How should her employer have handled this?

Question

A teen girl is employed as a housekeeper at a large hotel. They are understaffed because they have just lost quite a few housekeepers, and the remaining ones are overworked. The girl is trying to balance two jobs. It is sometimes hard to make it from one job to the other on time. Although most adults would discuss the situation with their two bosses, this is a young girl at her first job. She's afraid to bring it up.

One day, because she was already late for her second job, the girl re-made two beds that "probably had not been slept in," rather than stripping the sheets off and putting clean ones on. Her supervisor didn't notice and cleared her to leave for the day. Someone, probably the next guest, did notice, and reported it. The girl was fired immediately.

No one disputes that she made a serious mistake,used bad judgment, and violated company and industry standards. My question is, was this the best response on the part of the employer? Considering:

1. This girl had done exemplary work up until that day. She was one of their better employees. She had received no previous warnings or complaints and was given no opportunity to correct her mistakes.

2. This company has a history of overworking and exploiting their employees, especially in the service sector. Many employess have quit, leaving the company very understaffed.

3. The room supervisor apparently was given no responsibility for missing the mistake and approving the room for check-in.

I'm interested in getting opinions on whether this was a good decision in terms of:

1.Legal issues?

2. Management perspective?

3. Ethical or fair employment practice?

Please, no condemnations of the employee for what she did. She already knows. Just give me your opinion on what the employer should have done. 10 points for best answer!

Thanks.

Answer 1

Legally, if it's an employment at will state there are no legal issues in firing the girl.  

Assuming the girl really had no previous problems with doing her job than management may have been going overboard, but it's hard to say without being there.  Maybe the entire staff had been warned against doing things like that and "the next person that does something like that will be fired" type of thing.  Maybe this girl was made an example of.  Maybe even though the company treats their employees poorly they pride themselves on excellent customer service, and found it unacceptable, and are not flexible on these matters.  If a supervisor had found the mistake instead of a customer the situation might be different.

If the employer was just being mean then the girl is better off.  She may not realize it now, but as she gets older, and an in a position where she doesn't need the money from this job, she'll see that a job works both ways, a company needs to find an employee that's a good fit, and the employee needs to find a company that's a good fit

Answer 2

Sounds like a pretty big rule to break.  The girl should have been fired.  She allowed her personal problems to interfer with the job and took a shortcut.  A shortcut that could have legal ramifications for the employer -- health department citation; loss of customers.

Cleaning is not a glamour job.  Whether it's for a hotel or nursing home or office building, there's going to be high turnover.  It also doesn't require specialized skills and experience.  It tends to be low level, minimum wage position.