and then review some of the significant costs of poor job satisfaction and employee engagement in this section.
The NLRB Is Redefining the Employer/Employee Relationship
The NLRB continues to redefine protected activity in both union and nonunion environments. Rulings in the past several years have consistently and heavily favored the employee when there have been questions concerning whether actions on the part of the employee have been protected concerted activity. A few examples of actions that have been protected by the NLRB will help you understand the problem that businesses face in managing their organizations.
A worker at Pier Sixty, a catering company, posted a profane rant about his manager, the manager’s mother and family, and was fired when managers saw the post. The NLRB ruled that the post was protected activity because the worker had noted, “Vote YES for the UNION!!!!!,” and the company was forced to rehire the offending employee.
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The NLRB recently held that companies with broad “no recording” policies at work were in violation of the NLRA. Whole Foods had banned audio and video recordings without managerial consent, reportedly so that employees did not feel discouraged to speak out in meetings. The NLRB held that broad bans against recording were illegal infringements on “concerted activity regarding terms and conditions of employment.”166
MikLin Enterprises, a Jimmy John’s franchisee, terminated six employees and disciplined three others when they participated in a sign campaign outside of its stores saying that employees who were sick were fixing food in the restaurants because they did not have paid sick leave.167 The NLRBdetermined that the workers’ activity did not rise to the level of being seriously disloyal to the company, and legitimately discussed working conditions at the restaurants. MikLin was forced to rehire the terminated employees and rescind the disciplinary actions against the others.
Finally, as far as companies are concerned, there is at least some voice of reason in some of the federal court decisions. The D.C. Appeals Court recently reversed an NLRB ruling that AT&Tworkers were acting in protected concerted actions when a group of them wore disparaging T-shirts to work saying “Prisoner of AT&T.” The D.C. court said, “Common sense sometimes matters in resolving legal disputes,” and noted that “the message was offensive and bound to undermine the company’s relationship with its customers.”168 HR managers will have to stay tuned to see whether, or how much the NLRB will be reined in as new board members are appointed by the current administration.
Are Union Avoidance or Suppression Policies Ethical?
Somewhat surprisingly, membership in unions in the United States continues to drop, even in the face of extremely pro-employee rulings on the part of the NLRB. Companies have become significantly more savvy in union avoidance and in suppressing unionization attempts. Union suppression is where a company uses all the tactics available to prevent the unionization of the company’s workforce. These tactics can include such things as spreading rumors about potential job losses, hiring consultants who specialize in union avoidance tactics, hiring labor lawyers who know the limits to what the company can do to avoid unionization, closing facilities that vote for unionization, bringing in disgruntled current members of the union to talk to your workforce, and many other tactics.
Is this process of union avoidance and even suppression ethical or unethical? Again, it depends. If the organization remains within the law and the NO TIPS guidelines, it may be ethical for company management to engage in union suppression. Even here, you need to look at fair, reasonable, and equitable treatment of employees in the organization and not just at whether or not the company is following the letter of the law.
We have discussed the issue of ethics in several chapters of this text, and we’ve noted that just because something is legal, it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily ethical. Staying within the letter of the law may not provide the company with the kind of workforce that it needs in order to compete with other firms in the 21st century. Here again, we return to the question of whether or not actions on the part of management will increase the satisfaction and engagement levels of the employees or cause them to decrease.
Tactics that employ actions such as the nonunion employee representation (NER) that we discussed earlier in the chapter can certainly be ethical methods of suppressing unions in some cases. Using these representatives can also increase employee satisfaction and engagement in the organization. So this tactic and other similar tactics would be considered ethical by most.
On the flip side, planting rumors, whether true or not, concerning the potential closing of facilities if workers were to vote to unionize would probably be unethical and could even violate the rule of “no threats” in a unionization campaign. Each situation has to be looked at individually, and management needs to decide which tactics are ethical and legal and which tactics might not be.
