“Oh no! What now?” said Tom Moore, Director of Human Resources at Aerospace Designs. “Just when I thought this mess over on how the Marketing Department does performance appraisal, we’re smacked with a sexual harassment lawsuit. We’ll we’ve got to do something about this predicament and fast.”
Aerospace Designs Background
Aerospace Designs (AD) was founded in the early 1960’s. A privately held company, started by two engineers, it was deliberately designed to feed off the blossoming U.S. Military budget as the U.S. fought the Cold War. It became part of the supplier system to the massive Grumman contractor on Long Island and took on a military-like culture and structure.
Aerospace’s Marketing Department
Aerospace Designs was predominately a population of white males and the hiring of minorities and woman would assist in meeting Aerospace Designs’ government imposed affirmative action goals. Marketing currently had no woman in the department. It was a very flat structure, consisting of three internal salesmen, a male sales coordinator on site, one road salesman, who all reporting directly to the Frank Fasting, the VP of Sales & Marketing. (See Appendix A for an abbreviated organizational chart of the Sales and Marketing Department.) Aerospace Designs had hopes that after spending the last 4-5 years as a consultant to various companies in different industries that Frank would be able to bring Aerospace Designs out of their recent trend of flat growth. He was expected to grow both the existing stable aerospace electronics business and to firmly establish both a lights product line and land-based vehicle business for military and commercial operations. The addition of new staff positions to the Marketing Department, of which the Marketing Assistant was one, was designed to help establish a web presence and improve the capabilities for print media and trade show coordination.
Enter Lola
Lola Meyer was above average in height, single, blonde, thirty-two years old with lingering aspirations to be a model. Having a four-year degree, and opting out of the education field, she came over to marketing in an attempt to parlay her assets into a steady job where she might be taken seriously. She obtained a position as a Marketing Assistant for Aerospace Designs. Although Frank, the VP of Sales and Marketing, had reservations regarding hiring Lola for the job given her qualifications, Sue Jones, the Human Resources Manager, eventually persuaded him to give Lola a chance. After a few months on the job, Frank approved arrangements for Lola to take courses related to the work that needed to be done as it became apparent that she lacked some technical marketing skills necessary to be effective in her position.
The ensuing year went by without fanfare. Lola, Frank, and the rest of the Marketing Department seemed to co-exist amicably. Frank proved to be an outgoing, friendly sort that you might expect of someone that is in Sales. His greatest weakness as a manager seemed to be his lack of administrative follow through. At one point he hadn’t submitted any travel or expense reports for a period of three months and when he finally did the company owed him around eight thousand dollars.
Lola’s Performance Evaluation
Aerospace Designs had a policy that dictated an annual performance evaluation for every employee. This review unfortunately hadn’t been done by Frank in a timely manner for Lola. By the time January rolled around Lola’s review was two months late. Frank discussed with Sue that he was not pleased with Lola’s performance to date and would indicate such on her review. Sometime in April Frank became ill and needed to take time off to take care of his personal health. Lola’s review was written by Frank but not formally presented to Lola. Since it was now delayed nearly five months and it was apparent that Frank would be out for several more months, the decision was made to have Mark Gurello (Senior Sales Manager overseeing Marketing in Frank’s absence) present Lola with the poor performance evaluation. This took place at the end of April. Lola was rated overall as “less than competent” and was not given a salary increase.
Lola’s Reaction
Lola was both shocked and dismayed. In the beginning of May, she met with Sue to discuss her performance review. She handed Sue an eighteen page, hand-written rebuttal of her evaluation. Her reply admitted her inability to reach designated goals, but stated that her performance was hindered due to items beyond her control. During this discussion with Lola, she alleged that inappropriate sexual conversations and behavior had occurred in her work environment.
Sue’s Response and Lola’s Bomb Shell
Upon reading about these incidents, Sue conducted a prompt, thorough internal investigation and determined that Lola’s performance was marginal and upheld the performance review as written. It also was determined that inappropriate conversations had taken place and Frank received a written reprimand and was required to attend sexual harassment awareness training when he returned to the job. Lola’s supervisor was permanently changed to Mark and her workstation was moved to the other side of the Marketing area, away from Frank’s office door. Lola was agreeable to these actions taken by the company. However three months later Lola filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the firm stating that she could not get a fair evaluation given the harassing environment she was working in.
Questions
1- What evidence does this case provide for formulating and implementing a systematic approach to performance appraisal?
2- Do you believe that Lola’s performance evaluation was valid and reliable? Do you feel that Frank had a biased or stereotypical mind when filling out the evaluation? Explain your answer.
3- What in the case indicates a problem with this supervisor’s evaluation? Please connect examples from this case to what the chapter discusses.
4- How did Lola, her supervisor, and human resources communicate with one another? Do you feel that a performance appraisal interview should have been more formally established and conducted? Why or why not?
5- How can Lola’s accusation of sexual harassment affect her personal work performance and her performance evaluation?