Assessment 2: Analyze a Set of Worker Complaints

**PLEASE READ EVERYTHING BEFORE STARTING**This Assessment has six specific elements. Be sure to address each element.

Assessment 2: Analyze a Set of Worker Complaints

Organize and analyze employee complaint data and provide an executive summary of your analysis.

INTRODUCTION

You are a consultant to the CEO of CapraTek. You were hired to analyze 30 worker complaint letters received by the company. Using the complaints and the data for CapraTek employees at the Illinois, Georgia, and Alabama sites, you will conduct an analysis of the complaints and their risk to the company. This analysis will be presented using a chart or table. You may use the sample CapraTek Complaint Analysis Chart [DOCX] provided.

When you have completed your analysis of the complaints, prepare a 1–2-page executive summary addressed to the CEO that summarizes the information in your chart. Your summary should describe any legal exposure resulting from the complaints, highlighting those that represent the most severe risk.

Please include both the chart and the executive summary in one document.

PREPARATION

Use the CapraTek Employee Complaint Letters [DOCX] and the CapraTek Employee Data [XLSX] files to complete this assessment. You can see an example of how complaint information can be organized in the CapraTek Complaint Analysis Chart [DOCX].

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Organize employee complaints in a chart, table, or other device. Include all relevant information in sufficient detail using these categories:
   • Employee name.
   • Work plant.
   • Job title.
   • Salary.
   • EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) classification(s), if any.
   • Demographic data.
   • Nature of the complaint.
   • Description of legal risk (i.e., Title VII discrimination of age, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, pregnancy discrimination, or risk for other tort liability such as OSHA violations, wrongful death, illness or injury, workers’ compensation claims, COVID-19 exposure, or other liability).
   • Relevant legislation.
   • Viability of each complaint.
   • Ethical issues.
   • Your reasons for finding each complaint to be legally viable or not.
2. Identify specific laws and/or regulations relevant to each complaint that suggests liability. Provide a rationale for each complaint indicating why it either does or does not suggest liability.
3. Assess risk for legal liability or lack of liability for all complaints based on the facts, providing a rationale supported by statutes, regulations, or case law.
4. Analyze ethical issues relative to each complaint with reference to a specified, recognized ethical framework.
5. Propose a conclusion for each complaint and provide a rationale.
6. Summarize the analysis in a 1–2 page executive summary that also highlights complaints that represent the most severe risk.

Submit both your table and executive summary for this assessment.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

As you complete your assessment, be sure it meets the following guidelines:

• Written communication: Use error-free doctoral-level writing, with original (non-plagiarized) content, logical phrasing, and accurate word choices.
• Scholarship: Use 3–4 professionally reputable sources to support your main points and analysis. Be sure to include scholarly sources. Course readings may be included among the required sources.
• APA formatting: All resources and citations should be formatted according to current APA style and formatting guidelines.
• Length: 5–6 typed, double-spaced pages, in addition to the cover page, illustrations, reference page, and appendix.
• Font and font size: Consistent, APA-compliant font, 12–point.

Please also note:

• For this assessment, you are required to follow the Standard Naming Convention requirements and the Track Changes requirements for any files you upload. You will find the requirements on the DBA Submission Requirements page.
• Before submitting your assessment, you are required to use Recite to check that your in-text citations match the reference list at the end of your assessment. Recite also checks for stylistic errors related to referencing. Make any corrections to your assessment based on the Recite report.

