Juanita Garza is a head nurse at Hapless Hospital and Sam Smith is her supervisor. For many years it has been widely known around Hapless that Garza is a poor head nurse and a weak manager. Over the years, the relationship between Garza and her supervisor Smith, deteriorated to the point that Smith decided it was time to make a change and terminate Garza. Smith tends to avoid confrontation whenever possible. However, employee unrest on the unit and problems relating to preferential treatment, scheduling mix-ups, poor performance, and patient complaints convinced Smith that the confrontation could no longer be avoided. Smith met with Garza and warned her that if problems on the unit were not worked out, she would be replaced. Three months later, no improvement had been made and Smith requested approval for the termination of Garza.

You are the department head and you have the final authority regarding what action will be taken and whether or not to approve the

termination. As you review the file, you note that the warning alleged to have been given three months ago was documented by a note to the file from Smith with no signature by Garza. There are a few other notes in the file to show that some problems were occurring, but they are not very detailed.

You review Garza s performance appraisals for the past three years and note the following:

Performance appraisals under your system are to be performed annually on the employee s anniversary date.

Garza s appraisals were 3 to 4 months late each year.

The performance appraisals show that in such routine areas as quantity of work done and quality of work, Smith consistently graded Garza as meeting standards.

The comments section of the appraisals reflects that Smith gave Garza suggestions on how to improve her performance. They deal with scheduling and equal treatment of employees. Smith claims this documents the existence of these problems and that they were discussed at the performance evaluation conference. Garza alleges that this is merely a personality conflict and that her evaluations clearly demonstrate she was meeting all standards and that termination is unjustified and unfair.

You interview the employees on the unit and other witnesses and find that indeed Garza is an incompetent head nurse.

What action would you take? Please explain your rationale.

If a decision is made to terminate Garza, does she have legal recourse (i.e. a basis to fight the termination)? Please explain your answer and include probability of success if a case is filed.

What human resource (HR) practices should be changed? Why?