Creating a Safety Culture at Border Transportation

Case Study 1: Creating a Safety Culture at Border Transportation

Border Transportation, located in Las Cruces, New Mexico, is a company that specializes in the delivery of medical equipment and supplies to hospitals, clinics, and medical supply companies in the Southwest and in Mexico. The majority of employees at Border Transportation are sales representatives, warehouse staff, and truck drivers. Currently, most of these workers are over age 45.

As a result of ongoing expansion, the company will grow from 225 employees to more than 500 employees in the next three years. Several government contracts have already been signed, and more are anticipated. The company has recently hired you as the warehouse manager. Part of your job is to oversee all safety programs for the company. These duties had been handled primarily informally by the dock supervisor prior to your coming onboard.

On your first day, the CFO calls you in and gives you the following directives and information:

· Safety in the warehouse is becoming a real issue. The accident rate has tripled since last year. Something has to be done.

· Absenteeism has increased, especially on Fridays and Mondays.

· The company is spending 25% of its payroll costs on workers’ compensation claims. Many of the claims are related to cumulative trauma disorders.

· You need to get rid of an employee in the warehouse who is reported to have AIDS.

Questions

1. How would you respond to each of the directives from the COO? What steps would you take to instill a culture of safety in this warehouse?

2. Do you think a wellness program makes sense for this company? Provide support for your answer.

3. What do you think will be the biggest challenge in increasing safety and health at this facility?

4. How will you address the issue of the employee with AIDS?

5. Given the location in the Southwest and the company’s work in Mexico, many of the employees have English as their second language. Do you anticipate that language will be an issue in creating and implementing a new safety program? If so, why and how will you address the issue? If not, why not?

6. How will you deal with employees who tell you that they have “always done it this way” when you try to improve safety procedures?

Case Study 2: Avoiding a Union Effort at Technologies Essential

Jeannine Marquez has just become the CEO of Technologies Essential. The company is a 15- year-old, mid-size computer software company headquartered in Columbia, Missouri. The company specializes in providing products that enable users to more fully implement SAP solutions. Most of the 569 employees are software developers. These employees are well paid and receive tuition reimbursement and excellent health and retirement benefits. The company rewards these employees well as they are seen as the key to the company’s success.

The software developers seem content with the company, but the support staff are not. They believe that they are overworked and underpaid relative to the software developers. They receive less vacation and personal leave time, are required to take compensatory time off rather than receive overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours per week, and none of them make over $42,000 a year even though many of them have worked for the company since it started and have supervisory responsibilities.

The CEO has just received a letter signed by 25 employees indicating they wish to join the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU). The letter listed a number of grievances including concerns about work schedules, concerns that other employees who had expressed an interest in joining a union were fired by the former CEO, and dissatisfaction with pay and benefits.

Questions

1. Describe the steps that employees at Technologies Essential should take if they want to unionize.

2. Research the OPEIU. What would be the advantages to these employees if they did join this union? What would be the disadvantages?

3. If employees have been fired for unionizing, do they have any recourse?

4. What advise can you provide to Jeannine Marquez about how to address the concerns of these employees? Are there legal issues regarding unionization about which she needs to be aware as she begins to address the concerns? If so, what are they?

5. What is the best advice you can give managers to ensure they are not likely to face an effort by employees to unionize?

Please answer all the questions for the two case studies below. Answers should be thorough and complete for each question. Please write your responses in a word document for submission and use the APA format as a guideline. Double space and use a 12-point font. The combined responses should be at least 1000 words in length with individually identified responses to each of the questions for the two case studies or critical thinking scenarios. Use the following information to support you in completing this assignment correctly. Include two references for full credit. One can be the text and the other should be information regarding the company in the scenario or a scholarly article on the main topic for the case or critical thinking activity.

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· All questions answered and addressed

· Answers indicate that symptoms were recognized

· Actual causes of the problem were uncovered

· Answers indicate that you identified major goals of the organizations, units, and/or individuals in the case

· Answers indicate that longer-term performance problems and those requiring immediate attention have been recognized and considered

· Identified appropriate alternative actions