You are a HR practitioner in a medium-sized company that operates several restaurants. Each restaurant hires approximately 25 new serving staff each year. Recently, a local newspaper ran an excoriating feature on local "breastaurants." Breastaurants are restaurants that sexual objectify their servers.  

 

This sexualization occurs in the selection process (e.g., picking stereotypically attractive women), mandating uniform requirements (e.g., tight-fitting or revealing clothing), and regulating server behaviour towards customers (e.g., expecting flirtatious behaviour). Interviews with servers indicates they experience a high level of unwanted sexual advances. The servers report that their concerns about patron behaviour are dismissed by managers as "part of the job". Some servers report depression arising from feelings of powerlessness, ambivalence and self-blame.  

One of your company's restaurants (the After Dark Lounge and Restaurant) was identified as in the newspaper article an example of a breastaurant. The HR manager (Kelly Smith) manager was concerned about this coverage and asked you to look into the hiring practices of the After Dark Lounge and Restaurant.  

 

The After Dark Lounge and Restaurant uses standardized and company approved advertisements, job specifications, and job descriptions. A review of hiring records suggests that 95% of the servers hired by the manager (Brad Doolan) over the past five years have been female. A brief visit one evening confirms newspaper reports that the servers are young, female, attractive, and wear revealing clothing.  

The other restaurants your company operates appear to hire approximately an equal number of male and female servers. The managers of these restaurants require serving staff to wear standardized uniforms. These uniforms vary between restaurants, but are much less revealing than the clothing worn by staff at the After Dark Lounge and Restaurant. 

 

The HR manager is concerned that the After Dark Lounge and Restaurant is being operated in a way that poses organizational risk. The HR manager has directed you to compose memo to her that she can use to advocate with the CEO for change.

 

Answer the following questions

1. What are the three main organizational risks associated with management practices at the After Dark Lounge and Restaurant? 
2. What organizational practices give rise to these risks? 
3. What changes do you recommend in HR planning, job design, recruitment, and selection practices to mitigate these risks? 
4. What criteria will you use to know if you have successfully mitigated the three main organizational risks?  

 

Reflect on and analyze the address the following questions.

 

1. Which of the organizational risks that you identified were you most concerned by? And why were you most concerned by this risk? 
2. What risks for the organization...your proposed changes in HR planning, job design, recruitment, and selection themselves pose? 
3. Why did you choose the criteria that you did to know if you have successfully mitigated the three main organizational risks? 
4. Justify the recommendation you have made about Brad Doolan (the restaurant manager)? 

 

The twenty first century has seen liberal democracies giving the public communities such as media the power to subject organizations under scrutiny to verify compliance to the Federal Laws that among other things discourages discrimination against worker and other malpractices in the environment of work place. Such surveillance duties has seen some companies come into the spotlight. These malpractices beside having legal ramifications makes the company susceptible other major risks as portrayed in the case study.

Step-by-step explanation

The case highlighted by the local newspaper theme as  "Breastaurants" subject both the Restaurant and the Company to numerous risks. However, weighing on the risks the company has narrowed down the risks to three main risks as discussed below:

To begin with, the newspaper report may disparage the reputation of the eatery company. The public may misconstrue the malpractices from one restaurant to be happening across its chains. As a result, this may cause uneven distribution of labor given that the public more so women will never admire associating with an organization that infringes the right rights clear spelt in the Federal Laws that regulates among other things the malpractices such as discrimination against gender while staffing and sexual harassment where women are subjected to hostile environment that makes them prey to sexual exploitation in a civilized society. When the company is not able to attract women into the organization, it will not be able to create a diversified teams that have proved to be giving an organization a competitive edge. There is power that accompanies an organization that embraces differences posed by demographical factures such as race, gender, nationality, age distribution, and people with disability.

Subsequently, the Company and it Restaurant may be subjected to scrutiny by government agencies, to verify these allegations in the public domains. Non compliance to Federal Laws may cause the company to be subjected to exorbitant fines and charges to redress the damages. During these process of investigation, the company operations shall be derailed as when employees are interviewed to ascertain these claims. Also, when victims (Servers) that have suffered the ordeal of poor managerial activities report incidences of sexual exploitation and harassment the organization will have to dig deep into their scoffers to compensate them. This has an implication of reducing the profits of the company. Similarly, shareholders may lose the faith in investing in a company that do not give them value to their investment. At this economically derailed condition, the firm may start experiencing a mass exodus (turnover) caused by the firm unhealthy economic state to meet their needs such as wages and salaries.

Lastly, the public outrage may affect the company's strategic goal of growth by venturing into new markets. This will be so, especially when the management will not be able to attract customers through adverts intended to increase it profit. Another situation is where the company shall be seeking funds from financial institution, unfortunately the banks may turn them down given that their credit rating may have been raising eyebrows or curtailed by the State. As a result, the company under these hostile business situations may be forced exit the industry or seek nonexistent merger.

There are several organization intentions and actions that encourages prevalence of the mentioned risks. At the outset, the biasness and discrimination in recruitment and selection process makes women to be susceptible to sexual harassment. Also, making it a necessity to female employees to maintain wardrobe that reveals there private anatomy makes them be prey to sexual abuse. Also, the intention of managers of entertaining their customers to use overtly sexual connotations to address their employees also create a hostile environment, another malpractice is on the part of the managerial inaction to sternly address sexual harassment claims from their female employees before it disseminate into the public domain. And finally, preferring female candidate to their possible qualified male candidates in the their hiring process catalyzes discrimination cases .

To abate the aforementioned organizational risks before they become out of control, the HR department recommend the following actions: In the first place, the eatery firm should introduce a policy addressing equal opportunity employer, this will seen them give equal chances to candidates seeking employment in their companies. Eventually, this may see the wanton behavior of management of preferring one gender addressed thus guaranteeing Human Resource Planning for present and future needs. Also, to redress job design the eatery firm should prepare a job description and specification that will clearly spell out the roles, responsibility, relationship, channels of reporting claims, and also the chain of command within the firm. Another, issues is to address recruitment and selection and the HR department recommends that the recruitment and selection process should be conducted at the company headquarters and successful applicant deployed to their various branches to address uniformity and correct one gender preference. An finally, the company should ensure the annual need of labor should be even number as opposed to 25.

To ensure that the previously mentioned risks are mitigated the company should flatten their communication channels to ensure that the top managers are accessible and can receive feedback directly from the employees especially the Servers. Also, the company shall have conducted a job analysis that revealed the job specification and descriptions that is in tandem with Laws of the land. The documentation of reported cases will also help the company to monitor mitigation of such risks. And finally, the company should embrace technology to assist in the advertisement of vacant positions.