Employment Law & HR: Case Study, Website Analysis, & Policy

This homework assignment addresses key concepts in employment law and human resources management. It begins with short answer questions covering topics like the public policy exception to employment at will, disparate impact and treatment, job descriptions, and succession planning. The as...Read More

Short Answer Questions
Respond to all five of the following questions. You should use the Grading Rubric for Written
Assignments in the Content area for this MTE (Look at Week 6 materials and Resources) to
help you when submitting your responses. Please remember that grammar and spelling are
important! You will receive five points maximum for each question. (Format: 12 point, Times
New Roman, single space preferred.)
1. What is the public policy exception to employment at will? Give one example of a
termination that may be construed as an exception to employment at will based on
public policy.
2. Define disparate impact and disparate treatment. How do they differ?
3. Define job description and job specification and describe how they are used.
4. Compare and contrast replacement charts and succession planning?
5. Discuss the different ways in which a firm can deal with temporary employee
surpluses.
Essay Questions
Respond to all three of the following questions. You should use the Grading Rubric for Written
Assignments in the Content area (Look at Week 6 materials and Resources) to help you when
submitting your responses. Please remember that grammar and spelling are important! You will
receive 15 points maximum for each question. (Format: 12 point, Times New Roman, single
space preferred.)
Question 1: What is affirmative action? What is an affirmative action plan?
Question 2: You have just taken on the role of Director of Recruiting at a grocery
chain. The first thing you notice is that the Careers page and the website for your
company does not represent your company’s desire to be an employer of choice. You
have embarked on a quest to change that and your CEO has asked what you think
about the company’s website. He has noticed that Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best
Companies to Work For” in 2016 listed three grocery stores in the top 100. They are:
(a) Nugget Markets

(b) Wegmans Food Market
(c) Whole Foods Market
Your CEO has asked you to research their websites and provide an evaluation of what
you see. You should access the websites of these markets and conduct the following
analysis:
Consider and specifically evaluate the design factor considerations (specifically
address organization website design information found in your readings) Using
this information provide an analysis to your CEO of these websites along with
suggestions that would improve the recruitment section of each one.
Please remember – your response should be written for a CEO to read. Grammar,
style, and punctuation are important for good communication in HR but CRITICAL when
you are communicating with the executive suite. Remember – executives do not want
to read a novel – you must learn to be brief but get your points across effectively. Your
final analysis is worth a total of 15 points. No more than 2 pages should be submitted
for this question and use citations where required!
Question 3: The We Deny Everything Insurance Company (WDE) handled a massive
volume of claims each year in the corporate claims function, as well as in its four
regional claims centers. Corporate claims were located in sunny California and the
regional offices were located in Atlanta, Cleveland, Providence, and Las Vegas.
Corporate claims were headed by the senior vice president of corporate claims (SVP).
Reporting to the SVP were 2 managers of corporate claims (MCC-Life and MCC
Homeowners/Residential) and a highly skilled corporate claims specialist (CCS).
Each regional office (4) was headed by a regional center manager (RCM). The RCM
was responsible for both supervisors and claim specialists within the regional office. The
RCM’s reported to the vice president of regional claims (VPRC). This is the structure
before reorganization (I suggest you draw a chart for your own reference).
WDE decided to reorganize its claims function by eliminating the 4 regional offices (and
the RCM position) and establishing numerous small field offices throughout the country.
The other part of the reorganization involved creating 5 new CCS positions. The CCS
position was to be redesigned and upgraded in terms of knowledge and skill
requirements. It was planned to staff these new CCS positions through internal
promotions from within the claims function.
The plaintiff in the case was Ron Whyme, a 53 year old RCM. Since his job was being
eliminated, Ron was asked by the SVP to apply for one of the new CCS positions. The

other RCM’s, all of whom were over the age of 40, were also asked to do so. Neither
Ron nor the other RCM’s were promoted to the new CCS positions. Other candidates
were also bypassed, and some of them were also over the age of 40. The promotions
went to 5 claim specialists and supervisors from within the former regional offices, all of
whom were under age 40. Two of the newly promoted employees had worked for, and
actually reported to Ron, as the RCM.
Ron was not happy. Upon learning of his failure to be promoted, Ron wanted to
determine why he was not promoted. What he learned led him to feel he has been
discriminated against because of his age. Ron retained experienced and expensive
legal counsel, Bruce Lincoln. Lincoln, a high-powered litigator, met informally with the
SVP to try to determine what had happened in the promotion process and why his client
Ron had not been promoted. Lincoln was told that there were a large number of
candidates who were better qualified than Ron and that Ron lacked adequate technical
and communication skills for the new job of CCS. The SVP refused to reconsider Ron
for the job and said that the decisions were “final”. Ron, through his attorney Lincoln,
then filed a suit in federal district court, claiming a violation of the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act (1967). Lincoln then subpoenaed numerous WDE documents and files
including the personnel files of all applicants for the CCS positions.
Based on discussions with Ron and the subpoenaed documents, the following
information emerged about the promotion process actually used by WDE. The SVP and
the 2 MCC’s conducted the total process. They received no input from the VPRC or the
HR department. There was no formal written job description for the new CCS position,
nor was there a formal internal job posting as required by company policy. The SVP
and the MCC’s developed their own list of employees that they thought might be
interested in the job, including Ron, and then met to consider the list of candidates. At
that meeting, the personnel files and previous performance appraisals of the candidates
were not reviewed or consulted. After deciding on the 5 candidates who would be
offered the promotion (all 5 accepted), the SVP and the MCC’s did browse the
personnel files and appraisals of only these 5 employees to check for any disconfirming
information about the employees. None was found.
Inspection of the files by Lincoln revealed no written comments suggesting age bias in
past performance appraisals for any of the candidates, including Ron. Also, there was
no indication that Ron lacked technical and communication skills. All of Ron’s previous
appraisal ratings were above average, and there was no evidence that Ron’s
performance had declined recently. An interview with the VPRC (Ron’s boss) revealed
that he had not been consulted at all during the promotion process. Ron’s boss could
not believe that Ron had not been promoted and in fact said that he was “shocked

beyond belief”. In his opinion, there was “absolutely no question” that Ron was qualified
in all respects for the CCS job.
Based on the facts above your must respond to Part A and Part B below:
Part A: Prepare an analysis that presents a convincing disparate treatment
claim that Ron has been intentionally discriminated against on the basis of his
age. Do not address the claim as a disparate impact one. (Hint: Look at the
elements for a prima facie case of discrimination in Week 2)
Part B: Prepare a rebuttal, from the viewpoint of WDE, to the disparate
treatment claim.