COMPETENCIES MEASURED

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

• Competency 1: Create rule- and value-based arguments from human resource models and theories, supported with clear and relevant evidence that convey professional tone and style.
  • Summarize the analysis in an executive summary that also highlights complaints that represent the most severe risk.
• Competency 3: Examine the legal and ethical challenges of leading the reskilling of talent pools in a highly digitized global environment.
  • Analyze ethical issues relative to each complaint with reference to a specified, recognized ethical framework.
• Competency 4: Appraise multiple responses to a managing a human resource problem for compliance within ethical, legal, or regulatory frameworks.
  • Assess risks for legal liability or lack of liability for all complaints based on the facts, providing a rationale supported by statutes, regulations, or case law.
• Competency 5: Analyze an organization’s human resource management problem from the perspective of the legal and regulatory environment in which the organization operates.
  • Organize employee complaints in a chart, table, or other device including all relevant information in clear categories and sufficient detail.
• Competency 6: Evaluate compliance-based complaints filed with the EEOC, OSHA, and other governmental bodies using secondary data-sets.
  • Identify specific laws and/or regulations relevant to each complaint, except where the complaint does not suggest liability; provide a rationale in either event.

For the second Assessment you will need to analyze a set of worker complaints and complete an executive summary of your analysis.

Analyze each complaint individually using the template. Be sure to discuss the risk to the company explaining why you reached the conclusion you reached. And do not forget to provide a solution to resolve the complaint. After you complete your template analysis, draft an executive summary that discusses what the data tells us about the working environment at Capra Tek, highlighting complaints that represent the most severe risk. Your executive summary can follow your template or be completed as a separate document.

The complaint letters are provided to you in a DOCX file. Data on the individuals is included in the XSLX file. BE SURE to use the Complaint Analysis Chart (in Word) as your template for the analysis.

This Assessment has six specific elements. Be sure to address each element.

You will need to read through 30 complaint letters from employees, survivors, and others regarding conditions at CapraTek during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Be sure to use the sample chart to organize data from the letters.

You should become familiar generally with employment discrimination laws such as Title VII, the Americans with Disability Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, FMLA, and the June 15, 2020, U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that added LBGTQ protection to the category of “sex” as a protected class in Title VII.

You should start to develop an overall understanding of who is protected by discrimination laws and what employers are prohibited from doing in addition to issues raised by Covid-19 in the workplace, including CDC, OSHA, and state workers’ compensation insurance with regard to Covid-19. For example, all three states involved in the CapraTek scenario cover Covid-19 as a compensable workplace health hazard, suggesting that employee complaints based on negligence directly against the company are not viable. Additionally, note that workers’ compensation bars suing an employer for injury caused by the employer’s negligence in almost all cases. This means that workers cannot sue an employer for an injury or illness caused by negligence of the employer. Employees may sue 3rd parties, but not the employer!

NOTE – It is important to keep in mind that this course is about United States law (other countries often have very different laws.)

When you are doing your research, do not be led astray by using Google to locate laws and mistakenly choose laws from other English-speaking countries. Websites containing “.au” are Australian; “.nz” are from New Zealand; “.uk” are from the United Kingdom; “.ca” are Canadian, etc. They will likely not be discussing U.S. laws, though they may be similar.

It is always best to focus your research on scholarly articles found in the Library!

And Don’t forget to make use of the Federal Compliance Laws summary I provided in the initial Announcement.

This throughout the course we will be taking an in depth look at the many laws that govern Discrimination in employment. Below you will find a comprehensive summary of the laws and regulation that we will be studying.

Federal Compliance Laws

Workplace Discrimination

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII): Employers cannot discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. Based on the June 2020 Supreme Court ruling, this law also protects gender identity and sexual orientation. Reasonable accommodations must be made for candidates or employees with sincere religious beliefs unless it would impose “undue hardship” on the employer’s business. — Note: This law also prohibits sexual harassment as it a form of sex discrimination.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, Amended to Title VII (PDA): Employers cannot discriminate against a woman because of pregnancy, childbirth, or medical conditions related to either.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA): Employers must pay men and women an equal wage for equal work performed at the same organization.

— Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009: An amendment to the EPA, this law makes it easier for employees to file equal-pay lawsuits; an employee has 180 days after a discriminatory paycheck to file an equal-pay lawsuit, and this period renews with every paycheck that is discriminatory.

Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA): Employers cannot discriminate against someone who is qualified for a job but also has a disability, whether as an applicant or employee. Reasonable accommodations must be made to allow a qualified, disabled person to do their job, unless it would impose “undue hardship” on the employer’s business.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA): Employers cannot discriminate against someone due to their age if they are 40 years old or older.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA): Employers cannot discriminate against someone because of their genetic information or family medical history, including genetic tests.

Each of these laws also protects anyone from retaliation for making a complaint or participating in an investigation relating to discrimination based on any of these laws.

For more details on these laws and other discrimination laws relating to employment, visit the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) website.

Important Caveat

Small and medium businesses in the private sector have different requirements for following federal anti-discrimination laws, depending on how many employees they have.

The following federal anti-discrimination laws apply if a business has:

• At least one employee: EPA
• 15-19 employees: EPA, Title VII, PDA, ADA, and GINA
• More than 20 employees: EPA, Title VII, PDA, ADA, GINA, and ADEA

An employee is defined as anyone who is:

• Full-time
• Part-time
• Seasonal
• Temporary
• Under a work program
• Volunteering
• Any of these categories and not a citizen, even if undocumented

Be sure to also check if there are any additional state or local anti-discrimination laws you need to follow. https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/employment-discrimination.aspx

Wages and Hours

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): This law regulates youth employment, recordkeeping overtime pay, minimum wage. The Federal minimum is $7.25 per hour as of July, 2020; but Minimum wage varies by state e.g., Washington $14.49 – Georgia $5.15. This HR law is especially relevant to hourly workers, since these workers may receive minimum wage but are also eligible for overtime pay.

Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA): This law protects job status under qualified conditions and includes protections against retaliation. Employers must give employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for health and family reasons. This frequently applies to employees taking leave after the birth of a child, but it also covers adoptions, care of a family member, and serious health conditions.

For additional federal laws regarding hours and wages, check the Department of Labor (DOL) website. Also be sure to check your state and local regulations.

The FLSA is NOT limited by the number of employees per se. There are two types of coverage that qualifies who gets covered by the law:

• Enterprise Coverage: Applies if the business has an annual dollar volume of sales or business done of at least 500,000 dollars, or if it is a hospital, school (including higher learning), preschool, nursing/medical care home, or government agency.
• Individual Coverage: Applies if engaged in interstate commerce.

For more detailed information, consult the DOL website on who is covered under FLSA.

The FMLA, on the other hand, is a little easier to figure out. Employers in the private sector who have 50 or more employees for at least 20 workweeks a year are required to provide coverage under the law. All government agencies and schools need to provide coverage.

However, there are further requirements that employees need to fulfill before they can be eligible for FMLA leave.

In addition to working for a qualified employer, employees need to:

• Have worked 1,250 hours during the last year
• Work at a location that has 50 or more employees within 75 miles
• Have worked for the business for 12 months (doesn’t have to be consecutively)

For more detailed information, consult the DOL website on employee eligibility for FMLA leave.

Health Insurance and Benefits

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), or “Obamacare”: From an HR compliance standpoint, this law requires employers with 50 or more employees to offer “affordable minimum essential coverage” to employees. All employers have certain reporting responsibilities. For more details on reporting, consult the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website on the ACA.

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA): This law gives employees the right to continue health insurance coverage for a time, 18 months in most cases, in the event that they lose coverage, usually after quitting or termination. The employee is responsible for paying the premiums. This only applies to group health plans maintained by state/local governments or by private-sector employers with 20 or more employees.

Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA): This law helps protect individuals in the private sector with retirement and health plans by setting requirements for the plan managers and fiduciaries. For example, plans need to give participants important information about features and the appeals process, and participants have the right to sue in case of breach of fiduciary duty.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA): The HIPAA Privacy Rule protects an individual’s health information and gives them certain rights about how it’s used and communicated by healthcare providers, insurers, and employers. The HIPAA Security Rule specifically deals with protecting electronic health information.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA): A response to the coronavirus pandemic, this law expands paid sick and family leave requirements for private employers with less than 500 employees and some public employers. Mainly, it requires these employers to give two weeks of additional paid sick leave if an employee is quarantined or has COVID-19 symptoms. Additional paid leave for caring for family is also included but at two-thirds an employee’s regular rate.

