Reference no: EM133524664

Assignment:

Case Study: The purpose of the case study is to understand the role of a HR manager in evaluating incidents of discrimination in the workplace, and research ways of revamping the environment by promoting diversity and inclusion.

Several years ago the Mitsubishi auto plant in Normal, Illinois, had a negative reputation. A lawsuit told the story: it alleged that sexual graffiti was written on the fenders of cars being assembled before they passed female production workers, pornographic photos hung on the walls, male workers taunted women, and women who complained were not promoted or perhaps were even fired.

Ultimately, Mitsubishi paid $34 million to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit brought on behalf of 500 workers at the plant. Further, Mitsubishi agreed to pay a multi-million-dollar settlement to African American and Hispanic employees who had claimed racial discrimination during the same time period as the sexual harassment claims. The plant's image was so bad that people were embarrassed to wear the company colors outside of work.

Productivity was bad as well, and the company headquarters in Japan considered closing the American plant. Rich Gilligan, a former Ford manager, was hired to run the plant and began to change the humiliating and illegal ways its women and racial minority employees were treated.

Over time the plant has moved toward being a solid workplace of equal employment opportunity.

Gilligan set up a department to investigate all employee complaints and to train employees in avoiding illegal discrimination issues. During monitoring for three years, there were 140 discrimination and harassment complaints. Fifty-two of those cases violated the zero tolerance policy and resulted in 8 dismissals, 14 suspensions, and 30 additional disciplinary actions. These actions reinforced the efforts to move the Mitsubishi plant culture toward equal employment.

The Mitsubishi case illustrates that there are consequences for violating EEO laws. Employers who choose not to deal with violations of EEO laws have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines to state and federal governments and in back wages and damages to employees.

More recently, a General Motors (GM) plant had an ugly case of discrimination as we see in the article:

Now visit the website

Select any one company and go to their website and explore their HR webpages(s) to study their diversity climate, policies, culture, approaches etc. For example, Cisco who is #2 on this list has the following webpage talking about their people and diversity:

Questions

Describe how disparate treatment and disparate impact were factors affecting the Mitsubishi and General Motors cases.

Assume that you were hired as a HR manager at Mitsubishi or GM to assist them in running their plant, and you were coming there from the

HR department at Cisco or any other company that you selected from the top companies on the Fortune website. With what perspective would you approach revamping the environment at Mitsubishi and GM? Suggest two approaches and explain why you are suggesting these approaches, meaning what would they accomplish? Your suggested approaches should be based on a) your findings of your selected company's diversity approaches.

Read the following two articles:

Do you think incorporating employee volunteering is a viable way to promote diversity and inclusive mindsets among employees? Discuss your response with valid arguments. Your response should be based on at least 2 viable authoritative articles.