Task 10

Employers Diff er on Hiring and Retention Strategies Facebook and the online retailer Zappos are both entrepreneurial startups that made it big. And they did so while following very diff erent approaches to employee hiring and retention. Is one of these approaches right and the other wrong? Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, likes to hire “hackers” with an entrepreneurial side. He’s interested in people who want to create new things quickly rather than those who want long-term employment. Zuckerberg compares Facebook to colleges with great sports programs. Athletes go to play for these p rograms—and coaches—and excel, and also to prepare for a career in professional sports. The great “hackers,” according to Zuckerberg, don’t “want to stay at one place forever.”

Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, says, “We have a diff erent approach from what Mark was talking about. We actually want our employees to stay with the company for a long time, for 10 years, maybe for their entire life.” Internal career paths are clear at Zappos, with frequent promotions and a lot of personal time off . Zappos invests heavily in staff training and mentoring. According to Hsieh the key is “constant growth,” along with a strong dose of job satisfaction.

What’s Your Take? The lesson here is there are many ways for people and organizations to reach their goals. But when it comes to you specifically, a critical issue will always be the fit—or match—between what you want and the way you like to work and the employer’s practices. Which firm would you most like to join—Facebook or Zappos? What does this choice say about your career needs and aspirations? Are you someone who gets excited about switching to a new organization every few years, or would you rather follow an internal career path and rise to the top of the employer you start with out of college?

Task11

Behavior of Managers Is Key to an Ethical Workplace Managers make a big difference in ethical behavior at work, according to a survey conducted for Deloitte & Touche USA. The most common unethical acts by managers and supervisors include v erbal, sexual, and racial harassment; misuse of company property; and giving preferential treatment. Some other findings include: • 91% of workers are more likely to behave ethically when they have work–life balance; but, 30% say they suff er from poor work–life balance.

• T op reasons for unethical behavior are lack of personal integrity (80%) and lack of job satisfaction (60%). • Most workers consider it unacceptable to steal from an e mployer, cheat on expense reports, take credit for another’s accomplishments, or lie on time sheets. • M ost workers consider it acceptable to ask a work colleague for a personal favor, take sick days when not ill, or use company technology for personal aff airs. Your Thoughts? Are there any surprises in these data? Is this emphasis on manager and direct supervisor behavior justified as the key to an ethical workplace? Would you make any changes to what the workers in this survey report as acceptable and unacceptable work behaviors?

Task12

Teacher Calls About Daughter Cheating on Test “Hello, this is Ann’s fourthgrade teacher. I’d like to set up a conference. She’s been caught cheating on a test.” This isn’t the telephone message you were expecting from your daughter’s school. Just the other day, Ann was telling you how much she enjoys the class and working in a small group on projects. “It’s so much fun working with others,” she said. Aft er calling the teacher back, you learn that during a standardized test, one of the students from her small

group asked for and received an answer from Ann. The teacher hasn’t said anything to the students yet but wants to talk to the parents. You wonder: How does all the emphasis on teamwork, sharing, and collaboration reconcile with a classmate’s request for help on a test? The teacher conference is scheduled for tomorrow. Ann will be waiting when you get home from work.

What Do You Do? Can Ann’s behavior be justified on ethics grounds? What do you say, ask, and do with her? How can you turn this situation into a learning experience that will help her know right from wrong? How do you handle her emotions . . . and likely questions? What is the line here between ethical and unethical behavior in a culture of teamwork? What do you say, ask, and do with the teacher

Task13

Ethics Check

Interns Are Suing Their Employers for Back Pay Two interns sued Fox Searchlight Pictures claiming their jobs would otherwise have been done by paid employees . . . and they wanted to be paid for it. A federal judge agreed and turned the notion of the unpaid internship upside down. Fox’s lead attorney Juno Turner says: “I think it would be the very rare internship that would meet the criteria set forth in this decision.” The U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act sets forth rules that must be followed to hire unpaid interns. A strict interpretation seems to push employers in the direction of off ering only paid internships. An exception is the public sector where nonprofits are allowed to employee interns as volunteers.

There’s no doubt that internships are a well-established source of valuable experience for students and a job entry point for many. What diff erence does pay make in this work-for-experience transaction? Heather Huhman, author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships, says: “A job listed on a resume wouldn’t impress me just because it was a paid position. What matters is the experience you get from a job.”

Your Decision? Is it right for interns to demand pay in return for valuable work experience and a possible job entry point? Are employers taking advantage of interns by not paying them for doing real work? What’s the dividing line between fairness and exploitation in an internship contract? Who benefits from the Fox case? Are we about to see a decline in the number of student internships? What’s your internship experience? Did you engage in tasks that had an immediate positive benefit for the firm you were working for? Did it seem wrong to you that you weren’t being paid?

“A job listed on a resume wouldn’t impress me just because it was a paid position. What matters is the experience you get from a job.”