Making a Tough Decision Guidelines and Rubric Overview: 

In this exercise, you will examine how to weigh a set of facts and make a difficult personnel decision about laying off valued employees during a time of financial hardship. You also will examine your own values and criteria used in the decision-making process.

Begin this assignment by reviewing the following scenario:* ​Walker Space Institute (WSI) is a medium-sized firm located in Connecticut. The firm essentially has been a subcontractor on many large space contracts that have been acquired by firms such as Alliant Techsystems and others. With cutbacks in many NASA programs, WSI has an excess of employees. Stuart Tartaro, the head of one of the sections, has been told by his superior that he must reduce his section of engineers from seven to four. He is looking at the following summaries of their vitae and pondering how he will make this decision:

1.    Roger Allison​, age 26, married, two children. Allison has been with WSI for a year and a half. He is a very good engineer, with a degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has held two prior jobs and lost both of them because of cutbacks in the space program. He moved to Connecticut from California to take this job. Allison is well-liked by his coworkers.

2.    Dave Jones​, age 24, single. Jones is African American, and the company looked hard to get him because of affirmative action pressure. He is not very popular with his coworkers. Because he has been employed less than a year, not too much is known about his work. On his one evaluation (which was average), Jones accused his supervisor of bias against African Americans. He is a graduate of the Detroit Institute of Technology.

3.    William Foster​, age 53, married, three children. Foster is a graduate of the “school of hard knocks.” After serving in Operation Desert Storm, he started to go to college but dropped out because of high family expenses. Foster has worked at the company for 20 years. His ratings were excellent for 15 years. The last five years they have been average. Foster feels his supervisor evaluates him unfairly because he does not “have sheepskins covering his office walls.”

4.    Donald Boyer​, age 32, married, no children. Boyer is well-liked by his coworkers. He has been at WSI five years, and he has a B.S. and M.S. in engineering from Purdue University. Boyer’s ratings have been mixed. Some supervisors rated him high and some average. Boyer’s wife is a doctor.

5.    Sherman Soltis​, age 37, divorced, two children. He has a B.S. in engineering from The Ohio State University. Soltis is very active in community affairs: Scouts, Little League, and United Way. He is a friend of the firm’s vice president through church work. His ratings have been average, although some recent ones indicate that his skills are out of date. He is well-liked and has been employed at WSI for 14 years.

6.    Warren Fortuna​, age 44, married, five children. He has a B.S. in engineering from Georgia Tech. Fortuna headed this section at one time. He worked so hard that he had a heart attack. Under doctor’s orders, he resigned from the supervisory position. Since then he has done good work, though because of his health, he is a bit slower than the others. Now and then he must spend extra time on a project because his skills became out of date during the eight years he headed the section. His performance evaluations for the last two years have been above average. He has been employed at WSI for 14 years.

7.    Sandra Rosen​, age 22, single. She has a B.S. in engineering technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Rosen has been employed less than a year. She is enthusiastic, a very good worker, and well-liked by her coworkers. She is well-regarded by Tartaro.

Tartaro does not quite know what to do. He sees the good points of each of his section members. Most have been good employees and can all pretty much do one another’s work. No one has special training. He is fearful that the section will hear about the downsizing and morale will drop. Additionally, he believes work productivity would suffer. He does not even want to talk to his wife about it, in case she would let something slip. Tartaro has come to you, Edmund Graves, personnel manager at WSI, for some guidelines on this decision—legal, moral, and best personnel practice.

*Scenario adapted from Glueck, W. F. (1978). ​Cases and exercises in personnel​ (pp. 24-26). Dallas, TX: Business Publications. 

Prompt: 

To complete this assignment, you will write a succinct two-page paper explaining what you would do if you were in Tartaro’s position. This dilemma challenges you to make a fair, but difficult decision regarding layoffs in an organization. Throughout this process, you will examine your rationale for selecting the people to be laid off, and may even discover some personal biases. 

Specifically, be sure to address the following critical elements:

●     Identify who you would lay off and who you would keep on the team and present the rationale for those selections

●     Assess how your own biases may have influenced your decisions. Did you stay true to the facts, or did your own values and experiences play into your decision-making?

●     Assess the impact your decisions might have on the morale in the organization

●     Describe how you would move forward with the new team of four, down from an original size of seven

●    Support your perspective and thoughts with concepts and theories presented in this module’s lesson. (​Some typical issues to consider are survivor syndrome or guilt, leadership style, sexism, racism, ageism, and communication.) 

Guidelines for Submission:​ Your assignment must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document, two pages in length, with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman type, 1-inch margins, and any resources cited in APA format.

Instructor Feedback:​ This activity uses an integrated rubric in Blackboard. Students can view instructor feedback in the Grade Center.  

Rubric

MGT 3332: Organizational Behavior

Walker Space Institute (WSI) is a medium-sized firm located in Connecticut. The firm essentially has been a subcontractor on many large space contracts that have been acquired by firms such as Alliant Techsystems and others.