Case Study 1

A Team of Engineers

ABC Technologies is a semiconductor manufacturing firm that started its operations in August 2003. It manufactures microchips used in most electronic devices. By January 2004, it had about 250 employees mostly production workers working on 24/7 shifts. The firm, being in its start-up stage, was undermanned to meet the production demands of their customers. As such, there was continuous recruitment of production workers, staff personnel, and engineer trainees to fill vacant positions in the production, process engineering, facilities engineering, and quality assurance departments. Due to the lack of manpower, engineers were performing multiple jobs to cover for deficiencies In March 2004, Miss Red was hired by the ABC Technologies as a quality control engineer trainee for a period not to exceed one year. She was assigned to work with the Quality Assurance Department (QAD), together with four male quality control engineers who were responsible for her training. She reported to Eng. Marvin Cruz who was the head of QAD.

Over a period of time, Miss Red would continuously ask the assistance from the four male engineers even for simple tasks, the procedures of which, were clearly indicated and described in the QA manual of operations. It came to the point, 3 months later, that the four engineers felt that she was taking much of their time and they were bothered by her queries. Soon they became uncooperative to her. Instead of extending to her the usual assistance, they would ask her to refer to and read the manual for instructions. Miss Red became desperate when she could not get help from the four. She felt that the four engineers were not cooperating with her because she was a woman, and as such, she was not able to effectively do her work. She felt uncomfortable working in the QA Department. She went to Eng. Cruz for assistance. Eng. Cruz likewise referred her to the manual of operations. She felt that because she was the only female in the department, she was being left out to work on her own. She decided to file a case of discrimination, sexual harassment, and hostile environment against the four engineers and the company. At that time, she was in her 6th month of employment.

The HR Manager intervened and tried to resolve the issue. While investigating the case, Eng. Cruz mentioned to the HR Manager that he had actually completed the performance evaluation of Miss Red's training, and that she was actually qualified to assume the position of a junior QC Engineer, the position she was trained for. Eng. Cruz, with the approval of the HR Manager, issued Miss Red a memo regarding her evaluation and permanent appointment. The memo indicated that Miss Red has satisfactorily completed her training and that she was now ready to assume the position of junior Process Engineer to be assigned with the Process Engineering Department. Miss Red acknowledged receipt of the memo but instead of accepting the promotion, she instead filed another case of harassment against Eng. Cruz claiming among others, that the promotion and the transfer was intended to downplay her case against the company so that she will eventually withdraw her complaint on sexual harassment.

Discuss the merits of this case considering the following:

a. Was there a violation committed? If there was, what was the violation? Please discuss.

b. If your were Eng Cruz, how would you have handled this case?

c. As an HR Manager of ABC Technologies, how will you resolve this issue?

d. What do you think should be done to prevent the occurrences of this incident?

Please base your arguments from what you read and learned in Chapter 11 of the textbook.

In discussing this case, (minimum of two pages), please follow the format below:

1- Background Information

2- Description / Statement of the Problem

3- Discussion and Analysis of the Problem

4- Recommendations