Diversity Challenges Scenario 1 Overview

Diversity Challenges

Scenario 1 Overview -- a 10-year employee took 10 weeks off under the Family Medical Leave Act. The employee is now requesting another 3 weeks off and our company does not have an extended leave policy.

Legal Background

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is a federal law that requires covered employers to provide employees certain job-protected and unpaid leave rights for qualified medical or family reasons such as personal or family illness, military leave, pregnancy, adoption, or foster care. This Act was a major part of President Bill Clinton's agenda, and is administered by the United States Department of Labor (United States Department of Labor, 2012). The purpose of the Act was to provide more equitable and in-depth coverage so that individual employers would have more guidelines; and individual employees more structure when needing time off from work. Prior to the FMLA, leave could be denied for any reason based on the employer, and employees could even be fired for taking leave. These benefits allow for up to 12-weeks unpaid, but job protected leave for the care of a new child or family member, recuperation from illness, or to address qualifying emergencies. Once the employee returns to work, the employee's job, or similar level job, is guaranteed, as are benefits and reinstatement of benefits upon returning to work. Some states have enacted their own family leave thresholds, but in general, Federal FMLA applies only to employers with more than 50 employees (Galinsky, et.al., 2008).

Recommendation -- Based on the years of service and the assumption that to remain employed for 10 years, the employee in question must be performing job duties well, we should likely compromise on this situation. The employee is due, by law, another 2 weeks FMLA leave. We should offer two options for the employee: 1) Take the 3rd week off unpaid, or 2) Bundle the third week into future vacation time. In both cases it is imperative that the employee understand that the company is at the limit of its ability to offer more leave and guarantee a position and will expect the employee back to work three weeks hence. Their responsibility is to ensure that their situation is compliant within the 13 weeks or face termination.

SOURCES:

Galinsky, E., et.al.. (2008). National Study of Employers. Families and Work Institute. Retrieved from: http://www.familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/2008nse.pdf

United States Department of Labor. (2012, January). Family and Medical Leave Act. Retrieved from dol.gov: http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/index.htm

Scenario 2 -- Our company is diverse, with a number of individuals of differing religious faiths working. Because of this, we refer to certain days in December as the Holiday Season, typically December 24 to January 1. We must, however, maintain a skeleton crew during this time period. We have two positions open and six employees from which to choose:

Employee #

Job Title

Gender/Marital Status

Religion

1

Programmer

F - Single

Jewish

2

Progammer

F -- Single

Islamic

3

Programmer

F -- Married, no children

Christian

4

Senior Programmer

M -- Married, 3 children

Jewish

5

Programmer

M -- Single -- 2 children

Christian

6

Lead Programmer

M- Married -- 2 children

Islamic

Legal Background -- While it looks at first that we can easily schedule those employees who either have no children or are not of the Christian faith to work the Holiday Season, the information on gender, religion, marital status, and children is of no consequence legally. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "bans discrimination, including sex-based discrimination, by trade unions, schools, or employers that are involved in interstate commerce or that do business with the federal government" the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in a broad array of private conduct including public accommodations, governmental services and education. One section of the Act, referred to as Title VII, prohibits employment discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion and national origin. The Act prohibits discrimination against the aforementioned protected classes in the areas of recruitment, hiring, wages, assignment, promotions, benefits, discipline, discharge, layoffs and almost every aspect of employment (Loevy 1997).

However, Title VII provides than an employer must reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs and practices unless doing so would cause undue hardship on the business. As an employee were are obligated to try to resolve any conflict if possible. We would not, for instance, schedule a test or training day and then require an employee to miss a specific religious holiday for that. The employees also have a responsibility to help resolve conflicts and must inform us that there are specific religious beliefs that prohibit working on a specific day. The employee must be sincere about their commitment, and the company must also try for solutions.

Recommendation -- There are actually several scenarious in this case that will likely provide an appropriate level of both accomodation and fulfill legal and ethical requirements. Suggestions are listed in order, since if Suggestion "A" is met, then we will not need to move to "B," etc.

A. Ask for volunteers for the shifts, let the six employees know that there will be a skeleton crew, and that the organization needs 2 individuals to fill X shifts, let us say, for example Shift 1 and 2 daily. Present a matrix and ask for volunteers for each shift. This may actually mean all six could fill in the matrix, or 2, 3, 4, or 5.