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DIGITAL RESOURCES
Employee and Labor Relations*
American Unions
Federal Labor-Management Relations for the Next Century
Importance of Unions*
Collective Bargaining
Repurposing American Labor Law
Unions and the Global Economy*
Labor Relations Documentary
* premium video only available in the interactive eBook
CHAPTER SUMMARY
10-1. Discuss the value of trust and communication in organizations. How do the message-sending and the message-receiving processes help improve trust?
Trust helps create respect between all individuals in the organization. Some level of trust between manager and employee is necessary in order to communicate successfully. If the receiver doesn’t trust the sender, they will be reluctant to accept the message. Conversely, if we want to improve trust, we have to be open and honest in communications with other people. Solid communication in all directions, for both the sender and receiver is the only way to build and maintain trust. So we have to have the facts, and then send clear and complete messages.
10-2. Discuss the primary reason why measuring job satisfaction is so difficult, identify the best tool for getting employees to tell the truth about their level of satisfaction, and list the major determinants of job satisfaction.
Job satisfaction is an attitude, not a behavior. We can experience behaviors directly, while we can measure attitudes only indirectly. Because of this, we must use some form of survey and ask the employees about their job satisfaction level. When using job satisfaction surveys, we have to ensure that they are anonymous, or employees will most likely not tell the truth about their satisfaction levels.
The seven determinants of job satisfaction include: Individual personality; The work itself; Compensation; Growth and upward mobility; Coworkers; Management; and Communication.
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10-3. Identify the major labor laws in the United States and the other legal issues in labor relations.
1. The Railway Labor Act of 1926 was enacted to force negotiation between labor and management, first in railroads and later in the airlines, to prevent shutdown of these critical services.
2. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was the first major law to deal with the rights of labor to form unions in the general workforce and collectively bargain with employers. It identified unfair labor practices for management in negotiating with labor organizations.
3. The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 was an amendment to the NLRA that focused on unfair labor practices on the part of unions and other labor organizations. It outlawed or restricted a variety of strikes and boycotts, and it also allowed the states to pass right-to-work laws.
4. The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 was passed as a result of congressional investigations linking organized crime with labor unions. The LMRDA required a series of reports from labor unions and created restrictions on their activities.
5. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 required that organizations with certain qualifying characteristics should provide 60 days’ notice when laying off more than 50 people or closing a plant.
Other legal issues discussed include corporate whistle-blowers; express-, implied-, and quasi-contracts; and wrongful discharge and constructive discharge.
10-4. Briefly discuss the union certification process, the NO TIPS rules for labor elections, and the concept of collective bargaining.
Employees organize and select a union to represent them and then attempt to collect authorization cards from at least 30% of the employees in the appropriate bargaining unit. If they get 30% or more, an election will be called by the NLRB. If more than a simple majority vote for the union, the collective bargaining unit is certified by the NLRB; if not, then the union vote fails.
NO TIPS is an acronym that stands for No Threats, No Interrogations, No Promises, and No Spying. This means first that employers cannot threaten to terminate employees from their jobs, threaten to close the plant, or threaten other harmful consequences to employees in any other manner during the period prior to a labor election. Secondly, employers cannot question or interrogate employees about union organizing activities within the organization. Third, management cannot promise that if employees vote against unionization, the organization will provide them with benefits because of their votes. Finally, management cannot spy on individual employees taking part in union organizing events, either through planting individuals in such meetings or through electronic or other means.
Collective bargaining allows the employees to collectively negotiate an employment contract through their union representatives with management of the organization. This contract will generally cover major employment conditions such as compensation (pay and benefits), work hours and working conditions, and other conditions that both sides agree to.
10-5. Briefly discuss what management can do to limit union organizing efforts.
Management can prevent union organizers from soliciting employees on company property during working hours, as long as such prohibitions are consistent with the company’s general solicitation policies. Management can also identify costs that would be associated with union membership and can provide truthful information concerning how unionization will affect relationships between individual employees and management. These relationships can include things such as performance-based promotions, merit-based raises, and training opportunities.
10-6. Identify the five conflict management styles. How is each described in terms of win or lose?
