The employment laws are written to bring a difference in negotiating authority between the employers and employees. These laws were amended for the benefit of the employees, to provide them with healthier working environments, and to keep the cost of the employees low. The contract of the employment between the employer and the employee is the main binding force for the employment rights and duties of the worker. The employment contract represents a relationship of financial dependency and societal subservience. As said by Hogler (2003), the common rule of law states that if the parties do not contract for a particular period of work, an employer has the right to discharge an employee at any time for a good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all. Since the industrial revolution the employment laws have proved to be necessary, and have benefitted the society and the economy. The human resources management who are employees too in an organization look after the problems of the employees, and they also have a challenging task to maintain the organization’s changing policies.
Answer to Question 1:
In this generation of competition, every organization wants to be in number one position in their products, and these organizations emphasizes on the quality of the product, and, the quality can be maintained when employees effortlessly and efficiently dedicate their productive time to the organization; however there are some factors where employees do not dedicate their complete time to the growth of the organization. Multiple factors contribute to the theft of time in the workplace and some of them are, gossiping for a lengthy time to talk about the personal life, about kids, or the movie that they watched last night. With the easy and free access to internet browsing and surfing, employees misuse this advantage and indulge in talking and chatting on the numerous freely available social networks, browse news sites, trading sites, sports site, check personal mails and the list goes on, and all these factors result in less productivity. Employees who smoke usually take frequent breaks to go out for a smoke and waste time. The other factor associated with theft of time is to attend personal mobile calls during the office hours, which can cause the employee to lose concentration on the work.
These factors can be managed when the management creates policies to track the exact number of hours spent on production by the employees, and the policy to stop using the cell phones during working hours must be made stringent. The IT department must create filters and block the social networking sites, pornographic sites and other sites that rob the productivity time of the organization. If any of the factors mentioned above are repeated frequently by an employee then management must give verbal warning or a memo.
Answer to Question 2:
Whistleblower legally means an internal person in an organization who reveals some wrongdoing or any bad behavior by their colleagues or superiors in a workplace. There can be external whistleblowers also, who inform transgression on outsiders. These people are also referred as “Informers” and they deal with the Police, Media, or Detective Agencies. As stated by Barnett (1992), the legal definition for a whistleblower under the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 protects any employee of the federal government who reports any misconduct from any branches within the government agency. Many organizations will have a few whistleblowers, and these people raise concerns on the bad behavior that takes place in the workplace. The problem for the whistleblower is hard as they strive to balance their individual position with the civil concern.
For example, Billy and John plan to steal the phone equipment of their company and sell it. Sarah is a good colleague of Billy and John and she gets to know about their plan. She immediately gets into the act of whistle blowing and informs the plan to the higher authority in the organization, who in turn takes action on Billy and John. Sarah is a whistle blower in this example.
Answer to Question 3:
Retaliation is a method of employment discernment, where a manager or a superior inflicts a confrontational action against an employee who complains of one or more of the traditional forms of discrimination or harassment. Retaliation involves a perception that a transgressor is somehow culpable and thus held accountable for the transgression (Griffin, O’Leary-Kelly, 2004). Retaliation makes employees petrified to proclaim their rights. Retaliating on the employers is a delicate matter; however it does bring in lots of difference in the way employers and employees perceive each other. The retaliation law prohibits retaliation in any aspect of employment that would include hiring, laying off, salary, assigning a job to an employee, employee promotions, employee training, unconventional benefits or any other term or conditions included in the employment contract.
Retaliation is considered illegal against an employee for opposing an illegitimate employment practice, or for giving and supporting evidence, or contributing in any way in an enquiry, proceeding, or hearing under some laws. Retaliation can also be illegal, if the employer gives back the job, because the damage is already done. Until, the employer’s hostile action discourages a sensible person from making a complaint, it constitutes illegal retaliation.
The foremost thing that an employee must do when he or she believes that they have been retaliated against is to talk the superior or the human resource management about the reasons for the adverse acts of the employer. If the employer does not have a proper answer then the employees must voice their concern that they are retaliated against. If the employer still denies it, or does not admit the misconduct, or even makes effort to rectify the problem, then the employee must contact the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) immediately.
Answer to Question 4:
Jennifer Anniestown’s work seems to be exemplary; There is no doubt about her work and her time management skills, however the time that she spends on social networking sites, speaking on phone for long hours with her mother, and checking the lottery tickets are all personal work that are being done on the cost of the company. This is a total theft of time, and she has no authority to use the company hours for her personal use. Jennifer’s attitude in spending lot of time on her personal work can be traced back to her previous boss Billybob, who had an attraction towards girls, and for his benefit he would have allowed them to carry their personal work in office hours.
Tracy is doing a great job by keeping track of her staff, and their behavior at the workplace. As a boss she is supposed to know how her staff behaves in certain circumstances. She must call in for a one on one discussion with Jennifer; tell her that she is doing an excellent job, and explain her about the importance of spending quality time on work, and mixing her personal work with her professional work will only result in producing poor quality. Tracy should also contact the Human Resource Management, and discuss this scenario with them and initiate a policy on theft of time to get it added to the existing policies of the organization. If Jennifer does not improve even after the policies are in place, then Tracy holds the authority to terminate Jennifer, no matter how good she is at her work.
Answer to Question 5:
The employer can terminate the employment relationship as long as they are not terminating it for an unlawful reason. The termination of Steven, can be termed as a wrongful termination and he has the right to severance pay if the policies of Wayne’s company otherwise provides for the same. Regarding the termination he can file a claim with the government agencies that legally deal with the implementation of employment laws, or he can directly file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. If, Steven is financially sound then he can also hire a private lawyer against Wayne.
References
Hogler, Raymond.L., (2003), Employment Relations in the United States: Law, Policy, and Practice, SAGE Publications.
Burnett, Tim. (1992). A preliminary investigation of the relationship between selected organizational characteristics and external whistleblowing by employees. Journal of
Business Ethics, 11. Retrieved from http://philpapers.org/rec/BARAPI.
Griffin, Ricky W., O'Leary-Kelly, Anne., (2004), The Dark Side of Organizational Behavior,John Wiley & Sons.
