Central Facts of the Case
Larry Kent, a long-serving employee of Ace System Inc., exposes the struggles experienced on gender identity while working at the company and the intention to transition. The employee restates these problems to Jana Hollingsworth, an Ace Inc. Human Resources manager who considers it a physiological conundrum that conflicts with the culture at the company (Clark-Hitt, & Humphrey, n.d). While such an issue would require Larry to resign, his exceptional work history characterized by strong commitment and achievement prevents Jana from intimating to fire Larry.
Jana opts for a utilitarian tactic after concluding his discussion with Larry. By using this approach, Jana sought to avoid confrontations with both parties that is, the company and the employment position of Larry, with the hope that Larry would freely express his struggles and suggest possible interventions. A utilitarian method would ensure that Larry gains more stability and happiness and resume work following the transition process.
Another dilemma involves convincing the workers at Acer Systems. According to Jana, persuading the employees to become supportive of Larry’s decision would also imply customers would understand and bear with the situation. For such reasons, Jana demonstrates the willingness to assist Larry in navigating through this situation.
Organization’s Capacity to Change
The issues raised by this case recommend modifications of the organization’s practices involving the fire hiring and termination policies, compliance with the laws, decision-making protocols, and diversity and inclusiveness. The above case does not only apply to Acer Systems Inc. but also has wide appeal in the modern companies, which must prepare for the change, particularly with the rise in lawsuits and call for inclusivity. Below are some of the suggestions for building the change capacity.
Concerning fair hiring, businesses must be conversant of the cost basis of discrimination. Employers should recognize the basis of employment terms for every staff to avoid at-will terminations that could cost the enterprise. To avoid unnecessary lawsuits, “The first and most fundamental thing to put in place is a non-discrimination, anti-harassment policy” (BBC, 2021). For instance, a more inclusive human resource policy should indicate that transgender people can access specific treatments that are of equal benefits with non-transgender workers. Acer Systems Inc. did not have a plan that addresses fair hiring, especially with the issue of transgender. Whereas the issue was resolved principally on the HR manager’s decision, Jana took a utilitarian approach rather than compelling Larry to resign. As such, organizations should create fair and solid policies that focus on hiring and termination.
As for compliance issues, sexual discrimination is a broad subject that covers multiple fields. Businesses must hire attorneys to ensure that the company adheres to specific legal issues within their state, region, and with the federal government. Making a periodic update of their organizational policies will ensure that companies do not follow into litigation traps. In the current case, Acer Systems do not have specific protocols, neither does it adhere to the Equality Opportunity Act since the Ohio statement government does not have a law that protects transgenders. Another way for gaining the capacity to address compliance issues is by becoming gender-neutral, creating a platform to investigate discrimination issues, setting up policies that forbid the practice, and training employees on discrimination (Everfi Inc., 2021). Similarly, the management should set up a plan for communicating with transitioning employees, including their intentions for recognition, information sharing, personnel documentation updates.
Stakeholders
The major stakeholders with an important stake in the Graceful and Beautiful Swan Case are as described below.
- The Human Resources Manager of Ace System, Inc. (Jana Hollingsworth). As the HM manager, Jana has an overriding role in Larry’s employment status. She has the leading capacity to either dismiss or retain Larry. Jana also has the responsibility to persuade the Ace System staff to re-examine Larry’s condition and support her transition. The HR manager must resoundingly present the issue to the management board and the entire Ace System, including the customers.
- Larry Kent. Larry is the source of the current anticipated change and debate struggling gender identity. Larry is faced with the conundrum of transitioning from a male gender to female gender. He anticipates possible cases of discrimination and rejection from the company, and possibly, a bad image for the company when the issue fails to appeal to the public and management.
- Employees of Ace System. The management must convince the Ace System staff to collaborate with a transgender, something not expressly observed before. Employees such as Mr. Anthony Parker, Bob Wilson, and Rick Health, among others, will have to encounter the challenges of transgender collaboration or consider quitting the position.
- The Ace System, Inc. The company must undergo a reshuffle characterized by training initiatives to enlighten workers about inclusivity, diversity, gender equality, and nondiscrimination. The company must brace for a possible loss of some of the remarkable employers as well as customers during this transition.
- Customers of Ace System, Inc. Some companies must coexist with their communities and the customers, they have a leading say over the current transition. Customers can decide to either quit their engagements with Ace System or opt for substitutes or opt to understand and collaborate with the company.
