Opinion ID: 3048853
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the disputed promotion decision

Text: In April 2001, the position of Software Development Manager became available at Kelly Services. William Heinz, a top-level management employee and a member of the Fellowship, was in charge of filling the position. Several employees were considered for the position — Noyes, Donna Walker and Joep Jilesen. Neither Noyes nor Walker are members of the Fellowship; Jilesen is a member of the Fellowship. No outside candidates were considered for the position. Although Heinz had final decision-making authority over the promotion, during the selection process, he received input from other employees. Heinz told at least two of those employees that Noyes was not interested in receiving the promotion. For example, Maya Bonhoff, a manager, testified that she did not consider Noyes for the promotion because Heinz told her that Noyes did not want to be a manager and that Heinz had “something else that he really needed [Noyes] to do.” From Bonhoff’s perspective, Noyes had been “taken off the table” as a candidate for the Software Development Manager position. When William Galvin suggested that Noyes would be “very good” as Software Development Manager, Heinz told him that Noyes was not interested in the position. 6298 NOYES v. KELLY SERVICES Noyes claimed that she never told anyone at Kelly Services that she was not interested in becoming a manager, and that Heinz’s statements to that effect were simply not true. In fact, Noyes wanted to become a manager and, in 2000, she applied for the only management position that was previously openly advertised in her field. Mario Fantoni, a Fellowship member, received that promotion.2 Heinz originally offered the Software Development Manager position to Walker, who declined the job because she had already held a similar position and thought that it would be a professional step backwards. After Walker declined, Bonhoff recommended to Heinz that he promote Jilesen. Heinz expressed some reluctance because there had been “issues raised in the past with Fellowship members being perceived as being given favoritism.” Heinz ultimately offered the promotion to Jilesen, who accepted. Noyes claimed that she was more qualified for the Software Development Manager position than Jilesen, because she had worked at Kelly Services for nearly six years longer and she had an MBA, which Jilesen did not. According to Noyes, Heinz had also shown other preferential treatment to Jilesen, including paying him a higher salary, which Heinz told Noyes was necessary for Jilesen’s “lifestyle.”