Who Gets Time Off? Prioritizing Planned,Family Responsibility Leave Requests

Abstract

This role play focuses on team decision making and is designed for undergraduate and graduate human resource management (HRM) and organizational behavior (OB) courses. It can also support management seminars. Working within Employee Teams, Department Teams, or Manager Teams, students decide which three of five employees will obtain family responsibility leave. For HRM courses, the exercise focuses on interpreting and applying family responsibility leave, which illustrates day-to-day personnel planning. For OB courses, the debriefing centers on comparing decision-making models and discussing how beliefs and attitudes influence decision making; it also supports exchanges about the influence of conflict, domination, and groupthink on team decision making. For both OB and HRM courses, the exercise helps students compare individual and team decisions, discuss the effects of team composition on decision making, and analyze the fairness of their decisions. Instructors can conduct the activity in class or online.

Keywords

personnel planning teams/team dynamics fairness attitudes decision-making models experiential exercises role play team decision making

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adams

J. S.

(1963). Towards an understanding of inequity. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(5), 422–436. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040968

B.C. Law Institute. (2010). Care/work. Law reform to support family caregivers to balance paid work and unpaid caregiving (Study Paper No. 4). https://www.bcli.org/sites/default/files/FamilyCaregivingReport.pdf

Colquitt

J. A.

Conlon

D. E.

Wesson

M. J.

Porter

C. O. L. H.

K. Y.

(2001). Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 425–445. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.425

Dodgson

(2019, March 23). 7 companies that give staff paid time off when they get a puppy. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-give-employees-pawternity-leave-2017-3

Government of Ontario. (n.d.). Your guide to the employment standards act: Family responsibility leave. https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/family-responsibility-leave

Greenberg

(1987). A taxonomy of organizational justice theories. Academy of Management Review, 17(1), 212–237. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1987.4306437

Hill

G. W.

(1982). Group versus individual performance: Are N + 1 heads better than one? Psychological Bulletin, 91(3), 517–539. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.91.3.517

Janis

I. L.

(1972). Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes. Houghton Mifflin.

Jones

E. E.

Gerard

(1967). Foundations of social psychology. Wiley.

10.

Kahneman

(2003, September). A perspective of judgment and choice: Mapping bounded rationality. American Psychologist, 56, 697–720. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.58.9.697

11.

Kayes

A. B.

Kayes

D. C.

Kolb

D. A.

(2005). Experiential learning in teams. Simulation & Gaming, 36(3), 330–354. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1046878105279012

12.

Kim

Wiggins

M. E.

(2011). Family-friendly human resource policy: Is it still working in the public sector? Public Administration Review, 71(5), 728–739. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02412.x

13.

McLeod

P. L.

(2013). Experiential learning in an undergraduate course in group communication and decision making. Small Group Research, 44(4), 360–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496413488217

14.

Maier

N. R. F.

(1970). Problem solving and creativity in individuals and groups. Brooks/Cole.

15.

Marks

(2018, January 9). “Pawternity” benefits are a thing: Firms are offering paid time off for new pet owners. National Post. https://nationalpost.com/life/pawternity-benefits-are-a-thing-firms-are-offering-paid-time-off-for-new-pet-owners

16.

Math

Meilland

(2004). Family-related leave and industrial relations. European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO). https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/report/2004/family-related-leave-and-industrial-relations

17.

Nutt

P. C.

(1989). Making tough decisions: Tactics for improving managerial decision making. Jossey-Bass.

18.

Nutt

P. C.

(1999). Surprising but true: Half the decisions in organizations fail. Academy of Management Executive, 13(4), 75–90. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1999.2570556

19.

Province of British Columbia. (1996). Employment Standards Act – B.C., Family responsibility leave. Chapter 113, Section 52. https://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/00_96113_01#section52

20.

Province of Manitoba. (n.d.). Employment standards. Fact sheet – Family leave. https://www.gov.mb.ca/labour/standards/doc,family-leave,factsheet.html#q63

21.

Shaw

M. E.

(1981). Group dynamics: The psychology of small group behavior (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.

22.

Specia

Pianigiani

(2017, October 12). Paid leave when your dog is sick? Sì, Italian employer says. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/world/europe/italy-paid-dog-care-leave.html

23.

U.S. Department of Labor. (n.d.). Family and medical leave (FMLA). https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/benefits-leave/fmla

24.

U.S. Department of Labor. (2013). Calculation of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Fact Sheet # 28I. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/28i-fmla-leave-calculation

25.

U.S. Department of Labor. (2015). FMLA leave for birth, placement, bonding, or to care for a child with a serious health condition on the basis of an “in loco parentis” relationship. Fact Sheet #28B. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/28B-fmla-in-loco-parentis

26.

van Merrienboer

J. J. G.

Kirschner

P. A.

Kester

. (2003). Taking the load off a learner’s mind: Instructional design for complex learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 5–13. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326985EP3801_2

27.

Vander Weir

. (2018, April 1). “Pawternity” leave now offered by employers. Canadian HR reporter. https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-areas/recruitment-and-staffing/pawternity-leave-now-offered-by-employers/299465

28.

Vroom

V. H.

Jago

A. G.

(1988). The new leadership: Managing participation in organizations. Prentice-Hall.

29.

Wallace

T. L.

Sung

H. C.

Williams

J. D.

(2014). The defining features of teacher talk within autonomy-supportive classroom management. Teaching and Teacher Education, 42, 34–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.04.005

30.

Wood

(2000). Attitude change: Persuasion and social influence. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 539–570. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.539

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.02 MB