Beauty and honesty at Aerospace Designs' Marketing Department.

Morena, Anthony ; Armandi, Barry ; Sherman, Herbert 等

CASE DESCRIPTION

This case concerns a female employee, Lola Meyer, and the problems that occurred when Lola received a less than satisfactory assessment on her annual performance evaluation, one that was delivered over four months after it was due and not by her immediate boss. Lola's reaction to her negative performance evaluation was to claim sexual harassment against her boss and her coworkers (sexually-charged language and references to anatomical parts.) The case examines not only the issue of sexual harassment but also deals with the issues of time theft, fraud, and falsification of documents. The case has a difficulty level appropriate for sophomore level or above. The case is designed to be taught in one class period (may vary from fifty to eighty minutes depending upon instructional approach employed, see instructor's note) and is expected to require between two to fours hours of outside preparation by students (again, depending upon instructor's choice of class preparation method).

CASE SYNOPSIS

Derived from observation and field interviews, the case center's around Lola's seemingly misrepresentation of her working hours and days according to her time card. Lola was claiming overtime pay while her boss was out-of-town, stating that this work had been done for another Director. Further investigation by another Director (her boss was out-of-town) revealed that on several other occasions Lola had taken time off yet claimed those hours worked on her time card. When confronted with the discrepancies, Lola claimed that she had forgotten to put in those days as sick days. However, she also admitted as to not following the accepted procedure of calling in to the office when one is out sick. Ultimately, these facts were considered and the company decided to terminate Lola's employment due to falsification of her timecard on the two weeks in question. A month later, Lola sued the Company and her original supervisor for sexual harassment.

INTRODUCTION

"Oh no! Not this again," said Tom Moore, Director of Human Resources at Aerospace Designs. "Just when I thought this mess was over, it rears it's ugly head again. We'll we've got to do something and fast."

AEROSPACE DESIGNS BACKGROUND

Aerospace Designs (AD) was founded in the early 1960's. A privately held company, started by two engineers, it was deliberately designed to feed off the blossoming U.S. Military budget as the U.S. fought the Cold War. It became part of the supplier system to the massive Grumman contractor on Long Island.

The Company became what would be described as a "job shopper" house. AD would design various items based on specifications desired, or simply manufacture small lots of electronic based devices on a "build to print" basis. The primary items consisted of secondary power supplies, battery chargers, proximity systems, and control panels for military (primarily aircraft) usage.

The Company grew throughout the 70's and peaked in about 1985 employing almost 800 workers in its heyday. Through the late eighties and early nineties there were several rounds of layoffs due to military cutbacks and there was increased consolidation in the aerospace industry. As the industry was changing, the old "cost plus" method of pricing was being challenged and profits were being squeezed. By 1992 AD was down to about 180 employees and stayed fairly stagnant through the late nineties. Subsequently, the Company was purchased by various larger corporate concerns, changing hands at least four times in the past ten years.

In 2002 AD was trying to modernize equipment and shed a culture of relying on military excess. New management and lean manufacturing practices were used to control costs, improve quality, and grow the business. Recent acquisitions resulted in additional manufacturing and the Company increased to $50 million in revenues, with nearly 300 employees.

