Human Resource Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 4

Human Resource Management - Essay Example This gave rise to a dispute during which Mr Nikolich alleged that he was intimidated and threatened by his supervisor, which caused him stress. Furthermore, the Company’s HR Manager took a long period of four months to investigate the complaint and determined that the reallocation was quite appropriate and that the supervisor’s conduct had not been intimidating or threatening and had also stepped down from his managerial role. There was no further action taken on Mr. Nikolich’s complaint, as a result of which he developed a depressive disorder and was terminated from his work. The basis of Mr. Nikolich’s complaint of mistreatment by his supervisor and the mishandling of his complaint was the terms of his letter of offer of employment and policy guidelines of the Company, entitled Working With Us. This guideline contained several provisions on workplace health, safety, harassment and grievance redressal procedures which Mr. Nikolich alleged had been breached in his case as a result of which the employers were guilty of a breach of contract. At the lower Court, the findings were in favor of the Plaintiff, Mr. Nikolich and the Court held that sections of the Working With Us policy guidelines were equivalent to explicit promises which were part and parcel of Mr. Nikolich’s employment contract.. On this basis, the Court held that the failure of the HR management to take immediate action to resolve the conflict between Mr. Nikolich and his supervisor was a breach of contract. When the case was appealed however, the appellate judges make a distinction between contractual and aspirational terms. They held that the policies outlined in the Working With us document on the issues of harassment and grievance redressal were not in the nature of contractual terms. On the contrary, they were aspirational in nature, i.e, the language contained in tees provisions was descriptive and informative, intended to be encouraging rather than iron clad promises.