15 Case, “The Broken Employment Contract?”, on pp. 50–53
1. Did Wayne have an employment contract, either oral or written, with EcoCare? Why or why not? Yes, Wayne did have an employment contract with EcoCare that is considered oral. According to Wayne, during his interview Bell stated, “As long as he did his job, he could stay with the company until he reached retirement age.” You know this is an oral contract because it proves four elements: an offer, consideration, acceptance, and mutuality. There was an offer given to Wayne to work at the company until he is at retirement age. Consideration means something was offered in exchange for the specified action, meaning Wayne was offered to stay until retirement only if he did his job. …show more content…

However, the unemployment rate in the years since the financial crisis has raised to 9.7% so that many people are staying in their current positions, but looking for other areas of work so as to move out as soon as the economy gets better. Sweeney discovered that EA paid 5 to 8 percent higher than the market wage for various categories. However, there were no exit interviews done, so Sweeney had to learn the issue and reasons for leaving simply through informal conversations with a large number of the employees. He learned that many people felt that they were stuck in a “dead-ended” job with no incentive or ability to move up in the company. They wanted to find a different job in which the mobility paths were defined and easier to work through.
2. What additional questions should Sweeney ask or what additional information is needed before proceeding toward a solution to this problem? Why? Sweeney should research what the average rate of promotion is in the company, as in how many people are able to move up, how fast do they do it, and what benefits and areas of growth does the company allow for, such as mentors, training, etc. He should also interview the management to get their perspective as well as an understanding of the budget and possible reasons for their lack of incentives and room for growth. He needs to find these answers so as to find out how verifiable the testimonies of the employees are,