Human Resources - Employee Benefits

Strategic HR Approach

Assume you are an HR director for a manufacturing company. Your responsibilities address all elements of employee well-being, which include compliance with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and include employee benefits and relations.

Identify the problem in each of these scenarios. Detail different strategies on how you would approach each scenario, decide on an approach, and describe how that approach would be most effective.

*An employee of 25 years received cancer treatment and was hospitalized for 2 months. He or she is now asking for additional money to help pay medical bills.

- Accidents have been occurring in a department of 10 employees under a new supervisor. With the change in management, employees who worked for the company for more than 4 years complain that the new supervisor frequently micromanages, whereas the supervisor complains that the employees do not respect him because he is new and younger than his subordinates. Aside from the accidents, the supervisor thinks the team performance is below average.

- A recently hired female employee was late more than eight times during her employment and was terminated because of the tardiness. The employee came back with a union representative asking to be rehired. She claims that some male employees and another female employee have been late many times. None of these employees have been terminated. The other female employee has not been fired because she is the manager's wife.

- A high-performing employee just had a baby and returned to work 3 weeks later. Since then, her performance has been low, but it is assumed she would be back to normal after a couple months. After 6 months, her performance level is below average, and her appearance has been messy. When coworkers talk to her, they say her attitude is depressing and she does not want to engage in conversations.