Managing Conflict

You are the manager of human resources at a shipping firm, and the CEO has approached you for guidance. He is about to make a difficult decision and is seeking your counsel on how to handle a certain situation. In an earlier staff meeting, you had outlined the following criteria to use when making a difficult decision involving employee relations:

â?¢Is there any precedent in the company that could not only serve as a guide but which must be considered to avoid reinventing the wheel? More importantly, could the firm be charged with discrimination if employees do not treat person X in this situation the same as person Y in the precedent situation?
â?¢Is this just a onetime individual issue, or is the decision, in effect, establishing a new policy?
â?¢What are the long-term ramifications if the company sets a new policy to address this situation?
â?¢Which should dominate the decision-making process: the good of the long-term future, the rights of the individuals affected right now, or the cost to the company?
â?¢Is how the company decides to handle this situation that is arising in department A going to have a bad impact on other departments?
â?¢Will the decision made have any impact to the outside community?
â?¢How will the decision among this certain number of employees, or this department, impact overall workplace harmony and teamwork?
â?¢Will the decision leave the supervisor involved with possible problems regarding other employees?
â?¢Are there any legal issues involved that may guide the decision-making process?
The exact situation the CEO is being asked to make a decision on is as follows:

The company is preparing for its negotiations for a new contract with its labor union.

In two particular departments, the supervisors suspect significant drug use on the part of the employees. Other supervisors are not sure if their departments have this problem.

As a result, the CEO is considering requiring mandatory drug testing for all new and existing employees. In prenegotiation discussions, the union leadership has stated adamantly that it opposes this, even though if tested positive, existing employees will go through several steps of company-paid treatment and company-paid cessation seminars.

The CEO is convinced that several of the more serious plant accidents had some under-the-influence element as their cause, and you agree with him. Whether it is true or not, expensive worker's compensation settlements were incurred by the company, in one case because of an amputation on a piece of machinery.

You need to formulate a strategy as to how to include this, or decide not to make this an issue in the upcoming negotiation.

He asked you to write your recommendation and explain which of the 9 criteria are the reasons for your recommendations. If other criteria helped you formulate your recommendation, explain that criteria.