ENTER LOLA

Lola Meyer was above average in height, single, blonde, thirty-two years old with lingering aspirations to be a model. Having a four-year degree, and opting out of the education field, she came over to marketing in an attempt to parlay her attractiveness into a steady job where she might be taken seriously. She obtained a position as a Marketing Assistant for Aerospace Designs. Her boss at the time was Frank Fast, the VP of Sales & Marketing. He was in his mid-fifties, had come to Aerospace Designs himself about six months prior. Aerospace Designs had hopes that after spending the last 4-5 years as a consultant to various companies in different industries that Frank would be able to bring Aerospace Designs out of their recent trend of flat growth. He was expected to grow both the existing stable aerospace electronics business and to firmly establish both a lights product line and land-based vehicle business for military and commercial operations. The addition of new staff positions to the Marketing Department, of which the Marketing Assistant was one, was designed to help establish a web presence and improve the capabilities for print media and trade show coordination. Frank had reservations regarding hiring Lola for the job, because he felt that she did not have the skills, general background, nor the desire needed for the position. However, Sue Jones, the Human Resources Manager, eventually persuaded him to give Lola a chance. Aerospace Designs was predominately a population of white males and the hiring of minorities and woman would assist in meeting Aerospace Designs' affirmative action goals. Marketing currently had no woman in the department. It was a very flat structure, consisting of three internal salesmen, a male sales coordinator on site, one road salesman, who all reporting directly to the VP. (See Appendix A for an abbreviated organizational chart of the Sales and Marketing Department.)

The ensuing year went by without fanfare. Lola, Frank, and the rest of the Marketing Department seemed to co-exist amicably. Frank proved to be an outgoing, friendly sort that you might expect of someone that is in Sales. His greatest weakness as a manager seemed to be his lack of administrative follow through. At one point he hadn't submitted any travel or expense reports for a period of three months and when finally done the company owed him around eight thousand dollars which he had accumulated due to his frequent business related travel requirements. On another note, Frank approved arrangements for Lola to take courses related to the work that needed to be done as it became apparent that she lacked some skills necessary to be effective in her position. Some of these courses were Ecommerce, Promotion and Advertising, and Public and Media Relations.

LOLA'S PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

Aerospace Designs had a policy that dictated an annual performance evaluation for every employee. This hadn't been done in a timely manner for Lola. By the time January rolled around Lola's review was two months late. Frank discussed with Sue that he was not pleased with Lola's performance to date and would indicate such on the review. Sometime in April Frank became ill and needed to take time off to take care of his personal health. The review was written but not formally presented to Lola. Since it was now delayed nearly five months and it was apparent that Frank would be out for several months, the decision was made to have Mark Gurello (Senior Sales Manager overseeing Marketing in Frank's absence) present Lola with the poor performance evaluation. This took place at the end of April. She was rated overall as "less than competent" and was not given a salary increase.

LOLA'S REACTION

Lola was both shocked and dismayed. In the beginning of May, she met with Sue to discuss her performance review. She handed Sue an eighteen page, hand-written rebuttal of her evaluation. Her reply admitted her inability to reach designated goals, but stated that her performance was hindered due to items beyond her control. During this discussion with Lola, she alleged that inappropriate conversations and behavior had occurred in her work environment. Specifically she cited that Frank had used language that sometimes described individuals as being " . . . as useless as tits on a bull" and called the President of Aerospace Designs "doctor" because everything he touched turned into an abortion. Lola continued stating that one day she walked into Frank's office when a conversation was going on in which several of the guys were discussing penis size in relation to a women's pleasure. She was asked to comment by one of the men.

THE COMPANY REACTS

Upon reading about these incidents, Sue conducted a prompt, thorough internal investigation and determined that Lola's performance was marginal and upheld the performance review as written. It also was determined that inappropriate conversations had taken place and Frank received a written reprimand and was required to attend sexual harassment awareness training. Lola's supervisor was changed to Mark and her workstation was moved to the other side of the Marketing area, away from Frank's office door. Lola was agreeable to these actions taken by the company.

In July Aerospace Designs hired Tom Moore as Director of Human Resources, and Sue remained in a part-time role. Soon after, Frank returned to active duty. Tom was briefed on the status of the case and over the next two months interacted with Lola. He ascertained that she had no additional or continuing complaints regarding the atmosphere or her position in Marketing and that she was comfortable reporting to Mark. Frank admitted to no wrongdoing, felt the company investigation was unfair and that Lola's performance continued to be inadequate.

