CASE STUDY FOR INSTRUCTIONS DOCUMENT

The two cases/scenarios are listed below. This exam must be submitted no later than Wednesday as indicated on your syllabus. You have 4 hours From the moment you open the exam. If you encounter any problems, send me an email. Make sure you label each case: Case One Recommendation with justifications; Case Two Recommendations and justification.

Background Scenario:

Ms. Anita Snapp is a new personnel administrator at the Oakland Federal Health Department. The previous personnel administrator, Mr. Bill Board, made several poor decisions in the past and was dismissed. Ms. Anita Snapp has been hired to take Mr. Board’s place to review personnel concerns and respond to them with justifications for her recommendations. However, Ms. Snapp has to forward her decisions to the legal department to ensure that her recommendations meet legal requirements and to have someone double-check her work.

Ms. Snapp knows that in order to look professional in the eyes of the legal team, she must base all of her responses on appropriate legislation, previous cases and sources (your textbook) that serve as precedents for her decisions. She wants to be accurate in her responses and very thorough. The past administrator demonstrated that he had limited personnel knowledge and several of his justifications were overturned. Many of his decision were resolved with penalties to the agency because he had never consulted with the legal staff prior to taking action. Anita Snapp does not intend to make the same mistakes. A thorough review and justification of cases, along with solid support from past case decisions, legislation and other sources (NK), will demonstrate Ms. Anita Snapp’s knowledge and abilities to her superiors and the legal team.

CASE ONE

Summary: Ms. Ida Claire alleges that she has had an issue with her Supervisor, Mr. Amos Manley, not liking her party affiliation ever since she was moved into his division. Ms. Claire claims that Mr. Manley had stated this fact to her and she says she has witnesses to support her statements. In addition, Ms. Ida Claire also asserted that she should be able to talk with her coworkers about her political beliefs and about the candidate she is supporting inside or outside of the office. As indication of the problems cited here, recently Mr. Manley asked Ms. Claire to pull a Republican poster off of her desk as well as her support sticker for one of the local candidates. He also asked her to stop discussing her political beliefs with co-workers in the office.

Because of the problems she had with Supervisor Manley, Ida Claire has gone to the newspapers to express her belief that Mr. Manley is treating her badly because of her political affiliations and that he is harassing her for this because she is a woman. She gave no indication that anyone else was treated this way and gave the impression that she was the only one being singled out by Mr. Manley. She even hinted in the newspaper article that he should be removed for incompetency in his supervisory position.

Because of her actions, Mr. Manley submitted a request to the personnel administrator, Ms. Anita Snapp, that Ms. Claire be fired. After learning of Mr. Manley’s actions, Ms. Claire asserted that Mr. Manley’s action are all because she has claimed sexual harassment by him as well as her party affiliation rights being violated. She further claimed that his actions are based on her going to the newspapers in violation of her freedom of speech rights.

Action Request: What does Ms. Anita Snapp decide? To begin, Ms. Snapp realizes that there are several laws she must address in reviewing this case and dealing with Ms. Claire and her supervisor. She must not only discuss the cases and other legislation that apply to the claims, but discuss the employee rights and provide a recommendation for the legal unit as to how she must proceed. Ms. Snapp is fully prepared to write details and support for this information using a textbook she used in a course entitled Public Human Resource Management. She intends to cite this textbook to support and explain her decisions and recommendations. CASE TWO

Summary: Ms. Anita Snapp has one other case that she needs to decide quickly before it becomes a much larger issue and possibly a labor union battle. Mr. Joe King was hired to be an X-Ray technician to include running the MRI equipment. He had previous training in the position as well as recommendations from his previous jobs. However, all other x-ray technicians have complained that Mr. King was dangerous to work with because of his incompetence with the technology and his failure to follow safety procedures. Accordingly, his supervisor, Lance Boyle, sent Mr. Joe King to a three week, $5,000 training program with the agency covering all boarding, travel and food expenses. He returned from the training program, but still displayed poor procedures in completing his work. Other technicians that had undergone the same program came back and performed in a competent manner. Supervisor Boyle sent Mr. King a second time through the training with the agency paying all fees.

Upon his return from a second training program, Mr. Joe King, injured a patient in the MRI because he did not follow a safety procedure of ensuring all metallic objects were cleared from the room prior to starting the MRI. A cigarette lighter that he left next to the machine became a projectile that flew into the activated MRI and hit the patient’s face leaving a deep gash and narrowly missed the patient’s eye. This is a safety protocol that is taught over and over again to all MRI technicians ever since the death of a 6 year old that was hit in the head by a flying metal oxygen container while in an MRI.

Mr. Lance Boyle wants to fire Joe King due to incompetence. At a planned meeting to discuss Joe King’s pending dismissal, the union representative, Mr. Lou Pole, requested to sit in on the meeting as Mr. King’s union representative.

At one point in the meeting the union representative leaped to his feet exclaiming that Mr. King was being discriminated against because he is Asian and that there were few Asians considered in the hiring process and nor did Oakland Federal Health meet the Affirmative Action requirements in the union contract. Thus, Union Representative Lou Pole stated that the Oakland Federal Health Department could not fire Mr. King. Supervisor Boyle responded that affirmative action selection are considerations only under the contract, but are not mandatory for hiring and firing. He pulled out his collective bargaining agreement to prove the point. Union representative Lou Pole had no further response on this point and then said that the firing of Mr. Joe King could become grounds for a strike of many of the Oakland Federal public health employees. At that point, Supervisor Boyle halted the meeting to confer with the agency’s personnel administrator, Ms. Anita Snapp.

Action requested: Mr. Boyle has elevated the decision to Ms. Snapp and requested her assistance in helping him assess his next step in firing Mr. Joe King. Ms. Snapp realizes she must look at the legality of any strike and be clear on what she can or cannot do in dismissing Mr. King. She must also assess the claim of discrimination as being an issue in this case as well as claims by Mr. Lance Boyle that not only is Mr. King incompetent, his continued employment poses a danger to patients. She also knows that her decisions and justifications will be reviewed by the legal unit before any actions are taken. Ms. Anita Knap has her work cut out for her in this situation and realizes she must provide a strong and convincing recommendation to the legal unit. She must address the issue of the legality of strike threats, claims of discrimination and claims by Supervisor Boyle that Mr. Kings poses a threat to his co-workers and the hospital’s patients.