Students last name 1 Violence at Work: A Case Study Case Synopsis Maryanne Walker, the manager of pharmacy services

at Westside Health Systems with 35 subordinates under her governance, has to resolve an incident that occurred between two pharmacy technicians, Brenda (age 25) and Susan (age 28). There are few details to the incident gathered by Maryanne from interviewing the two women and their direct supervisor Rhonda Carter who, in turn, is accountable to Maryanne. A particular trait of this situation is that due to personal matters neither of the two women has reported the incident immediately and it has been six weeks since it had occurred. Thus, more ambiguity is poised to be involved in the investigation. In their interviews, Brenda and Susan described the situation as diametrically opposite chains of events, where one is the aggressor and the other is the victim/damper of the situation. Rhonda, being the one who reported the incident to Maryanne first, described the events from Brendas words, since she found out of the incident from her. Although the situation seems perfectly two-sided and thus, very obscure from this perspective, the information about Susans background and her record at Westside Health Systems should make it easier for Maryanne to judge. Analysis of the Case Westside Health Systems has a strict code of conduct obligatory for all its employees. Maryanne is in a conundrum, since she has to analyze the situation from a number of perspectives, resolve the current case and consider how to prevent similar incidents in the future. More importantly, the threat of physical violence described by Brenda should alert Maryannes organization-oriented thinking. In other words, she should analyze the number of weak points in the organizations code and modus operandi. Below is a bottom-to-top analysis of organizational flaws observable from the case ranged by their scale and overall potential impact for the organization.

Students last name 2 Firstly, in her interview about the incident, Rhonda mentioned that Susan was not an ordinary employee neither in terms of her qualifications nor in the procedure she underwent when in employment negotiations. Thus, the first problem is inadequate flexibility of the organizations hiring policies. Hiring policies require close scrutiny because they affect every area of any organizations performance: individual performance of employees, cumulative effectiveness of the staff at a given moment, sustainability against force majeure situations, morale and good spirit, and others. Secondly, Maryanne had to face direct lies on the situation in the reports that were given to her. Minor analysis makes this conclusion clear and simple. Either Brenda or Susan told the truth, which makes the testimony of the opposing party mendacious. In addition, Rhonda claimed that she had found out of the incident through the grapevine from another pharmacy technician and only after several inquiries did Brenda spill out the details to her, whereas Brenda claimed that she told everything to Rhonda herself, without any pressure from the latters side. Therefore, the second problem is severe dishonesty of subordinates in cases where administrative punishments for misconducts are pending. These may result in decreased morale and overall quality of inter-employee relations in the organization, recurring cases of misconducts where not telling the whole truth may become a regular practice, transform into greater misconducts such as theft of which Susan has been suspected when Brenda discussed the unusually high quantity of crushed and unusable Prozac pills the ones Susan has been taking. Other ways this flaw may affect the entire organization is decreased attitude of individual workers, which would then attract unfavorable reviews from patients and visitors. Thirdly, the time it took Maryanne to find out about the incident suggests that relying on rumors and honest reports is clearly not enough to perform her administrative duties well. Thus, the third problem is lack of technical surveillance of premises. While a single incident,

Students last name 3 such as the one described in the case, may seem too little of a cause for a response as dramatic as surveillance cameras, Maryanne, being an experienced administrator should realize that there is always much more to notice on working places. This flaw affects subconscious behavioral stimuli that work on the basis of the assumption that no one is watching. Essentially, this concerns all employees who may be responsible workers but always have a dark side to them especially, those employees who have been with the organization for a while and may consider themselves immune to certain policies due to their veteran status. Such lack of supervision does not stimulate directly, neither does it prevent such increasing disorder. In addition, it has been said the case study that the turnover in the organizations pharmacy department was relatively high, which suggests an additional threat. Proposed Solutions 1. Adjusting the organizations hiring policies seems a reasonable solution to the first problem. More particularly, the author would like to suggest a practice that is being utilized by Seattle Pacific University and is likely to be in the arsenal of numerous other organizations. This practice offers relatively highly-standing managers to become involved in the hiring process. They are not expected to talk to all applicants, but rather evaluate those who passed the initial interview. Pros: 1) in the subject organization, Maryanne has a staff of fewer than 40 people, which means that every person is very important; 2) with her experience, Maryanne will know the average profile of a person that stays on the job longer than others, thus improving the turnover situation as well; 3) greater personal involvement is likely to ensure greater assiduity from new employees. Cons: it will take up time from the supervisors schedule and will somewhat distort the established chain of command. 2. Judging from the case, lying to a superior is not necessarily connected with a possible punishment, but is positively related to it in some cases. It has been mentioned earlier that minor dishonesty may turn into greater workplace mischief given the time.

Students last name 4 Therefore, it is vital to discourage such behavior early on. Suave talk aside, the three employees lied to their superior and this should be perceived as clear misconduct on their part and a bad signal of their potential in this direction. With a reference to the North American Professional Liability Insurance Agency (NAPLIA), Andrew Latham suggests implementing an employee dishonesty policy and buying a respective insurance in order to prevent misconducts from theft to fiscal fraud and worse. While some of these points are mentioned in the organizations original Standards of Behavior Policies document, writing up a separate document for dishonesty (in both verbal/written reports and physical activity) may be a good idea. Pros: 1) this will ease the hiring process and potentially screen people like Susan with unclear job history (they will be aware of the consequences prior to taking the job); 2) this will legally protect the organization; 3) this will automatize many complicated situations. Cons: 1) this may potentially create tension across the chain of command if proper context is not offered; 2) this will require approval from above and may be a pending project for a while before the entire organization agrees to accept the new policy. 3. While installing surveillance equipment may have negative consequences, if executed perfectly, it will benefit the entire organization. In his article on the subject, Brian Westover makes it very clear that employees should be informed of the novelty and be clearly briefed on the new policy. As it has been mentioned, the threat of physical abuse among employees is one of many, thus the impact of this measure is incomparably wider than it may seem from the first glance. Pros: 1) cameras will not only capture acts of misconduct they are likely to prevent them; 2) surveillance will make verbal insinuations similar to those that Brenda told Susan and suspicions expressed by Rhonda testable; 3) the staff is likely to trust each other more afterwards; 4) security and high quality of the supervisors awareness. Cons: 1) possible displeasure of the staff; 2) possibility of misconducts moving to areas that are not under surveillance.

Students last name 5 Conclusion Although the aforementioned solutions appear to be responses to individual problems (three solutions to three voiced misconducts/potential misconducts) and therefore imply simultaneous implementation as a way of solving all of the pharmacy departments problems, complying with this idea would be too much. Implementing all three rather strict and/or demanding policies would load tremendous pressure onto the small staff due to what would seem to them a single exaggerated incident between two people. Thus, the author would suggest going the middle grounds and utilizing only one of the three solutions implementing a separate dishonesty policy. This policy is to discourage willful deceit in written and verbal reports, contextualize theft punishments, and a number of greater professional misconducts related to or resulting from dishonesty at work. As for the incident itself, Maryanne should find out Susans whereabouts (her former job, her discharge procedure, and her off-job behavioral traits) to ascertain her status as the center of the incident and then resolve the situation accordingly.

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Works Cited Latham, Andrew. Employee Dishonesty Policy. eHow. Demand Media, Inc., n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2012. Seattle Pacific University. Staff Hiring Policies. Seattle Pacific University. n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2012. Westover, Brian. Employer Surveillance Camera Etiquette. eHow. Demand Media, Inc., n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2012.