Dotsworth Press

Dick’s Challenges:  he must overcome the facts that he

• given superior appraisal performance reviews not based on job description      

• Increased her pay  without consulting personnel and maybe out of job role pay scale                                                                     
• Increased her duties doing 2 jobs simultaneously
• Outside office socialization with Mary  
• granted special time off privileges
• allowed Mary to work non-paid overtime to catch up production
• Wrote supportive recommendations not based on hired position, but on the job Mary actually performed   
• Would not consider upgrading position and did not consult with personnel                              
• Did not correct Mary’s behavior exceeding her job authority  by inappropriately approving publication
• Emotional response that he could not work with her d/t her anger

   

• Mary’s Challenges: she must overcome the facts that she
• Excellent education for job description, but then continued to masters with no possibility of promotion
• bored with clerical
• encouraged doing 2 jobs simultaneously
• Outside office socialization with Dick
• asked for special time off privileges
• worked non-paid overtime to catch up production            
• exceeding authority and job description  by inappropriately approving publication
• created a negative work environment
• sent letter to personnel & did not cc to Dick

Mary’s goal:

• Recognition that “male collusion” has occurred
• improve job position

Dick’s goal:

• Maintain clerical editorial assistant position

Rationale why job description was not followed

Dick’s audience:

• Betty Friedman Affirmative Action Office
• Bob Collins Director of Personnel
• Mary Wilson Assistant Editor

Mary’s audience:

• Betty Friedman Affirmative Action Office
• Bob Collins Director of Personnel

Dick Garanti Editor

Mary’s viewpoint:

• Desires upgrade in job
• Already accomplishing the job

Dick’s viewpoint:

• Desires Mary’s current position to remain

·         Continue doing 2 positions for the pay scale of one

Mary’s argument:

·         Is highly qualified educationally

·         Has already been doing the job

·         Not being recognized through pay employment grade

·         Feels discriminated against

Dick’s argument:

·         Mary was hired as an assistant editor

·         He needs an assistant editor (clerical) not editorial assistant

·         Magazine budget cannot afford to budget an editorial assistant position

·         He has given Mary work experience opportunity & positive references for future employment opportunities

·         Overall: Moving on from this point in time will require a blending of multiple communication techniques to resolve this situation. First a face-to-face meeting with Dick, Mary, Bob and Betty must occur. There is urgency for this meeting which needs formality to guide the information flow. This approach will make the meeting the most efficient way to communicate with all parties involved. This will make the meeting more effective by letting everyone personally share their feedback. There needs to be a mediator, which will be Betty who holds power to influence the outcome by sticking to the facts and keeping emotions in control. She needs to consider that her audience may be hostile and unengaged.  Using the persuasive techniques and considering each party involved may be unengaged, she needs to allow an opportunity for each person to address their concerns by noting all the pros and cons surrounding this situation. Betty’s approach to her audience needs to encourage sharing of facts using a consulting approach. By being an expert dealing with affirmative action Betty sets the tone of the meeting. All parties concerned may use arguments as their approach but she will outline: if they all agree on the basic problem, how to address the situation to benefit everyone, and then agree upon a course of action to be taken.

Dick Garanti is the editor of Dotsworth Magazine and Mary Wilson is his editorial assistant, a clerical position and Bob Collins is the Director of Personnel and Betty Friedman Affirmative Action Officer. Dick needs to recognize that he has not functioned or communicated as an effective manager.  It is evident that he has not followed the personnel’s job description for an assistant editor. As editor of the Dotworth Magazine it is his responsibility to ensure that the job is accomplished in the most efficient, effective and cost containing manner.  He increased Mary’s job duties and pay, granted special time off privileges, and allowed her to work non-paid overtime without making personnel aware of his actions. Consequently he violated the grade 3 clerical position and gave Mary the false impression that he had the authority to do these actions. Simultaneously he was writing superior job appraisals and job recommendations, probably based on the job she was accomplishing, not necessarily based on her job description. 

     Because of his past actions of designing a new job position for Mary without authority he was unable to properly reprimand Mary’s actions when she inappropriately approved a publication. He had blurred her job duties and could not properly fault her for her actions and no negative assessment by him could occur against her. He further complicated the editor and editor assistant positions and boundaries by socializing with her on a personal level outside of the workplace environment.  When Mary requested a change in her job description to editor’s assistant, Dick was not willing to entertain the thought and did not contact the personnel office to review the options. Bob Collins unknowingly complicated the situation when he wrote a memo to Dick stating that a personnel investigation had occurred and Mary was functioning as an editorial assistant, the position based on her job description. When the tension continued to rise in the office area, Dick reacted emotionally feeling that he could not work with Mary anymore. The lack of formal communication between Dick and Bob presented the opportunity for the appearance that “male collusion” could have occurred.  Consequently Mary filed a grievance.

   Collusion is defined as an agreement between  more than two people, in this case Dick and Bob, to limit open competition of a better job position for Mary,  by deceiving misleading, or defrauding Mary of her legal rights (Vejda, 2007). Dick and Bob did not adequately communicate. Dick may have had ulterior motives of wanting Mary to achieve the workload without having to reimburse her and possibly fear for his own job position because Mary was perceived by him as competition.  Bob may have had an ulterior motive because he when he met with Mary and Dick he became aware that Mary had not been following her job description.  His job as Director of Personnel is to ensure that job descriptions have not been violated.  However, when he took action it was to support Dick’s point of view, violating Mary’s right for representation as an equal employee. Mary consistently overstepped her job description based on the desire for a job promotion that did not exist. When the job promotion did not occur she reacted emotionally and eventually filed a grievance.

Work Cited

Affirmative Action Pros and Cons (2013). Retrieved from http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/affirmative-action-pros-and-cons

Hattersley & McJannet (2008). Management Communication Principles and Practice. McGraw- Hill Company: New York.

Vejda, Peter (2007). Tap Dancing Around The Elephants - How Collusion Impacts Your Life at Work. Retrieved from http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/affirmative-action-pros-and-cons