Disciplining Employees Who Violate Discrimination Laws

Week 4 Assignment

As the HR Director, you recently learned of Ms. Ramirez’s behaviors and will write a 2–page memo to the CEO that will recommend either terminating or disciplining Rachella Ramirez, the Marketing VP, in this week’s Discussion. A recap of her behavior is listed below:

Rachella Ramirez is the Marketing VP for Sunbright T-Shirt LLC (STS). The company makes trendy t-shirts and sells them in mall kiosks, on Amazon, and on Woot.com, throughout the U.S. STS has 250 employees and is rapidly growing. However, the “new product line” division is struggling, and Rachella feels it is due to too many older employees who are not up to the new trends of their customers. She decides to do a few things to fix the problem. Here are her actions:

1. She creates 20 job openings in the new product division. She then directs her recruiting specialist to post the jobs on Indeed, Monster, and on a garment association website, stating that STS is looking for “recent college graduates with product design, marketing, or fashion design” degrees to help design new t-shirts.
2. She sends a note to the current department head of the product design team to downgrade all of his over 55 employees’ performance reviews this year so that none achieve more than a 3 on a 5-point scale.
3. She is overheard by two employees, who are over 55, talking on the phone to the CEO, saying: “I know—that product design team is a real problem. When do you think these baby boomers will ever start retiring?” Then, after a pause: “Don’t worry—I have this figured out.”
4. She puts together a voluntary early retirement package for all workers who are 55 and over, and who have worked for the company for more than 10 years and sends it out to all of those workers. For each of the workers who do not take the offer, she works with HR to start them on performance plans as a result of their lowered performance evaluations.

To complete this Assignment, your memo should include the following:

1. An introduction that briefly explains the situation and addresses the difference(s) between potential disparate impact and disparate treatment.
2. A review of the laws involved in the situation, i.e., age discrimination laws relevant to termination in the workplace and how they were violated by Rachella’s behaviors.
3. A recommendation of whether Rachella should be terminated or disciplined, and why.
4. A draft of the written memo you would recommend being given to Rachella to support your decision to either discipline or terminate her.

Assignment: Disciplining Employees Who Violate Discrimination Laws