The past record of Mary is significant in this case. Her capability to perform the job suitably could only be supported by her past record while avoiding focus on her non-attendance. He past record reflected that Mary was the company’s model employee and that her performance reviews were always above average. For that reason, the past three years when her absenteeism turned out as a problem to the company was basically referenced to the external variables which was never available during her first years while working for the company. This supports the idea that her absenteeism is genuinely caused by presence of illness and the deterioration of health which she raised to the management. These are of course valid reasons. Termination of her employment is simply based on the fact that she absented herself from the work as opposed to the argument that she could not perform to give quality output.
As evident from the case, the previous work performance of Mary was exceptional. This implies that she was capable of performing her job description and responsibilities effectively and efficiently. She could as well justify to the management that her past records are clear and that the records do not show any instance of written or oral warning concerning her absenteeism. Similarly, she could justify that her employment termination was never based on any documented evidence. Therefore, her argument of unjust employment termination could be clearly backed up by the past records.
The management has an obligation and the right to get the knowledge of why certain employees refuse to offer their services for overtime. This is based on the fact that it directly influences the whole organization’s productivity as well as its operations. For instance, refusal by Mary to offer her services overtime limits and hampers the department’s productivity. This in effect results in the department’s failure to turn out the services which it must produce for the success of the whole company. This eventually makes the company incur losses. Besides, a company that pays for an overtime work is capable of demanding commitment from the employee to work and exceed the hours required as stated in psychological contract. In fact, because workers suppose that they should be treated humanely and paid better, as well, the company expects workers to be responsible for their jobs and thus must offer the service when asked to
Based on the case, Mary is right in arguing that she was unfairly discharged. This is because her discharge never followed the organization’s published disciplinary policy. Similarly, the company never informed her and never documented the allegations in Mary’s records. This shows that her termination of employment lacked factual evidence besides the fact that the management never followed its own policies.
It is management’s right to give disciplinary trial to its employee, Mary. This is because she never demonstrated any improvement signs for a period of three years. Besides, Mary had become a chronic absentee. Mary’s rejection to provide overtime service should not be left unpunished since it severely affected the quality of the department’s output besides being expensive for the organization to maintain psychological contract details when Mary is not around to accomplish her responsibilities and duties.
I would definitely take Mary’s side. This is because the organization’s management failed to discharge its actions according to the organization’s published disciplinary policy.