Relevance of the Issue
The modern workplace is replete with issues of gender transition. Larry’s case resonates with the increasing appeal of the lobby groups to reflect workplace practices to accommodate transgender issues. Transgender employees or those envisioning to transition face numerous roadblocks during their workplace. In most cases these are problems with abusive colleagues, unprepared staff, and cultural impediments.
Ignorance in the workplace is one of the leading obstacles whereby the majority of the staff have limited knowledge of what being transgender involves, the scope of this terminology and appropriate use, facts required in the transition, and the necessary support for transitioning employees. While some companies made it a priority to be inclusive for different workers, including gay and lesbian workers, most fear due to transgender issues. For instance, “There’s a lack of understanding about what the real issues are. Some employers lump trans issues in with sexuality” (Raynor, 2020). Whereby most of these challenges can be addressed through the creation of an inclusive work environment and training, very organizations have demonstrated the willingness to incorporate such.
Similar to Larry, most transgender employees feel the pressure to conceal their identities, which hurts their career pathway. Nonetheless, most cannot hide their identity even though they have limited laws that protect them against discrimination. As an example, transgender staff encounter b a catch-22 in the set of questions about their previously held names. Those who transition should either respond sincerely and possibly unveil a birth name revealing a different gender, or protect themselves from probable prejudice by lying, which could lead to a loss of employment when exposed (Raynor, 2020). Additional measures such as social security records and background checks could further exposure to the prospective or current employers, at which point their employment will depend on the values held by the manager.
Case Analysis
The Role of Businesses in Addressing Issues Affecting the Society
Businesses play remarkable roles in the creation of jobs, wealth, and control of society. The functionality stems from the aspect of Corporate Social Responsibility whereby businesses participate in society through environmental, economical, and social improvements to achieve sustainability. For instance, during the current pandemic, most businesses innovated their ways of operations to cope with the public challenges and demands. Companies such as P&G accelerated their production of protective gears like hand sanitizers. Apple’s Foxconn manufactured face shields and ventilators. Ford merged with the United Auto Workers GE to make ventilators and with 3M to develop respirators. Other firms transformed their operations such as LVMH, which changed from perfume production to produce the increasing need for the gel.
Addressing Racial and Historical injustices
Society expects companies to serve as champions of good practices and by extension, address racial discrimination and other historical injustices. Besides, society can also lobby for human rights improvements. During the past year, the corporate world stood for “Black Lives Matter.” At the minimum, COVID-19 has a remarkable role in the advancements of the “Black Lives Matter” ideology. The rate of hospitalizations and mortality among the Black, Latino, and Native American people in the United States was two to four times that the white Americans. The turnout around point was the cold and foul murder of George Floyd. Apart from the global spontaneous demonstrations, almost every enterprise expressed the urge to contribute to Black Lives Matter and demonstrate an obligation to justice.
Most businesses promised to improve the level of Black representation in leadership and purchase more from Black-owned dealers. For instance, Aurora James, a creative director in Brooklyn, wrote the famous 15 Percent Pledge idea that would encourage leading brands such as Whole Foods, Target, Sephora, Target, and Walmart, to commit 15 percent of their shelf space to products from black-owned enterprises that resonate with the African-Americans demographics to steer brands’ growth bringing new investments that could extend to black communities. The initiative sought to encourage Black people to feel supported. To that end, Sephora’s U.S. business responded positively by pledging to honor the three stages of this deal. The retailer’s commitments involved “figuring out the current percentage of shelf space and contracts dedicated to black-owned businesses, identifying concrete next steps to increase that number, and … growing the share of black businesses Sephora helps empower to at least 15 percent” (Maheshwari, 2020).
The ensuing wave also compelled Microsoft to pledge 500 megawatts of solar energy to support minority communities. The project would operate from the “under-resourced communities” extremely affected by pollution and climate change. While the company could not state the selection process of the minority groups, emphasis is on the disproportionately affected communities by the coronavirus pandemic. This collaboration would provide close to $50 million collected from power purchase agreement revenue. The objective is to run the initiative as “community-led grants and investments for education, career training, land restoration, and clean energy and efficiency programs” (Merchant, 2020). The company intimated that the priority of the funding would target minority- and women-owned enterprises.