The first conflict management style is called avoiding. Avoiding is unassertive and uncooperative, leading to a “lose-lose” situation. The second style is accommodating. In accommodation, the individual is unassertive but cooperative, leading to a “lose-win” situation—the individual loses and the other party wins. The third option is forcing. Forcers are assertive but uncooperative, meaning they create a “win-lose” situation. Some managers will use this style to get things done quickly because they have legitimate authority over others. The fourth style is negotiating, which creates a “win-some, lose-some” situation. Each side gets some of what it wants through compromise, but not everything it wants. The final style is collaborating, which create a true “win-win” situation. Both sides worked together to create a solution that meets all of their needs. Although collaborating is the ultimate style, all five styles are appropriate based on the situation.
10-7. Describe the negotiation process. Briefly explain the processes of mediation and arbitration and the major difference between the two.
The negotiation process has three or four parts. These are: Plan the negotiation; Negotiate; Postpone negotiations (Optional); Agreement. Planning includes researching the opposing party, setting objectives, developing options, and attempting to anticipate questions or objections. Negotiating involves creating rapport, letting the other party make the first offer, listening and asking questions to meet the other party’s needs, and not giving in too quickly and asking for something in return.
Mediation and arbitration both deal with inserting a third party as an intermediary into a dispute between two other individuals or groups. However, they differ in how much power the third party has in the process. Mediators enter into a conflict to assist the two conflicting parties in coming to a resolution and to act as a facilitator in their negotiations, but the mediator has no authority to force a solution on the opposing parties. In contrast, arbitrators also assist the two parties in attempting to work out a solution to their conflict, but arbitrators have the ability to enforce decisions they make on both of the conflicting parties. Such decisions are called binding decisions.
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10-8. Discuss recent NLRB rulings dealing with the employer/employee relationship and briefly discuss the issue of union avoidance and suppression.
The NLRB has taken a stance that heavily favors the employee in virtually all situations where there may be questions about whether or not an action is protected concerted activity. Business, as a result of these interpretations, has found it more difficult to maintain good order and discipline within their organizations. However, there is at least some help from some recent court decisions that have reversed some of the more extreme NLRB decisions, noting that sometimes you have to use common sense in such situations.
Companies have become much more knowledgeable concerning avoiding unionization drives. However, it doesn’t mean that their actions are necessarily ethical. Staying within the letter of the law (NO TIPS) may not provide the company with the kind of skilled workforce that it needs. We have to pay attention to whether or not actions on the part of management will increase the satisfaction and engagement levels of the employees or cause them to decrease.
KEY TERMS
arbitrator 375
collective bargaining 364
communication 345
economic strike 366
express contract 360
feedback 346
grievance 364
implied contract 360
labor relations 364
lockout 365
mediator 374
negotiating 371
paraphrasing 346
quasi-contract 360
strike 354
trust 344
whistle-blower 359
wrongful discharge 361
KEY TERMS REVIEW
Complete each of the following statements using one of this chapter’s key terms.
1. ________ is faith in the character and actions of another.
2. ________ is the process of transmitting information and meaning.
3. ________ is information provided by the receiver that verifies that a message was transmitted successfully.
4. ________ is the process of restating a message back to the original sender in the receiver’s own words.
5. ________ is a collective work stoppage by members of a union, that is intended to put pressure on an employer.
6. ________ is an individual who tells an authoritative organization outside the company about actions within the company that the individual believes to be illegal.
7. ________ is a transaction in which the agreement between two parties is specifically stated.
8. ________ occurs when the parties form an agreement from their actions rather than from a specific oral or written agreement.
9. ________ is a court-ordered implied agreement to prevent one party in an action from benefiting at the expense of another party.
10. ________ consists of terminating an individual employee for an illegal reason, either in violation of a contract or because of violation of a state or federal law.
11. ________ consists of the interactions between management and unionized employees.
12. ________ is the negotiation process resulting in a contract between union employees and management that covers employment conditions.
