Employment-at-Will Doctrine

Employment-At-Will Doctrine

Tanya Niessen

Professor Michael Hanners

Law, Ethics, and Corporate Governance

July 22, 2012

Skills, Competence, and Abilities

Employers depend on the information given to them by potential employees through their resume as well as an interview to assess their skills, competence, and abilities. In addition, some employers do go the extra mile and call a potential employee’s references to help them in their decision to hire or not hire a person. Employers want their “employees to commit their imagination, energies, and intelligence” to their job and possibly to go “beyond specific roles and job demands [to] give the firm something extra” than what is required of them (Stone, 2007). In Jennifer’s situation, she is choosing not to learn the computer applications required for her job, which could lead her employer to fire her if this lack of responsibility continues. There are several steps that could be taken to address this scenario involving skills, competence, and abilities.

First, training is a must to ensure that all employees understand their responsibilities to perform to the best of their abilities. All training should be documented in case an employee decides to sue the company for being let go from their position for any reason. Even though Jennifer states that she is a “good worker”, she is unmotivated to learn the computer applications required of her to do her job and be productive and efficient when carrying out her responsibilities. Jennifer’s lack of willingness to learn is a concern because it could potentially cause problems for clients by not getting out financial statements on time.

The next step that I would take would be to speak with Jennifer about why she is having problems learning the computer applications as well as what I could do as a manager to help her understand how to use the applications. This will allow me to get an understanding as to what Jennifer is having problems with especially...