Lands End Clothing Company Case Study

Analysis:

Lands' End is a clothing company that previously was hired by Georgetown University. Lands' End manufactured the licensed apparel for the university up until recently. Georgetown University has declined Lands' End contract claiming that they didn't follow the stipulated codes. Recently, an individual has complained that they were denied employment due to their trade union. Georgetown is a Jesuit university and believes they should do business with workers who voluntarily work and are not exploited in any type of way.

Root Problem:

The fault that Georgetown University has stated is reason for discarding the renewal contract to Lands' End. The reasoning is because of Employee discrimination which they disagree with. Recently, it has been brought attention that Lands' End is denying potential and capable employees because of the trade union, because of this it is referenced under employment discrimination.

Problem Components:

In this type of situation there are several components involved. One component is that employees are being discriminated against which is potentially a big issue for Lands' End. Most of Lands' End income is from different universities and creating their apparel. If Georgetown feels this way towards employee discrimination and declines the contract renewal it is only a matter of time before other universities find out about this issue and likely withdrawal their contracts as well.

Alternatives:

While reviewing this situation there are a few ways that it can be handled and taken care of in the right manner. Some alternatives include:

* Find a company that is outside to be willing to do the hiring

* Provide competent training to Human Resource department as well as management so they become divergent in their knowledge and be able to make an educated decision on hiring employees

* Require a wide cultural diversity of employees including genders

* Advocate team building in the company

* Provide a set pay scale to ensure no type of discriminated among all employees

* Administer a discrimination policy that accurately states disciplinary actions and termination

Evaluate Alternatives:

Outside Company:

If an outside company is found and starts taking responsibility to start doing the hiring then Lands' End managers will soon find out that the employees hired will be in no way discriminated and that they will have no decision whatsoever over the hiring. This however, could be potentially harmful to the company if the managers start feeling resentful of their responsibilities and human resources feel incapable of doing their job especially the hiring part. This could also lead to low assurance due to the managers discriminating and reversing the role and their feelings toward the employees working under them. They could potentially make their lives miserable by overworking them and giving them extra stress that is unnecessary. Hiring an outside company would more than likely lead to a need to reduce the human resources department as several of their responsibilities would be given over to the new hiring company. This would cost employees their job which could potentially bring even more chaos to the company.

Competent Training to Human Resource Department:

By providing competent training through workshops, seminars or clinics, to the management, as well as, human resource about hiring diverse cultural individuals can prove to be favorable and rewarding for Lands' End. This type of training would help increase their knowledge on the matter at hand and even ease stress concerning issues of this subject.

Becoming educated on different types of culture and ethics could relieve fear of hiring someone of different gender, race, culture, etc... A lot of times different individuals hire according to personal feelings and rumors heard about certain other types of individuals. They possibly might have heard that type of individual had a poor work ethic and was useless at being reliable when that circumstance was misunderstood or heard. When these ideas and type of thinking is put to rest then the individuals doing the hiring will be able to view each possible employee fairly and with no judgment or discrimination and view them for their actual experience.

In Lands' End case the company would be reluctant to even hire an individual who is part of a trade union. They should view this individuals work experience, job ethic, qualifications, and someone who can truly add to the company with minimal amount of training.

Require a wide cultural diversity of employees including genders:

If the company makes a policy to hire the same amount of cultural diverse individuals along with genders it would help in reducing discrimination. This would possibly be hard to come by as different jobs require different qualifications and it would be discrimination if the company was to turn down an individual who was well qualified over the right type of cultural ethnicity needed.

Advocate team building in the company:

Advocating team building in the company would allow all fellow employees to come together as a family and help rely on each other.