Opinion ID: 214777
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rhoades‟s Employment with YWCA

Text: After Kennedy‟s departure, YWCA concluded that it no longer needed an accounts payable/payroll specialist because Kennedy had successfully completed his duties. Accordingly, in October 2004, YWCA created a new position for an accountant. 2 The accountant would be expected to reconcile accounts, review YWCA‟s accounts and books, and prepare reports, as well as participate in payroll and accounts payable activities. Young recommended a salary range of $30,000 to $35,000 for the position based on a United Way survey that compared similar positions in several non-profit organizations. In August 2005, Rhoades applied for the position, listing her desired starting salary as $28,000 to $31,000. Rhoades has a Bachelor of Accounting and a Certified Public Accountant degree from a university in Colombia, worked on a part-time basis as an accountant for several small companies in Colombia, and worked as an accountant for a small employer in the United States for a year and a half. Her resume boasted over ten years of accounting-related experience. After interviewing successfully, Rhoades was offered the position at a salary of $33,000, consistent with YWCA‟s practice of making an offer below the maximum approved salary to allow room for negotiation. Rhoades accepted the offer without attempting to negotiate and began her employment with YWCA on September 26, 2005. Manning served as her direct supervisor. On April 26, 2006, Rhoades received her six-month performance review from Manning. She received a rating of “achieves expectations” in the listed categories and was given a number of goals to complete by the end of August 2006. As Rhoades had been spending almost all of her time processing payroll, the tasks were intended to shift her focus to auditing and accounting functions consistent with her job duties. In July 2006, Rhoades mentioned to Wheatley and Manning that she was being 3 paid less than Kennedy had been paid. According to Rhoades, Manning responded that she did not make decisions about salaries. Wheatley responded that Kennedy had probably negotiated for the higher salary. Around the same time, Rhoades‟s performance at work began to suffer. Essentially, Rhoades did not complete the auditing and accounting goals set forth in her six-month evaluation because she spent her time processing payroll and was insufficiently familiar with the computerized system to establish an auditing plan. According to Rhoades, the turnover of employees in the financial services department was partially responsible for her focus on payroll as was the sheer size of the payroll at YWCA. Wheatley and Manning claimed that Rhoades‟s attendance suffered – she would come to work late or leave early, and failed to request time off in advance – although Rhoades disputes the extent of those issues. Additionally, Rhoades made mistakes in performing her job. For example, she twice posted invoices to the incorrect month. Accordingly, Rhoades received an overall rating of “Needs Improvement” on her December 15, 2006 annual performance evaluation. As Rhoades had not met the goals identified in the six-month performance evaluation, the annual evaluation reiterated those goals with updated completion dates, and identified specific areas for improvement. Regardless, Rhoades continued to have difficulty managing her workload and meeting deadlines, and sent a former employee the incorrect tax forms. Accordingly, on March 23, 2007, Manning gave Rhoades a “Performance Improvement Plan” (“PIP”), which identified Rhoades‟s shortcomings, suggested means of correcting those shortcomings, 4 and set forth tasks to be completed by certain dates. Although the listed deadlines gave Rhoades only a few weeks at most for completion, many of the tasks were the same ones Rhoades had been instructed to complete since April. Rhoades communicated to Manning her belief that the annual evaluation and PIP were inaccurate and that the target dates in the PIP were unreasonable because she already had a full workload. Manning met with Rhoades on April 20, 2007, to discuss the PIP. Rhoades had not completed the goals therein and her performance and attitude had not improved. Accordingly, Manning, with Wheatley‟s approval, terminated Rhoades on April 25, 2007.