Juanita Garza is a head nurse at Hapless Hospital and Sam Smith is her supervisor. For many years it has been widely known around Hapless that Garza is a poor head nurse and a weak manager. Over the years, the relationship between Garza and her supervisor Smith, deteriorated to the point that Smith decided it was time to make a change and terminate Garza. Smith tends to avoid confrontation whenever possible. However, employee unrest on the unit and problems relating to preferential treatment, scheduling mix-ups, poor performance, and patient complaints convinced Smith that the confrontation could no longer be avoided. Smith met with Garza and warned her that if problems on the unit were not worked out, she would be replaced. Three months later, no improvement had been made and Smith requested approval for the termination of Garza.

 

You are the department head and you have the final authority regarding what action will be taken and whether or not to approve the termination. As you review the file, you note that the warning alleged to have been given three months ago was documented by a note to the file from Smith with no signature by Garza. There are a few other notes in the file to show that some problems were occurring, but they are not very detailed.

You review Garza s performance appraisals for the past three years and note the following: Performance appraisals under your system are to be performed annually on the employee s anniversary date. Garza s appraisals were 3 to 4 months late each year. The performance appraisals show that in such routine areas as quantity of work done and quality of work, Smith consistently graded Garza as meeting standards. The comments section of the appraisals reflects that Smith gave Garza suggestions on how to improve her performance. They deal with scheduling and equal treatment of employees. Smith claims this documents the existence of these problems and that they were discussed at the performance evaluation conference. Garza alleges that this is merely a personality conflict and that her evaluations clearly demonstrate she was meeting all standards and that termination is unjustified and unfair. 

you interview the employees on the unit and other witnesses and find that indeed Garza is an incompetent head nurse. What action would you take? Please explain your rationale. If a decision is made to terminate Garza, does she have legal recourse (i.e. a basis to fight the termination)? Please explain your answer and include probability of success if a case is filed. What human resource (HR) practices should be changed? Why?

answer:

I will not terminate Garza, I will give her a chance to improve her performance.

If termination is the decision she can file a case or take legal action and there is a high probability of winning the case.

The human resource practices to be changed are performance appraisal and employee development.

Step-by-step explanation

1. Termination or firing an employee like Garza is not always an option. As a department head, I need to be equally fair with my subordinates. I cannot merely base my decision on the opinions of other employees in the unit. The performance appraisal is a tool to gauge the performance of each employee and if the employee is consistently not meeting the standards then that is a ground for dismissal or termination. However in the case of Garza, she is consistently meeting the performance standards. If her poor performance has been widely known then her supervisor should not give her a passing grade. I will personally talk to Garza regarding her allege of personality conflict, because I think there is an ongoing issue between her and Sam Smith. As her supervisor, he needs to learn how to communicate with her subordinates professionally and he cannot escape confrontation. If one of his team member fails, it still reflects poorly on the leader. I will not terminate Garza instead I will give her chance to improve her performance. As a department head, I can propose to give her training and if after training her performance is still the same then that's the time to dismiss or terminate her.
2. Garza can take legal action if termination is the decision. The performance appraisal is a proof or evidence that she is consistently meeting the standards. If there are witnesses about her poor performance then those are verbal allegations only and difficult to justify without strong evidence. The file regarding the alleged warning was not even signed by Garza so she can deny it if in case it will be used as evidence of her poor performance.
3. Human resource practices to be change are the following

3.1 Timely performance review/appraisal

Performance appraisal is a regular review of employees performance. In case of Garza her appraisals were 3-4 month late each year. This must be done regularly and should not be late. The performance appraisal is being done to identify the strength and weaknesses of an employee. To provide a feedback to employees regarding their performance and related status. The supervisor of Garza did not use this appraisal to effectively communicate with her performance status. The human resource team also needs to sit with the reviewing authorities to ensure appraisals are done on time.

3.2 Employee development

No opportunity is given to an employee's training needs. There is no formal process to collect training needs and analyze skills. In case of Garza, the supervisor is aware of her poor performance and he can propose training for her. Inadequately trained employees tend to experience poor job performance and increased level of work related stress.