Week 8 EOC: The Power Behind the Throne

In the movie 9 to 5 starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton, there were a lot of HR issues going on. The 3 women worked at an office with a power-hungry boss, played by Dabney Coleman. He took advantage of the women in his office, he was egotistical, and did not have respect for others. He attempted to carry on an affair with one of the characters in the movie. This is a big problem in the workplace today that many people in HR and management ignore. "Human resources managers should know about additional challenges related to the legitimate measurement of employee performance." (Hayes, D. and Ninemeier, J. (2008). Human Resources Management in the Hospitality Industry. Wiley, pg. 310) Dabney's character continually made personal compliments to some of the girls about their appearance and took it a bit too far, when he shouldn't have. It showed he was more interested in getting to know them in other ways besides professional. He even went as far as to try to have an affair with one of the characters, while they were both married but failed. In the training aspect of the movie, Lily Tomlin's character was supposed to train Jane Fonda's character for her first day. Lily's character openly expressed her feelings and opposition towards her new task. When she was training Jane Fonda, she exposed a lot of confidential information that was inappropriate for other employees to have knowledge of. She also left Jane Fonda's character unattended when she asked her to print copies. The copying machine went out of control, and Dabney walked in. He proceeded to belittle Jane Fonda, which was another issue with his character. His lack of respect. Going back to Dabney's character, he was doing some illegal things behind the company and employees' backs, which in later, the girls will try to expose. He also hired a man instead of Lily Tomlin's character because she was a woman. He based the position on discrimination when Lily was clearly more qualified. While the girls tried to expose Dabney and get him out of the company, they thought of ways to kill him. While not killing him and instead kidnapping him, their attempts were at first unsuccessful. Later they got the hang of it and was able to kidnap Dabney while they uncovered his dirty work and transformed the company in the process. With this, they had an accidental success. The chairman came to the office and was delighted with what he saw. Dabney had no knowledge of any of the new changes but still took credit for it. Then the chairman asked him to come with him to Brazil and Dabney was dumbfounded. The girls were able to get Dabney's character out of the office and successfully run it themselves, discrimination free. "The goal of any effective management program should be to attract, motivate, and retain competent employees." (Hayes, D. and Ninemeier, J. (2008). Human Resources Management in the Hospitality Industry. Wiley, pg. 266) They created a work environment that thrived 20% more than before. "People are attracted or leave for career advancement, new challenges, lack of appreciation by the company, inability to have an impact, coworker conflict, job insecurity, family matters, and a variety of other factors." (Hayes, D. and Ninemeier, J. (2008). Human Resources Management in the Hospitality Industry. Wiley, pg. 264) The 3 women, reduced these factors.