Learning Activity #1 The Parenting-Track or The Parenting-Trap? You are a senior

Question

Learning Activity #1

The Parenting-Track or The Parenting-Trap?

You are a senior executive at Trux-R-Us (a chain of truck repair shops) and you are having your regular meeting with the CEO when he says to you that he knows you just completed an insightful business ethics class, and therefore he wants to bounce two business ethics questions off of you.

The first question is straightforward: The CEO has heard that workplace discrimination “moves” in two directions. He wants to know what type of movement is mostly likely to apply at Trux-R-Us, as it employs a workforce that is 50 percent white, 25 percent African American, 15 percent Hispanic, and 10 percent Asian; the workforce is also 95 percent male and 5 percent female.

The second question goes to the CEO’s desire to recruit more female employees and especially female mechanics: The CEO is thinking about dividing up workers into two “tracks”—one would be a parenting track (for men or women). On this track, once an employee declares that he or she is on it, that employee would be given up to two years off during the lifetime of his or her child, for whatever he or she see fit. The employee would only be paid for the first six months of this leave, but would be assured of having a job when he or she came back. The choice of work options would be limited to those that could spare an employee for large breaks. The non-parenting track would not grant this leave, and would allow an employee to participate in any type of work.

The CEO wants your opinion on this idea. Can you think of pros and cons to this approach?

Explanation / Answer

Looking at the workforce diversity ratios in terms of color and race, the workforce is quite diversified and there seems to be no apparent discrimination. However, the discrimination seems to be there in terms of gender wherein there is a skewness towards males in the company. There could be a provision in hiring that is leading to a positive movement of employee discrimination i.e. hiring more males than females.

The idea drawn by CEO is a good one to increase the female ratio in the company. The pros and cons of this would be:

Pros

Cons

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