Jenny Larson was a senior human resources executive reporting to the Vice Presid

Question

Jenny Larson was a senior human resources executive reporting to the Vice President of Employee Relations of a major company. One of her responsibilities was administering the psychological assessment program for, and maintaining the assessment profiles on, all senior executives. The Executive Committee of the Board of Directors asked for a summary profile on each senior executive for succession planning purposes. Jenny felt that to prevent misinterpretation these summaries should be prepared by the consulting firm that had done the original assessments, and therefore she instructed them to do so. The consulting firm completed the summaries as instructed and forwarded them to the Vice President of Employee Relations for review. He then passed them along to Jenny, who was to prepare the final compilation for the Executive Committee. The next week several revised summaries came from the Vice President. He had made significant changes to the consultants’ summaries. On one summary, for example, the Vice President had changed “promotable” to “not promotable.” Jenny was appalled at the changes, and concerned about what to do. The modifications violated her sense of ethics, but she was afraid if she questioned them, she would place her job and her future in jeopardy. The more she thought about it, the more concerned she became. Was it possible someone above the Vice President level had requested these changes?

1. What would you have done if you were Jenny? Why?

2. What consequences would you have expected? (Be sure to explain your answer using complete sentences)

Explanation / Answer

Ans 1. As Jenny, I would first meet the consultant and discuss the basis of the assessment in detail and understand how he had conducted the analysis.

Further, I would understand from the consultant if the Vice President had discussed the reports with him. I would collect all relevant data and recheck if the assessment of the Vice President is contradictory to the data as per assessment and details submitted by the consultant.

Then I would request a meeting with the Vice President. I would talk to him and understand the reasons for the change in assessments where “Promotable” were changed to “Non-Promotable”.

Option 1: If the reasons advised by him seem genuine and I am satisfied with his logical explanation I would go with his judgment. I would submit the reports to the Executive Committee as discussed and corrected by him.

Option 2: In case his explanation is not objective and has personal biases or choices I would upload the information to the Executive committee with all analysis. This is a question of ethics and I would like to clearly share all details and submissions as shared by the consultant for accurate decision making. I am also within my rights to highlight wrong information or inaccurate information reporting, which might cause long-term damages to the organization.

Ans 2. In this case, the consequences could be two:

Since it is a question of ethics I am within my rights and would have behaved within my professional scope to justify my role as a human resource professional.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse J
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.