Reference no: EM133109370

You are an HR professional in a 1200-employee organization, with seven sites involved in engineering construction design and research and development for engineering and construction materials. As the HR Director you report directly to the CEO. The company's founder is a scientist who is present at one of the sites but no longer involved in the running of the organization. There is a Board of Directors made up of six members.

The CEO is one of those very quiet, secretive people who want to control the organization through not allowing open communication and transparency. He is not doing anything wrong you can put your finger on; he just does not want to share information with the organization at large about how employment-related decisions are made in the organization. This is an issue because as an HR professional you follow the SHRM Code of Ethics. Among other guidelines the SHRM Code of Ethics advises us to "ensure only appropriate information is used in decisions affecting the employment relationship." This places you in a challenging situation since the last employee engagement survey's biggest issue was lack of transparent communication. You have talked to the COO, but he is an "avoider." He runs from issues and says you need "to get along and not worry about this sort of thing because all employees just love to whine."

Assume you are the HR director in the organization described in this week's vignette.

-How should you approach this situation? Which of the two leaders should you talk to, and why?

-What points, ideas, or other information might you use to approach one or both of the leaders you have to work with in dealing with this situation?

-What might be some of the pitfalls and what are some of the risks in failing to follow guidelines in the employee manual?