Pregnancy as a Barrier to Job Status

James Boyd

Case Studies: Chapter 14 & 16

Case 14.3: Pregnancy as a Barrier to Job Status

1. Her boss is already seeing the possible effects of her starting a family. Raising children is difficult for mothers who also work, managing childcare, illness, and other typical motherly duties could impact the performance at work. Roy is questioning how this situation will affect the company and his team. This thinking by Roy, while dismissing the information she was trying to present and disregarding the law when it comes to maternity leave has her feeling that when she returns she will have a much more difficult environment in which to work.
2. He should have started with congratulations, and maybe listened to what she had prepared to happen in her absence to lessen the impact to the team. If he would have maintained a positive attitude it would have made the situation much easier for everyone. His reaction puts both the company and himself at risk, especially if this type of reaction has been documented in the past. It is evident she put a lot of thought into ways of mitigating her absence and is planning on returning to her position with the same dedication.
3. Roy would be able to ensure her work would be covered if he would evolve her into the process. Since she started to lay out the ways she had come up with to cover her workload, he was foolish to cut her off. She has the knowledge and a plan, and his attitude may very well hurt the way the covering goes. If he showed he was supportive from the beginning he would have an easier time adjusting in the short term and would allow her to demonstrate not only her knowledge of her work, but also her leadership abilities which may prove more useful in her career as she advances in the company.
4. The best way to handle this type of situation is to make sure there is no way that this situation impacts the employee. The organization would be well served to have a clear policy on how notifications need to be handled and how the covering of work is to be distributed. The best way to accomplish this would be to include the person taking the leave as they would know their daily responsibilities and what would need to be handled in their absence.

Case 16.2: How Safe is Safe

1. They definitely have a moral philosophy, especially when it comes to safety. The voluntary audits show that the safety of everyone outweighs the possibility that if a injury were to occur they could be used against them. The historical data from the audits may show issues over time, but they also would show that the company is willing to address those problems and improve the overall safety year after year.
2. I feel the approach would be best described as duty-based. The needs of keeping all the employees as safe as possible are being put above the possible negative impacts of the voluntary audits. The perspective from the company appears to be that ensuring that everyone has the best opportunity to make it home without injury is of the highest priority.
3. The management sees its responsibilities when it comes to safety as having voluntary audits conducted to make sure the employees have everything possible done to prevent injury or death. The attorneys are fulfilling their responsibilities to the company by making the risk of conducting these audits known. The company has decided that the benefits in this case outweigh the risks.
4. The ethics appear to be in conflict because while I believe the attorneys want everyone to be safe, they feel the audits expose the company to a higher degree of liability by having a paper trail of safety issues and items that could be improved. The company sees it different and thus have a conflicting opinion on the practices of conducting the audits.