Exam Question

Please read the following scenario carefully before attempting to answer the question.

A newly qualified teacher starts working in a State School. As instructed, he sends his bank details via the school the Payroll Department in the Local Council. As per the norm, he is paid by cheque for the first month since he hasn’t yet been put onto the payroll system, which will pay his salary straight into his bank account.

In the Council’s Human Resources Department, HR Assistant Alex Dashmuck receives the teacher’s bank details, soon after they are sent and promptly files them away in the teacher’s personnel folder, instead of submitting them to Payroll for processing. As a result, at the end of the second month, the teacher doesn’t get paid at all.

You are the Head of Human Resources at the Council.

Do you:

a) Have a gentle word with Alex and admonish him/her for this mistake (even though this is already the fourth time this has happened in the last six months)?

b) Give Alex a verbal warning and threaten that the next time, the warning will be a written?

c) Give Alex a written warning because the last verbal one went in through one ear and didn’t even make it anywhere near the second one?

d) Start disciplinary proceedings against Alex because you’ve just “had enough”?

e) Pop a blood pressure pill and storm out of the office, with blood encrusted fists?

or

f) Invite the teacher, who is understandably livid, to come to the office and rip out Alex’s entrails via his/her nasal passage?

Please choose one of the above and provide practical evidence to justify your answer.

You have 30 minutes.

(25 marks)