Business and Administrative Communication 10th Edition by Kitty Locker,Donna Kienzler

Exercise 23

Responding to an Employee Grievance
Assume that your small team comprises the Labor-Management committee at the headquarters of a chain of grocery stores. This e-mail arrives from the vice president for human resources:
As you know, company policy requires that employees smile at customers and make eye contact with them. In the past 9 months, 12 employees have filed grievances over this rule. They say they are being harassed by customers who think they are flirting with them. A produce clerk claims customers have propositioned her and followed her to her car. Another says "Let me decide who I am going to say hello to with a big smile." The union wants us to change the policy to let workers not make eye contact with customers, and to allow workers to refuse to carry groceries to a customer's car at night. My own feeling is that we want to maintain our image as a friendly store that cares about customers, but that we also don't want to require behavior that leads to harassment. Let's find a creative solution.
Your team will be writing a group response recommending whether to change the policy and supporting your recommendation.
You need to
Send e-mail messages to team members describing your initial point of view on the issue and discussing the various options.
Help your team write the response.
Write a memo to your instructor telling how satisfied you are with
he decision your team reached.
he process you used to reach it.
The document your team produced.