Sarah Kim: Unfair Treatment by Boss Despite Excellent Performance - Paper Sample

The complaint is about a female employee by the name Sarah Kim who has worked with the company for more than two years. For all this period, she has worked under Mr. Richard Smith as her boss. Despite her excellent performance and qualification, the employee feels she has been treated unfairly by her boss for failing to assign her what she refers to as essential tasks and projects. Instead, these tasks are assigned to male counterparts the same as her level and even in some cases, those at lower levels than her. If the trend continues, she feels her performance may not be noticed and may not have a chance to be promoted. She has tried raising the issue with her boss Mr. Smith, but nothing fruitful has come out and now raising the complaint with the human resources manager.

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The issues raised in the complaint include the unfair treatment of the employee by the boss because of gender. The female employee is being mistreated by denying her a chance to perform essential tasks because she is a female. The legal ramification regarding this complaint is to ensure that all employees are given equal opportunities to work in any capacity or perform any task regardless of gender. The risk level for a possible lawsuit is high, considering that the mistreatment has happened over a long period and that the affected employee has every evidence to prove that indeed she has been treated unfairly because of her gender. The first step to be undertaken is to ensure the confidentiality of the claims to protect the parties and conduct an effective and prompt investigation.

As an HR director, after facilitating confidentiality, the next step will be to ensure that the parties in the complaint are protected throughout the discourse. This can be achieved through the separation of the parties for the time being, which may take the form of rescheduling, offering a leave or transfer (The Society for Human Resource Management, para3). In this case, the HR professional staff will be the convenient person to speak concerning the issue and assign him/her the duty of investigating the validity of the complaint, weigh alternative solutions, and decide on the best way out. Meetings will follow up, starting with the accuser to lay the complaint verbally, including all the evidence one has about the claims. This will be followed by meeting the accused to respond to the complaint and finally meet the witnesses to prove the case with the relevant information. Some of the essential documents to review include the departmental schedule to determine the tasks the accuser has been performing, the appraisal report of the accuser, and any evidence of the previous complaint to her boss to prove that indeed she had already raised the issue earlier with the boss, but nothing was done.

After the investigations are done, it is expected that the HR staff assigned to the investigation process will hand in the report of the findings of the complaint. At this point, both the accused and the accused are notified of the outcome of the investigation. These are the people to follow up with to correct the issue, depending on the outcomes (The Society for Human Resource Management, para11). It is after this process that the investigation is closed and a summary of the results is prepared for any legal use or any other use to correct the situation. Some important information to consider before making a call for a lawsuit is the damages suffered by the accuser and the impact of the results on the performance, well-being, and reputation of the company and its employees.

Work Cited

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). How to Conduct an Investigation, June 14, 2018. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/how-to-guides/pages/howtoconductaninvestigation.aspx