There are also many best practices surrounding benefits that you should consider in combination with these HR regulations. For more details, read our chapter on compensation and benefits.

Workplace Protection

There are many regulations on workplace safety, so what you need to follow and be aware of will depend on your industry. However, there is one main source for these regulations that you will need to consult:

• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): OSHA is a government agency tasked with enforcing regulations that ensure worker safety and protection in the workplace. It covers most private- and public-sector employees, protecting their right to a safe workplace, to receiving clearly communicated information on workplace conditions and safety procedures, and the ability to file confidential complaints without fear of retaliation.

As with other HR laws, OSHA protects workers against retaliation from employers. For other questions about workplace safety or OSHA, visit the Department of Labor employer page on health and safety.

Helpful Resources

Here are a few key links that you will refer to repeatedly in this course.

• List of discrimination laws enforced by the EEOC
• Tips for small businesses on handling common workplace issues relating to discrimination
• Overview of the FMLA
• Overview of the FLSA
• IRS laws regarding the ACA
• Immigration labor laws

Resources: Writing Resources

The following resources will help improve your writing in all the assessments in this course.

• Morel, M. (2012). Writing recommendations and executive summaries. Keeping Good Companies, 64(5), 274–278.
• Academic Writer

APA MANUAL

You will be using the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (commonly referred to as the APA manual) style in your papers and citations for this course. Refer to the manual for more information.

• American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).

Resources: Employment Law

Schrimsher, M., & Fretwell, C. (2012). What small business owners should know about employment law. American Journal of Management, 12(2), 31–39.

• This article provides an overview of key employment laws and how they impact a small business, although they are equally applicable to any business.

Gale (Ed.). (2013). Discrimination. In Gale (Ed.), Gale encyclopedia of everyday law (3rd ed.). Gale.

• Read the section titles: Federal Laws Prohibiting Employment Discrimination. This resource gives an overview of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination.

Bostock v. Clayton County. 590 US _ (2020). https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/17-1618

• This landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision issued on June 15, 2020 declared that “sex” discrimination under Title VII would now apply to same-sex and transgender individuals.

National Conference of State Legislatures. (2020). COVID-19: Workers’ compensation. https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment…

• Use this resource to look up how each state has addressed COVID-19 worker compensation issues.

U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (2021). Protecting workers: Guidance on mitigating and preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/safework

• This resource provides OSHA’s latest recommendations on protecting workers from COVID-19.

Gjelten, E.A. (n.d.). Can you sue your employer if you were exposed to COVID-19 at work? https://www.alllaw.com/articles/personal-injury/su…

• This resource discusses potential steps that employees who contracted COVID-19 in their workplace may take.

HRNews. (2020). Take these 5 steps when an employee gets COVID-19.

• This resource describes CDC- and OSHA-recommended action to take when a worker gets COVID.

Resources: Employment Ethics

Angonga, M. C., & Florah O. M. (2019). A theoretical account of human resource management practices, ethical work climate, and employee ethical behavior: A critical literature review. Business Management Dynamics, 9(4), 1–8.

• This article examines human resource management practices and approaches to creating an ethical work climate.

Nicholson, J., & Kurucz, E. (2019). Relational leadership for sustainability: Building an ethical framework from the moral theory of ‘Ethics of care.’ Journal of Business Ethics, 156(1), 25–43.

• This resource explains business ethics from a framework of ethics of care.

Hancock, J. (2019). Applied humanism: How to create a more effective and ethical business. Business Expert Press.

• This resource explains business ethics from a framework of humanism, a system of ethics. You may want to pay particular attention to:
  • Chapter 2: “What is Humanism and Why Should I Care?,” pages 7–10
  • Part II: “Applying Humanism to the World of Business,” pages 43–120.