لخّصلي

You are a newly appointed Employee Relations Officer for 'Green Trends', a chain of garment stores in the Kingdom of Bahrain. You are expected to develop and maintain a culture of trust by aligning the management strategies with the needs of the staff. You will be involved in dealing with employee conflict and dispute issues to resolve or minimise them. Green Trends has stores across the country in Manama, Hidd, Muharraq, Juffair and Riffa. The brand is popular among the younger generation for selling eco-friendly clothing using organic cotton, ethical production techniques and for having a focus on recycling and a zero-wastage philosophy.
After joining the head-office in Manama, you found there were some major staff issues that needed to be resolved. The turnover rate of sales-persons was very high across the outlets in Bahrain. The data showed that more than 55% of new sales-staff who joined Green Trends, usually quit their jobs within less than an year. During exit-interviews you found that the staff felt their concerns were not being heard by the management.
Issues included delays in crediting of salaries as well as strict policies that punished poor performers with salary deductions. Staff also felt stressed due to continuous monitoring of their movements in the stores using CCTV cameras. Some of the store managers were being accused of discrimination in assigning job roles and promotions for better pay. On the other hand, the managers complained that some staff were not willing to work over-time whenever there was a staff shortage, which resulted in customer complaints. They informed that some salespersons were regularly late to work and expected higher salaries. During the past six months, you found that the data showed high levels of absenteeism even among the best performing staff.
You decided to start improvements in employee relations by investigating a recent complaint email from two female cashiers Ms. Sana and Ms. Maria, who worked at the Juffair branch. The complaint stated that their manager Mr. Ammar was purposefully allotting them night-shifts for over two months. Even though they had repeatedly requested to be allowed for rotation of work timings, it was denied. The women alleged that Mr. Ammar was allotting the day shifts for his cousin Mr. Muneer, who is also a cashier in the same store. Ms. Sana said she felt embarrassed many times when Ammar would shout at her in front of customers for minor issues. The women said that because
their concerns were never being heard by the top management even after repeated emails, it was a clear case of gender discrimination. Therefore both women informed they would not attend work until their issue was resolved. When asked for a justification, Ammar denied any wrongdoing and emphasized that all shift-timings were allotted based on the needs of the store. Since there were more expatriates and tourists visiting the store during the evenings, he justified that the store required the support of both Sana and Maria who were multi-lingual and able to better communicate with the customers. He informed that he never shouted or behaved unprofessionally with any of his staff. On the other hand, he informed that both Sana and Maria were found to avoid work and took many breaks during their work schedule. Also Ammar said that he had many meetings with them to resolve the issue, but they refused to listen. He reminded you that according to their job-contract, both women had agreed to work during both day and night shifts. He suggested that it is better to hire replacement staff who did not complain so much and were dedicated to their work.