Sexual harassment is an important example of power abuse that generates negative conflict and it is a highly destructive workplace process. (Shockley-Zalabak, pg. 309) Not knowing how to communicate about such a highly sensitive situation can ruin a person’s life and can ruin the credibility of an organization. It can even affect the job status and reputation of a good employee. Overview of the Organization and Case Study The Village of Bellport is a local government entity with approximately 150 employees that are spread out through out five different departments.
The Village of Bellport has had a sexual harassment case between two employees; one is an office employee and one is a highway employee who is also the husband of the office employee’s supervisor. This sensitive situation that has happened is due to the lack of communication between the Mayor, the Board of Trustees and the rest of the staff and has affected the relationships and the morale of the employees. Without going into too many details; the office employee stated that the highway worker sexually harassed her while her boss (his wife) was away in training.
The highway worker denied all accusations but was convicted by the board without even hearing his side of the story. The board also didn’t ask anyone that worked that day what they saw or heard or they never asked about the characters of either employee. The outcome was that the highway worker was forced to resign after 13 years of service. Since the office employee didn’t get the money she was after from the start, she went after the Village for harassment, saying that all the employees were harassing her because of the situation, which wasn’t true.
The Essay on Naming Of Parts Office Instructor Worker
Smith 10/12/2000 ENGL 1102 McDermott Satisfying The short story "Orientation" by Daniel Orozco and the poem "Naming of Parts" by Henry Reed both show a teacher giving instructions. In "Naming of Parts" the teacher enthusiastically describes the different parts of a gun, while comparing this to the beauty of nature in his or her mind. "Orientation" is a story about an office worker who starts a new ...
When the Village attorney and the board found out about her character and what type of person she really was they were mortified and they felt dumb but of course it was too late. Identify and Describe the Situation or Problem Knowledge The major problem with this situation was the lack of communication. This was because of the lack of skills and knowledge that the board had with this kind of situation. With the lack of communication came ruined relationships, plummeting employee morale and the job statuses of certain employees were changed .
By the board not communicating to the employees and to each other, the rumors were started and down went the reputations of everyone involved. There was so much information missing due to the lack of communication between each board member; like, what really happened? What was the two employees saying that happened? This was because of the lack of skills that the board had on how to deal with this. The board only found out one side of the story and never bothered to find out the other employees side.
The board assumed that the male employee did wrong just because the office employee said he did and they never listened to a word he said or what his wife was saying or anyone else that had his best interest. The rumors were started and all because of management never told the staff not to speak of this very sensitive subject to the public. This situation had a combination between Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Motivation-Hygiene theory applied. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was applied because the employees lost a lot of their peer’s respect and relationships and they did not feel safe in their jobs as a result of the lack of communication.
Motivation-Hygiene theory was applied because this situation was an influence from both internal and external factors. (Shockley-Zalabak, pg. 143) Communication competency (which is composed of knowledge, sensitivity, skills and values) and sensitivity competency (which is the ability to sense organizational meanings and feelings accurately) are lacking in the Village. (Shockley-Zalabak, pg. 5-8) It is because with the Village’s communication competency, no one has comfort with conflict so they will not contribute information to the public because they are afraid people will disagree with them.
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... others on the outside. Many employees already have effective communication skills that they have learned through ... It is these types of misunderstandings, which happen globally that, can take place in an ... voice-mail and memos.For example, conducting a board meeting in a cold, gloomy and damp ... situations and to set and reach goals. Business success very simply revolves around effective communication ...
The person that was most responsible for the communication problems was the clerk. Whether it was because he was inexperienced in this kind of matter or he just didn’t care but what he did or better yet, didn’t do was just wrong. He never spoke to any witnesses about what happened and the employees thought they knew a lot about what happened on that day. He did apologize after the fact to the wife of the highway employee because he knew what he did was wrong. The reality is no one knows what went on that day for sure except for the two employees that were in the office that day.