13. ________ is a formal complaint concerning pay, working conditions, or violation of some other factor in a collective bargaining agreement.
14. ________ occurs when management stops work and physically prevents workers from entering the workplace.
15. ________ is a work stoppage over authorized collective bargaining issues such as pay or working conditions.
16. ________ is a process in which two or more parties in conflict attempt to come to an agreement.
17. ________ is a neutral third party who helps resolve a conflict but who has no authority to impose a solution to the conflict.
18. ________ is a neutral third party who resolves a conflict by making a binding decision.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
The following critical-thinking questions can be used for class discussion and/or for written assignments to develop communication skills. Be sure to give complete explanations for all answers.
1. What causes you to trust or distrust someone else? Using this answer, what would you do as a manager to cause your employees to trust you?
2. Good communication skills are critical to a manager. Which do you think is more important: learning to communicate specifically as a sender, or learning to listen well as a receiver? Why?
3. What actions would you consider taking, other than increasing pay, if job satisfaction survey data showed that your employees’ satisfaction level was dropping significantly?
4. Which side do you think has an easier job when a labor organization is trying to unionize the company’s employees—management or the union organizers? Why?
5. Do you think it is ever OK for employees to strike against an employer? If so, in what circumstances? If not, why not?
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6. What actions would you take if a potential whistle-blower told you she had evidence that an executive-level manager in your company was doing something illegal? Explain your answer in some detail.
7. Looking at the concept of constructive discharge, is it ever really possible that an employee could be harassed so severely as to be forced to quit? Can you give an example of a situation that you feel would meet this level of harassment?
8. Assume that you are a fairly high-level manager in your company and that one of your employees comes to you to tell you that other employees are attempting to unionize the company. What would your initial actions be, and why?
9. An employee who works for you confronts you with a formal grievance concerning another employee being promoted over him. What initial actions will you take in order to address this grievance?
10. Describe an example of conflict between people in an organization. How would you as a facilitator assist the people in conflict to resolve their differences?
CASE 10-1 WILLFUL VIOLATION, OR A PROBLEM THAT CAN BE CORRECTED?
Sandy Clark has worked for Healthy Meals Company for 10 years in a facility that cooks and packages prepared, frozen meals. Sandy is part of a crew that provides cleaning and sanitation services for the equipment used to prepare the meals. She has always sustained an excellent work record with no complaints about her work performance. She was recently assigned to the night shift to clean and sanitize the equipment used to mix and dispense sauce for the meals. The equipment consists primarily of a large vat and a rotating paddle with wooden blades driven by an electrical motor to continuously stir the sauce. After the meal preparation crew finishes production for the day shift, Sandy’s work begins cleaning and sanitizing the equipment for production the next day.
Sandy was trained to clean and sanitize the equipment by observing an experienced member of the sanitizing crew who had been performing the work for the past three years. During her training, she was instructed to use a high-pressure water hose, bleach, and sanitizing cleaner on the paddle blades and the lower part of the vat, then use a sponge pad to scrub the top part of the vat. Her trainer explained that the best way to get the wooden paddles thoroughly clean was to spray them while the machine was running, then turn off the equipment and lock it out before she used the sponge pad to clean the inside of the vat. After two days of training, she demonstrated to the person who trained her that she could satisfactorily perform all the duties of cleaning the equipment.
During her second week of working alone cleaning the vat and the wooden paddles of sauce residue, she was spraying the paddles using the high-pressure water hose while the machine was running with the paddles turning in the vat. While holding the sponge pad in one hand and holding the hose nozzle in the other hand, she finished spraying the moving paddles and accidently dropped the pad from her hand into the vat. She reached to grab the sponge pad as a reflex action and the fingertips of her rubber gloves were caught between the wall of the vat and the paddle. The paddle pulled her right hand further into the hopper up to her knuckles. Immediately, a nearby coworker turned off the equipment and freed Sandy’s hand. Fortunately, she suffered only minor injuries to her hand. She later stated that she reacted to reach for the pad and catch it to avoid damage to the equipment. After an investigation was conducted by a safety inspector, the company’s management stated that Sandy did not follow the proper procedure for cleaning the equipment by first unplugging the power cord for the motor then locking out the electrical source to assure that no one started the motor. This procedure was to be followed before any cleaning of the equipment was started.
