Question

1. ABC Health, Inc., a company with 75 employees in Batesville, Arkansas, hired Alice Taft (an African American woman) on October 12, 2016 as a full-time employee. She worked 40 hours per week, at least 1250 hours every year. ABC Health, Inc. is a large company within the healthcare industry and have a varied workforce. When Taft was hired, York provided her with a company handbook, which discussed FMLA. Also, York posted a FMLA notice provided by the Department of Labor.
   
   Alice received glowing performance evaluations every year and was awarded incentive bonuses for her outstanding work in both 2017 and 2018.

On May 3, 2019, Alice found out she was pregnant and was quite surprised as she at the advanced age of 41. Her first trimester was tough as she experienced severe morning sickness and complications. She asked her supervisor Paul if there was anything she could do about the time she was missing. She felt bad about being late to work or missing for doctor appointments but was willing to do whatever it took to meet her deadlines and be a team player. Paul told her not to worry about it because they would just work around her scheduling needs.

By July 30^th, Alice had missed 15 days of work due to maternity appointments and complications that required her to be limited in her activity. She had also been tardy consistently on the days she was at work due to morning sickness. However, her workload was the same as it always had been. As a result, her productivity had decreased, and she was struggling to keep up with her work and meet deadlines. However, her 1^st trimester was now complete, and she was experiencing much better health. She had not missed any work or been late to work in 2 weeks.

The company was making financial decisions and decided that it was time to restructure some of the operations, which would result in layoffs. After reviewing the records and looking at each department, ABC Health, Inc. decided how each group would be reorganized. It was determined that Alice’s department of 10 would need to be cut down to 7 employees. Fearing his job might be in jeopardy, Paul (Alice’s supervisor) decided to go to work at his family’s farm and submitted his letter of resignation. ABC Health, Inc. decided the best course of action would be to promote one of the existing employees into the manager position and only lay-off 2 employees.

When reviewing for the promotion, Alice’s file was brought to upper management. Upper management wanted to pass on Alice and give the promotion to Steve, a 37-year-old white man who had just been hired July 2018. There was discussion about Alice’s rapid decline in productivity and efficiency. They also discussed her numerous absences, noting “and you know it will only get worst once her baby is actually born.” Steve, on the other hand, management noted “we don’t have to worry about his family because his wife is a stay-at-home mom and his kids are almost grown.”

The more they discussed and compared Alice and Steven, upper management soon started thinking that Alice should be one of the employee that was laid off due to her performance within the last 3 months. They decide to bring their proposed decision to the human resource manager before taking any action.

You are the human resources manager for ABC Health, Inc. What is the company’s potential liability if upper management decided to promote Steve instead of Alice? What is the company’s potential liability if it is decided that Alice should be laid off? How would you advise management? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

As we analyse this case study throughly we as HR MANAGER have to take certain point in consideration to further define company's potential liability . To give the explaination of the questions we have to specific points as why Steve isn't to be promoted or promoted instead of Alice and if Alice should be laid off by upper management or not .

Work experinece- Alice is been working since October 12 , 2012 while Steve was hired more recently in july 2018 . If we take experience as a factor to promote , Alice have well built chance to be promoted .

Maternity & Family Factor - The upper management justify Steve to be more competent as he has less responsiblity for family whereas Alice have responsibility of her new born child . We can't speculate future performance on the basis of uncertain factors . There may be case where Alice proved to be more efficient than Steve instead of their family issues .

Efficiency - In the beginning of this caselet Alice efficiency was clearly mentioned as she received glowing performance evaluations every year and was awarded incentive bonuses for her outstanding work in both 2017 and 2018 and we have not found any record of Steve performance  .

Leave and Responsibility - Alice being a responsible employee always discussed with her supervisor Paul about her leave and pending work that she can manage amidst of her health conditions .Also her 15 day absence should not be a factor for laying-off Alice as maternity leave is legal and judicially allowed in every company's law.

ABC Health, Inc. potential liability ( being held legally responsible ) by taking above point into context should promote Alice instead of Steve .

Every factor we discussed above supports the fair actions of Alice for the company hence ABC Health, Inc. potential liability as obligation towards Alice should not lay-off her from the job as she qualifies every feature for being a good and competent employee and done everything in favour of company's law and positive perspective.