Discharge or termination of employee’s contract

If you had to discharge an employee who you thought had the potential for violence, what would you do?

Discharge or termination of employee’s contract is one of the hardest and critical parts of human resource management and business ownership. This is because the discharge of weather is due to gross misconduct, violence, layoff, or reorganization is highly expensive and costly. Discharging violent employees can result in legal action, which may force the employer to pay the employee’s remaining for the remaining duration as described in employment contracts and regulations.  The application of the wrong methodology in the discharge of violent employees at the same time can have an extensive effect on the reputation of the organization. Therefore before termination, employers and human resource managers need to follow all HR processes to protect the company from any legal and reputational aftermath.

Therefore before termination employer needs to document all perspectives which propelled the termination as enshrined in the job specification. Job specification in many incidences shows the required conduct of all employees and can use as a ground of discharge after contravention. The employee needs to be informed on the job specification clause contravened in written form and all the warning documented.  Before making the final decision on termination, there is a need to confer with departmental leaders on the behaviour of the employee and try to provide an employee counselling program. This should be followed by assessing the risk the employees poses to the organization and trying to control it through warning letter and stabling good terms for termination by informing them of their rights and conditions of termination.   If all intervention fails to materialize in reverting the violent behaviour and if such response poses a risk to the organization or other employees, the employee is usually issued with termination letter and relieved off all organizational data, property, and accessibility.

What downsizing target methods do you feel are most effective? Which are the least effective, and why?

Downsizing is a common scenario in modern industrialization and the workplace more so due to the ever-changing nature of business operations. As a result, over a million jobs are lost across the world every year, thus forcing companies to adapt to different downsizing strategies whose effectiveness varies from one origination to another. The most effective downsizing strategy is the workforce reduction strategy since it provides a quick fix to the organization’s workflow and financial constrain within a short time. It entails the transfer of employees to different departments within the same organization or an affiliate organization, retirement of older employees, and layoff with redeployment agreement on full resumption of duties. Although this strategy provides employees with less degree of protection, it offers a quick fix for the emanating problems within the organization.

The least effective downsizing strategy is work redesign strategy, which is always aimed at protecting the employees at the expense of the organization. It reduces the flow of work while retaining the exact number of employees; such employees’ functions are phased off, the specialized task is redesigned and reduce the number of working hours while maintaining earning at a constant level. This places the organization at a disadvantage as it is forced to pay a large force of employees without meeting its market. Although it has been claimed to retained skilled human resources, it has been shown to result in the liquidation of the organization in incidence the reason for downsizing persists. The organization reserved resources are often depleted to pay employees who could be laid off a long time ago.  Despite this, research shows that this is mostly practised strategy across the globe by many organizations

In your own, what matrix might a university use to evaluate the effectiveness of its effort to fill instructors’ positions?

1. Instructor skill; design, assessment, and delivery

The university needs to evaluate an instructor’s ability to execute systematic methodology in designing and developing course material and content. The instructor skills must meet all the required experience in providing the solution to the challenge ahead.  The design of the instructor entails his/her ability to develop instructional materials and design new courses according to different models ascribed to the university vision and goals.  They should also present profound knowledge in the assessment of the designed material ability to meet the student needs and academic progression. Finally, the instructor should possess the ability to deliver the designed material effectively.

2. Work experience

Work experience act a prove of learned material application and proves one’s competency in different areas of specialization. It presents skills described in the point above that have been learned in the workplace rather than in the classroom. The instructor’s work experience shows the ability of the instructor to effectively design, instruct, and assess different course material in their specific area of specialization. Work experience also presents one’s ability to all value to the institution/organization by being innovative, meeting all the set criteria, and work under minimal supervision.

3. Value-added model

This matrix measures the ability of the instructor to contribute to the effectiveness of the institution and student performance.  This model measures the ability of the instructor to increase student comprehension of the course material in contrast to the previous year or other instructors who taught the same course. Different methods can be used to measure teachers effectiveness in contributing to the success of the course and student performance. Therefore, institutions can choose any matrix which they deem viable.