Sandy, during her rebuttal, claims that discharge is too severe when you consider her work performance for ten years of service to the company and she was never told by any management official that her job performance was unacceptable. According to two other employees who previously held this job, training for these duties was typically done with instruction and observation by someone who had earlier carried out the tasks. Sandy points out that she has followed the procedure for cleaning and sanitizing that she was taught by another employee during her training and no one has ever instructed her otherwise. She adds that she has learned by her mistake and that she would not make that mistake again. She believes that progressive discipline should be used in this particular case. Sandy was subsequently fired for “willfully violating the company’s proper safety procedures.”
Questions
1. Do the facts in this case indicate that Sandy Clark was guilty of a willful violation of the company’s safety rules? Explain your answer.
2. What possible corrective action could the company take as an alternative to discharge?
3. If Sandy is represented by a labor union with a current labor agreement or contract stating that “employees shall only be discharged for just cause,” how could this affect her termination?
4. What particular mitigating factors or circumstances in this case should be considered in determining whether or not her termination is for “just cause?”
Case created by Robert F. Wayland, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
CASE 10-2 CONSTRUCTIVE DISCHARGE AND REINSTATEMENT OF STRIKERS
Pearl Refining Company operates a facility in Sunflower, Arkansas, where it is engaged in the refining, sale, and distribution of petroleum products. The International Refinery Workers Union conducted an organizing drive recently at this facility, but it failed to obtain majority support in an election conducted by the NLRB. Chief Operator Gene Roberts has worked at Pearl’s Sunflower refinery for about 16 years. Roberts works all three shifts on a rotating basis, earning $24 per hour. Roberts attended one union organizing meeting and voted during the union organizing election, but he didn’t discuss with anyone how he voted.
Pearl Refining Company also operates a crude oil storage facility located in northern Louisiana, about 4 hours’ drive from the refinery. The refinery manager, Dusty Conway, was notified by vice president of refining George Letterman that the crude oil storage facility in Louisiana had recently been experiencing substantial shortages in deliveries of crude oil. Crude oil delivery receipts kept at the refinery did not correspond to the crude oil reportedly delivered by truck from independent producers to the Louisiana storage facility. It was suspected that a large portion of this shortage was due to the delivery of water rather than oil to the storage facility. To correct this problem, it was necessary to send someone to the storage facility to double-check the truck drivers’ deliveries and the accuracy of their delivery reports. Refinery manager Conway decided to send Gene Roberts to the Louisiana crude oil storage facility, thinking that he was very dependable and had the experience to do the best job of detecting who might be delivering water instead of crude oil.
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Conway called Roberts to his office on Monday and instructed him not to report for the night shift, as originally scheduled, but to report to the crude oil storage facility on Wednesday morning to accept a 2-week assignment there, helping the gauging employees at the facility. Roberts said that he didn’t want the assignment and that he wanted to keep his regular job as operator. Conway said, “No, Gene. Let’s just think about it. You go home and think about it and come back in the morning.” The next morning, Roberts told Conway that he wanted to continue working in his current job in the plant and that the Louisiana assignment might result in some conflict. Conway said, “Well, Gene, that’s all there is for you, that’s it, and that’s all.” Roberts, thinking that he had no choice in the matter, laid his hard hat on the desk, walked out of Conway’s office, and left the refinery. As Roberts was walking out of the refinery, Manager Conway confronted him, stating that he was considering this a resignation and that his employment would be terminated.
The following morning, six of Roberts’s fellow employees met with Conway in his office and asked that Roberts be reinstated. Conway informed them that he had no intention of rehiring Roberts. The six employees then informed Conway that if Roberts was not going to be rehired, they were going out on strike. The employees then left the refinery and started picketing.