THE TIMECARD

In November Mary Francis, the payroll supervisor, went to the Tom and requested that he initial a timecard of Lola's. It seems that Lola worked overtime for another Director the prior week on Friday and since Mark was traveling there was no one to approve the additional hours on her timecard. She had gone to Frank but he retorted that Lola did not report to him and he wasn't approving any overtime for her. A discussion ensued because the hours recorded for Monday and Tuesday on the same timecard were initially listed as hours worked but changed to sick time by Mary after a discussion with Lola. Mary told Tom that she had been aware of Lola being home sick those two days because they spoke on the phone early on Tuesday after Mary noticed she hadn't received Lola's timecard from the prior week (it hadn't been turned in due to the absence). She also told a story about Lola being out of the office one day last summer and how someone else had spotted her in the mall during normal work hours on that same day. Mary also was aware that one of the other Directors, whose office was in the same area as Marketing had been on the watch for Lola since Marketing was often on the road and there was little supervision for Lola on a day to day basis. Tom began to think that this was more than a simple clerical error by Lola. It seemed possible that she was deliberately "stealing time" from the company. Soon thereafter, Frank poked his head into the Tom's office and said, "I'm not 100% sure, because I don't supervise her anymore, but I could swear Lola was out one day the week before that as well."

THE INVESTIGATION

Tom decided that he must look into this situation further. He discovered the following: Lola's current supervisor often traveled and could not observe the time Lola actually spent working at the site each day. In addition, Lola collected and submitted the timecards for the Marketing Department. The administration of this group was fairly loose. Since all the guys traveled and were exempt level employees he was sure that they received "comp" days from time to time and Lola was aware of this. Further investigation revealed that Lola did indeed take one day off the prior week as well. In addition, she placed hours on her timecard as if she had worked on that day as well. As a matter of fact, in the case of the last two weeks, in each week her supervisor had been out of the office and hadn't had the opportunity to even review and approve Lola's timecards. Both cards were initialed in the supervisor's box by Lola herself and not by Mark. It was also interesting to note that Lola was pretty careful about submitting for the "extra" time she worked.

This whole debacle was initiated because Lola called Mary on Monday and requested the additional hours she claimed to have worked the prior Friday as overtime. The remaining stories about time taken during the summer, the fact that a neighboring Director was trying to keep an eye on her, and that it seemed she was often away from the site for extended periods (either long lunches, arriving late, leaving early) was fairly common for Lola. Although these were not formally documented, they did seem to be credible and gave some indication of the type of employee Lola was.

To the best recollection of the General Manager and Sue of the Human Resources Department there had been no case in which Aerospace Designs had allowed this type of transgression. The employee's file indicated that she had received company policies regarding issues of honesty and correct recording of hours worked.

With all these pieces in place it was hard to give Lola the benefit of the doubt, and yet it would be unwise to come to a firm decision without speaking to Lola directly about the situation. She was summoned to Tom's office late that afternoon.

THE MEETING WITH LOLA

Lola hadn't been aware of the investigation going on that day and was unaware as to why the Tom wanted to see her. In the discussion Lola claimed to have "forgotten" to put in for two days of sick time and offered to have the time changed. As that comment was to be expected, she had inadvertently indicated in the initial part of the discussion the procedure for communicating to her supervisor during his time away from the office. According to procedure, she was to either leave him a voicemail or an e-mail if she wasn't going to be in. She had not done so for the two days in question. For the prior week she had actually requested a personal day for that Thursday, and had taken it. When confronted with that timecard (which she would have completed the next day--Friday) her baffled response was simply that "she must have worked that day." In both cases she was aware that Mark was not in the office due to his travel schedule and that she had indeed signed both timecards (as was her habit when he was away).

Ultimately, these facts were considered and the company decided to terminate Lola's employment due to falsification of her timecard on the two weeks in question. Lola left in tears.

A month later, Tom received papers from an attorney's office. Lola was suing the Company and Frank for sexual harassment.

Donner and Jack Todd. Anthony Morena, Long Island University Barry Armandi, SUNY-Old Westbury Herbert Sherman, Southampton College-Long Island University