Reference no: EM133108370

Byron Franz was a new HR Manager at a 400-person hospital. In his first major HR job, he had been a trainee and had 2-3 years' experience, but this was his first major "stand alone" role. He was excited but knew it would be challenging. The hospital had not had an HR person for a year and required support from the regional office and the hospital administrator, who had some HR background. Many priorities needed to be addressed, just to keep up with staffing, administration, and two collective agreements.

The good news was that the regional office had a number of HR specialists to provide advice, albeit by phone. Their Labour Relations Manager was helpful for general guidance.

One ongoing issue, however, was tardiness and attendance. When staff were late or absent, the impact was high. In Nursing, care had to be provided and some staff had to stay until the scheduled employee showed up. Similarly, in Housekeeping and Dietary, specific tasks had to be accomplished, and being short-staffed placed added stress on all other staff.

Some supervising managers were understandably upset. Most employees were punctual and regular in their attendance. The main concern was really a small number of repeat offenders, which bothered he managers a great deal.

Byron had some labour relations training. He knew there was a counseling/discipline process to use but had no experience in actually implementing it. One of the managers he met with wanted to suspend one of the offending employees. Byron knew that needed to be done careful and said, "Well, we have a process to follow to ensure it's done right." At that point, the frustrated managers said, "All you HR types are the same. You're just a bunch of paper pushers! You're not going to help me at all!"

Byron fired back, "Listen, I have 400 people in this place. This guy is your employee! I can't be here every time someone doesn't show up! If he's as bad as you say he is, we will deal with it! The last thing we need is for us to take hasty action and have it overturned on a grievance!"
After they both calmed down, they discussed solutions. In contact with other supervisors, the questions often were, "What do I do if they are late twice, three times, four times..." The same applied for time missed, 2 days, 3 days, etc. The issues ranged from minor infringements to flagrant absenteeism. As there had been no labour relations support for a while, these situations built up frustration over time.

The challenges were to:

• Provide a clear, consistent approach/guideline for managers to use (when and how intervene).
• Assess each case on its merits, to apply appropriate counselling and/or discipline to resolve it.
• Ensure the action would withstand any grievances that may arise.

Byron had been pressed by his Senior Labour Relations Manager on proposed actions by pointing out flaws in his proposed action plans. He knew he had a lot to learn, but wanted to deliver good services to the managers, whom he saw as his clients. He also wanted to be fair with the employees, in the event a Manager was being overly harsh.

He felt that, some working sessions on problem solving would help, so initiated a series of meetings with interested Managers on attendance issues. He wanted to learn more on factors and distinctions between the cases, where the approach should vary. After a few sessions, he resolved on a problem-solving approach whereby the manager:

1. Assessed the extent of the issue to determine its extent, and the level of response needed.
2. Met with the employee if needed, for an objective discussion, to get their input and assess the employee's level of awareness and commitment to make a change.
3. Met with their Manager or HR if needed, to discuss options if no solution seemed evident. (For example, serial abusers often demonstrated a "What are you going to do about it approach?", as they had faced few consequences in the past). This consultation was helpful to gain both the advice and support of the senior manager, both which were helpful.
4. Implemented a plan to counsel, warn, or further discipline (suspend) employees as needed, but also follow through promptly with progressively harsher actions if necessary, which hadn't happened before.
5. Monitored behaviour closely, encouraging those who improved, but disciplined those who did not.

These plan steps were specific, but allowed for:

• Advice from senior managers and HR throughout.
• An open door for employees to "see the light" and improve to meet expectations.
• Acceleration of discipline where needed, or deceleration, if improvement occurred.

The Managers were happy to see a commitment to addressing their problems, as well as, a process and procedure to do so (hospitals are procedure driven and this helped).

Of the approximately 9 "problem cases", 8 decided to leave the organization and apply elsewhere. Only one employee had their employment terminated. This was a very junior service worker in his first job, who didn't seem to understand the concept of attendance. He wasn't troublesome. He just wasn't there that often.

1. What observations from this case about making disciplinary decisions do you have? What other aspects should Ben have considered?
2. Is this 5-step process practical or does it appear too cumbersome to be effective? Why?
3. Was it unethical for Ben to target these employees? If so why? Could these employees file a successful complaint or grievance?

Please provide long explanation since I need more information to understand.