Managerial Class Exercise #5 - Laying-Off Employees

Walker Space(WSI) has been a client of the Psych 272 Corporation for many years. The firm has essentially been a subcontractor on many large space contracts which have been acquired by firms such as North American Rockwell and others.

With the cutback in many of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration programs, Walker has an excess of employees. Your assignment is to help our client make cutbacks by reducing the engineering section of the company from nine employees to six. Examine the following summaries of each person' s resume and write a brief report in which you explain who should be let go and why. Carefully lay out the criteria you used in making your decisions, and make suggestions as to how you might go about making the terminations(including severance pay). Advise our client about the pension implications of your decisions; Generally, 15 years service entitles an employee to at least a partial pension. You will also have to defend your choices in an oral presentation to the Board of Directors of the company.

1. Al Bino - Age 26, married, two children. Al has been with WSI for a year and a half. He is a very good engineer, with a degree from Rochester Institute of Technology. He's held two prior jobs and lost both of them because of cutbacks in the space program. He moved all the way to Connecticut from California to take this job. Bino is well-liked by his co-workers.

2. Andy Gibbons - Age 24, single. Gibbons is an African-American and the company looked hard to get Gibbons because of affirmative action pressure. He is not very popular with his co-workers. Since he has been employed less than a year, not much is known about his work. On his one evaluation(which was average) Gibbons accused his supervisor of bias against blacks. He is a graduate of Detroit Institute of Technology.

3. Roger Taylor - Age 53, married, three children. Taylor is a graduate of the "school of hard knocks." After the Vietnam War, he started to go to school, but his family expenses were too much, so he dropped out. Taylor has worked at the company for 20 years. His ratings were excellent for 15 years. The last five years they have been average. Taylor feels that his supervisors grade him down because he doesn't have "sheepskins" covering his office walls.

4. Tim Kasser - Age 32, married, no children. Kasser is well-liked by his co-workers. He has been at WSI five years, and has a B.S. and M.S. in engineering from Iowa State University. Kasser's ratings have been mixed. Some supervisors rated him high, some average. Kasser's wife is an M.D.

5. Jonathan Powers - Age 29, single. Powers is a real worker, but a loner. He has a B.S. in engineering from the University of California. He is working on his M.S. at night; always trying to improve his technical skills. His performance ratings were above average for the three years he has been employed by at WSI.

6. Roy Andersen - Divorced, two children, He has a B.S. in engineering from Cornell University. Andersen is very active in community affairs: Scouts, Little League, United Way. He is a friend of the vice-president through church work. His ratings have been average, although some recent ones indicate that he is out of date. He is well-liked and has been employed at WSI for 14 years.

7. Xavier Romano - Age 44, married, five children. He has a B.S. in engineering from Georgia Tech. Romano headed this section at one time. He worked so hard that he had a heart attack. Under doctor's orders, he resigned from the supervisory position. Since then he has done good work, although because of his health, he is a bit slower than the others. Now and then, he must spend extra time on a project because he did get out of date during the eight years he headed the section. His performance evaluations for the last two years have been above average. He has been employed at WSI for 14 years.

8. Steve Bailey - Age 47, single. He began an engineering degree at M.I.T. but had to drop out for financial reasons. He tries hard to stay current by regular reading of engineering journals and taking all the short courses the company and nearby colleges offer. His performance evaluations have varied, but they tend to be average to slightly above average. He is a loner and his boss thinks that this has negatively affected his performance evaluations. He has been employed at WSI 16 years.

9. Heather Hoffmann - Age 22, single. She has a B.S. in engineering technology from Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute. Hoffmann has been employed less than a year. She is enthusiastic, a very good worker, and is well-liked by her co-workers. She is well regarded by her boss.