Michael Kennedy is fairly new to Company XYZ. He was hired as the VP of HR and has many years of experience in the HR field. At Company XYZ, he quickly gains the respect of his peers because he follows all rules and regulations and does not make any exceptions. He is a baby boomer and has great recollections of the 70’s. From time to time, he shares his “interesting” stories with his close colleagues at work. He served in the US military and was a Sergeant in Vietnam. Michael has dealt with a lot of organizational changes throughout his tenure and has a unique philosophy that he strongly believes in—“one should be prepared for anything, but should expect nothing.”

The CEO of Company XYZ (John Smithson) has been trying to trim the fat at his organization so the company could hire some “fresh” new talent. John Smithson believes (without any documentation in their performance evaluations) that some of the “senior” employees are not as productive and do not bring much to the table. In fact, he shares with Michael that “the sooner they start with Project New Blood, the sooner Michael will get his well-deserved raise.” Michael devises a plan to lay off 10 “senior” employees and hire five “fresh” college graduates.

Michael believes he is an ethical individual and is happy to provide his employees with a notable severance package. He uses the following chart to discuss the savings with the CEO. His rationale is that if 10 “senior” employees are laid-off, then they can easily hire 5 “fresh” desperate college graduates to do twice the work at a lower salary.

Senior Employees	Salary	Years at Company XYZ	New Hires	Salary
Employee # 1	$100,000	20	Employee # 1	$70,000
Employee # 2	$120,000	22	Employee # 2	$65,000
Employee # 3	$110,000	21	Employee # 3	$72,000
Employee # 4	$100,000	20	Employee # 4	$68,000
Employee # 5	$120,000	22	Employee # 5	$70,000
Employee # 6	$110,000	21	---	---
Employee # 7	$100,000	20	---	---
Employee # 8	$120,000	22	---	---
Employee # 9	$110,000	21	---	---
Employee # 10	$115,000	21	---	---
Total	$1,105,000	210 years of experience	Total	$345,000

In his eyes, the plan will save Company XYZ over $700,000 per year. The CEO is satisfied with Michael’s plan and gives him the green light to start. The CEO reminds Michael of the “At-Will” employment clause in all employee contracts that is very helpful for the organization. Over the next couple of weeks, Michael is able to lay off ten employees.

The next part of his plan is to hire five new employees. After advertising the open positions for about a week, he has over 50 qualified applicants who are highly qualified. Of the 50, he is able to make a short-list of ten potential employees after doing some investigating on the internet (i.e., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, and YouTube). He schedules interviews with the 10 applicants and is able to narrow down five potential employees who would complement Company XYZ. The five potential employees meet with the entire hiring committee and they are impressed with the five candidates. As a part of the hiring process, the applicants need to pass a background check and a drug test. All of the applicants passed the background check but all of the applicants failed the drug test (i.e., due to marijuana use).

Michael was perplexed. Michael decided to call his old HR professor to see what his options are. His professor said, “Well, Michael—you need to do some research but I think I know what the real issue is: some of the new laws that have been recently passed.” Michael thanked his professor and decided to do some research. After doing some research, he learned “that changes in marijuana laws are sweeping the nation, state by state: Twenty states, plus the District of Columbia, have passed laws allowing marijuana to be used for medical reasons and nine more are considering them” (Lytle, 2014, p. 43). Michael called each candidate to see what the situation was and each candidate mentioned the same story—everything is perfectly fine because of their marijuana card which is an ID card allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Michael asks himself the following question—as attitudes toward marijuana grow more lenient, will employer drug-testing policies go up in smoke?

Case Study Questions

1. What are some solutions to this case study? What is the best solution for this case study? Justify your response.

2. What are your thoughts on "at-will" employment? Is this fair? Should an employer be allowed to terminate an employee for no reason or should there be a legitimate reason to terminate an employee? Justify your response.

3. Create a memo on what your marijuana or Naswar policy would be at your company for existing employees.

4. Create an email that you would write to the applicants where you either decide to hire them or not based upon their drug use. What would you say and why? Please remember to use the sandwich model (if needed) and be professional.