Other enterprises also participated in the symbolic moves such as PepsiCo, which dropped old-fashioned brand images like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. The company promised to phase out the brands amid criticisms that they perpetuate racial stereotypes (Watson, 2020). Shortly after PepsiCo’s declaration, Conagro brands also announced their review of Mr. Butterworth’s brand of pancakes and syrups, suggesting the company’s solidarity with the black and brown lives and the willingness to reshape their brands since they resonated with racism (Watson, 2020). These incidences reflect the roles that businesses play and the expectation from society that they would support human rights and abolish societal injustices.
Applicable Behavioral Ethics Framework
Title VII of the Equal Employment Act would be the best framework to guide this situation. As discussed in the video, the act banns employers from rejecting to hire people on the basis of their nationality, gender, religion, race, and skin color (MGT 305 Principles of Management Live Lecture: Shared Screen with Speaker View, n.d). The act also outlaws practices that segregate workers based on such conditions.
Recommendations
Communicating Larry’s transformation to coworkers and customers to minimize negative consequences
To avoid direct objection from the customers and the employees, Jana must orientate the actions and measures toward the Equal Opportunity Employment Act (EOEA). To that end, the manager should design new policies that start with staff training to recognize the existing laws on fair hiring and justifiable termination. For instance, Jana should start by enforcing some of the guiding principles of (EOEA) such as “prohibiting unintentional discrimination” and “prohibiting intention discrimination.” To that end, Jana can justify her actions of protecting the identity of Larry considering that Federal laws forbid workplace discrimination. The manager should explain to the workers and customers that firing Larry is a negative business practice as suggested by the law, and thus the need to establish more novel ways of helping the employee to transition.
As opposed to demonstrating wilful prejudice to employees based on their identity, the unintentional outlaw’s companies from practicing non-deliberate measures that hurt staff. For instance, implementing policies that do not have biased motivation but disproportionately affect specific categories of employees. For such reasons, the business should create reasonable accommodation for workers to safeguard their interests and identity while at the workplace. Whereas Ohio State does not have specific laws that safeguard transgender workers, Acer Systems should project itself as an outstanding company that abides by federal laws on goodwill and serve as an equal opportunity employer.
Origin of the Conflict
The ensuing conflict is both a cultural and ethical issue. The company lacked proper mechanisms and policies addressing gender equality, particularly transgender transition. At the same time, Ohio State did not have laws that guide or protect workers from transgender discrimination. To that end, most employees were used to a conventional cultural prototype that supports two forms of gender, that is, male and female. As an ethical issue, the manager feared the anxiety that this topic would pose to the customers. Accordingly, the matter would raise ethical concerns related to the use of social amenities such as bathrooms. Thus, the issue required completely restricting the company’s practices including the structures, cultural ideologies, and management plans.
Plan to keep Acer Systems Active
First, the company should create a gender equality training program that targets both the employees and management. To avoid confrontations between the manager and the workers, the company should educate the relevant stakeholders about the overt and covert forms of discrimination. Accordingly, it is important to enlighten them about the risks, approaches to identify such practices, and measures to report and address them. The current case exposed Acer System’s lack of clear communication guidelines and engagement in addressing gender equality issues. Having a plan in mind on engagement would reduce the required time handling discrimination matters.
Furthermore, to protect the identity of the company before the customers, the management should publicize Ace System, Inc. and inform the public about the intention to support gender equality and identity. Investors and customers can learn about the business’ goal to achieve equal opportunity for all individuals and thus avoid negative publicity. There is no doubt that the issue would leak out to the public early and pose mixed reactions. Thus, taking the first step to clarify to the public would ensure the company stands out and demonstrates the willingness to abide by the law.
References
BBC. (2021).The first step in transgender equality in the workplace. BBC. Web.
Clark-Hitt, R., and Humphrey, J. (n.d). A Graceful and beautiful swan.
Everfi Inc. (2021). How to prevent sexual orientation discrimination in your workplace. Everfi. Web.
Maheshwari, S. (2020). Sephora signs a ’15 percent pledge’ to carry more black-owned brands. New York Times. Web.
Merchant, E., F. (2020). Microsoft and Sol Systems to build 500 megawatts of solar, boost community investment. GTM. Web.
MGT 305 Principles of management live lecture: Shared screen with speaker view (n.d). Web.
Raynor, S. (2020). Transgender issues in the workplace: Bathroom access, workplace abuse, hiring discrimination. Everfi. Web.
Watson, E. (2020). PepsiCo to drop Aunt-Jemima branding: We recognize Aunt Jemima’s origins are based on a racial stereotype. Food Navigator. Web.