Subsequently, Roberts filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), stating that he had been constructively discharged. In addition, the six employees on strike complained to the NLRB that they were participating in an unfair labor strike and requested that they be reinstated to their jobs and made whole. The employees were told by refinery manager Conway that their jobs had already been filled and that they therefore could not get their old jobs back.
Questions
1. What are the differences between “constructive discharge” and “wrongful discharge”?
2. What factors would the NLRB most likely consider in its investigation of whether or not Roberts’s termination was a constructive discharge?
3. What elements should be proven to show that Roberts was “constructively discharged”?
4. What is the difference between economic strikes and unfair labor practice strikes?
5. What rights do economic strikers and unfair labor practice strikers have to reinstatement?
Case created by Robert F. Wayland, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
SKILL BUILDER 10-1 CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Objective
To develop conflict resolution skills using the Initiating Conflict Resolution Model
Skills
The primary skills developed through this exercise are as follows:
1. HR management skill—Human relations
2. SHRM 2016 Curriculum Guidebook—A: Employee and Labor Relations
During this exercise, you will be given the opportunity to role-play a conflict (one you are facing now or have faced in the past) to develop your conflict resolution skills. Students and workers have reported that this exercise helped prepare them for successful initiation of conflict resolution with roommates or coworkers.
First, list the other party or parties in the conflict situation (you may use fictitious names):
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Describe the conflict situation:
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List pertinent information about the other party or parties (i.e., their relationship to you and their knowledge of the situation, age, and background):
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Identify the other party or parties’ possible reaction to your confrontation. How receptive will they be to collaborating? What might they say or do during the discussion to resist change?
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How will you overcome the resistance to change?
Following the steps in the collaborative conflict resolution model, write out your BCF (behaviors, consequences, and feelings) statement.
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Apply It
Your instructor may allow you to role-play the conflict in class, or you may role-play with someone outside of class, or you may just initiate the conflict resolution in your personal or professional life. If you role-play in class, the instructor will provide directions.
What did I learn from this experience? How will I use this knowledge in the future?
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SKILL BUILDER 10-2 NEGOTIATING
Objective
To develop negotiating skills using the Negotiation Process Model
Skills
The primary skills developed through this exercise are as follows:
1. HR management skill—Human relations
2. SHRM 2016 Curriculum Guidebook—A: Employee and Labor Relations
You will role-play being the buyer or seller of a used car.
Procedure 1 (1–2 minutes)
Pair off and sit facing your partner so that you cannot read each other’s confidential sheet. Pairs should be as far apart as possible so they cannot overhear other pairs’ conversations. If there is an odd number of students in the class, one student will be an observer or will work with the instructor. Decide who will be the buyer and who will be the seller of the used car.
Procedure 2 (1–2 minutes)
The instructor will give a confidential sheet to each buyer and seller. (These do not appear in this book.)
Procedure 3 (5–6 minutes)
Buyers and sellers read their confidential sheets and jot down some plans, including what their basic approach will be and what they will say in the negotiation.
Procedure 4 (3–7 minutes)
Negotiate the sale of the car. You do not have to buy or sell the car. After you make the sale or decide not to sell, read your partner’s confidential sheet and discuss the experience.
Integration (3–7 minutes)
Planning the Negotiation
Step 1. Research the other party. Did you at least consider the car to be an antique?
Step 2. Set objectives. Did you set a lower limit, target, and opening price?
Step 3. Did you develop options and/or develop trade-offs?
Step 4. Did you anticipate questions and objections and prepare answers?
Negotiating
Step 1. Did you develop rapport and focus on obstacles, not on the person?
Step 2. Did you let the other party make the first offer?
Step 3. Did you listen and ask questions to focus on meeting the other party’s needs?
Step 4. Were you quick to settle for less than your target price and/or ask for something in return for giving concessions?
Did you postpone? If you did reach a sales agreement, which price did you receive? $_______
Apply It
What did I learn from this experience? How will I use this knowledge in the future?
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