Everyone just assumed that the one side was right and never took it as a he said she said case. Hopefully the board and their staff learned how to deal with such a sensitive situation if this ever happens again. The Village is a small community and by the board going home and telling their family and friends about this situation it started the rumors and the stories about what people thought happened. Whether it was true or not, the three parties involved were mortified about everyone knowing and talking about it.
The person responsible for the rumors were mostly everyone involved the Mayor, the board, the clerk and other employees which was very disappointing. Yet, no one claimed responsibility. Skills The only skills that were shown in this situation was the listening skills that they showed for one side and the written communication that they showed by giving the highway worker a letter stating the claim toward him and that they would be in touch with him. It took the board two weeks to actually let the employee know what was taking place.
The board needs to learn not to be judgmental, they need to be sensitive with matters like this and they need to sharpen their nonverbal communication skills and when something like this happens they need to stop with the rolling of the eyes and the hand gestures toward one another. The organizational skills are also in need of repair. The Village needs to start treating people equally, attempt to resolve the conflict and show empathy. They can learn these skills by working together and practicing good communication. They need to really listen to one another and to their employees without jumping to conclusions.
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They should try to take some training classes in order for everyone to understand how important it really is. Values Communicating their stories was important to both individuals, they wanted to get out what they were saying happened that day and to be able to have the board believe each of them. One individual wanted to get his story out so he could save his job, reputation and marriage. The other was to make everyone feel bad for her and hate the highway employee and his wife and eventually we found out to get money from the Village.
The only value that the two employees shared was that they both wanted to communicate their stories but the board only wanted to hear from one of them and force the other employee out so it would just go away. Because the culture of the organization is all about politics, the board just wanted what was right for the public to see and what will make them look good. They had only themselves in their best interest and no one else. The Village fell for a scam because they were trying to keep themselves out of the headlines and their political values took over.
Since the public really liked the highway worker and his wife and they knew about the other employee’s characteristic, they wound up looking horrible. Develop Alternatives and Test Possible Solutions Propose Solutions and Suggest Implementation Plans What the Village should have done is call the police. If the police did the investigation then the truth hopefully would have been found out. They would have not let their feelings affect the outcome. They also should have let both employees communicate their stories and question other employees that were there that day.
The clerk was in the office that day, a code officer was in and out of the office all day, there are cameras in the office and the employee told another employee her story and it changed multiple times. Also, someone should have asked the boss of the employee about her. Whenever the boss would try to speak and explain how this girl was the village just looked at her as the scorned wife. Finding out the characteristics of these employees would have helped the case tremendously. The Mayor and board should have been more discreet about this very sensitive situation.
The Essay on Love In Lanval Wife Queen Stories
Love is the central theme of the two stories Lanval, by Marie De France, and The Prologue and Tale of the Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffery Chaucer. The authors have very similar opinions about the nature of love and how people react to being in love. One of the messages conveyed in both stories is the irresistible power that a woman has over a man who is in love with her. The ...
Management should know that letting this information out will only hurt the people involved. The village should have had training about this subject so the employees would know how to handle it when something did happen. Since none of this was followed and the real goal of the office employee was to get money out of this whole thing, she won. After the highway employee was forced to resign she should have continued to work for his wife, who was really swallowing her pride, but she didn’t. She knew she had her boss wrapped around her finger and no matter what her boss did this girl would not listen.
Then finally the girl started trouble with every employee that entered Village hall by saying they were all harassing her and of course she sued the Village. The best witness in the case was the wife of the highway employee (her boss) who worked side by side with this girl and knew everything about her. If they only listened from the beginning everyone’s life would not have been turned upside down like it was. Summary Not having the skills in communication can really ruin an organization’s credibility or someone’s life. Dealing with a sexual harassment case is a really tough situation especially when it is a he said she said case.
The communication in the Village of Bellport is not where it should be. If the board knew how to handle this situation maybe the highway employee would still have his job and his wife wouldn’t have had to go through what she had to. The skills that are needed to extinguish a situation before it spins out of control is having the training that is needed to handle something like this. Knowledge and skills about communication is key and if anyone would have communicated and found the right way to handle this situation, things would have turned out a lot differently.
