Acct 505 Week 2 Assignment
Ethics in Public Administration: Week 2 Assignment Case Study 1
Isabel Carter
PADM505 October 19, 2014
Kennedy Maranga
Dennis the city Manager is working late and he catches his new Budget Director Susan in a compromising situation with the Assistant City Manager. The employee policy prohibits this type of behavior between their employees. According to the City Code of Ethics this type of behavior is unacceptable and calls for dismissal.
Ethics is not the act of controlling co-workers behavior. Dennis may have a duty to discuss what he saw in the workplace. The fact is he only saw the two employees embrace, he would be better off if he discussed the situation with the two employees and find out the issue. He could off interpreted the embrace as passionate and it could have been an embrace of two friends. He is assuming the two employees are having an inappropriate relationship. Does Susan report to Gary directly? Dennis should discuss the no dating policy with the employees, before he makes any assumptions. “A fraternization policy needs these components. It must prohibit romantic relationships between a manager and a reporting staff member. It must define the behavior that is acceptable and what is not acceptable. The policy must supply the potential consequences of breaking the policy. It must provide courses of action that leave an …show more content…
employee with opportunities to understand and follow the policy.”(HumanResources, 2014)
The next issue at hand would be how a relationship between the two employees would affect their work. The City is having financial problems and the major concern would be to get the Cities budget under control and if the of Susan is Budget Director and she is doing her job and helping the City. She discovered a major errors which will save the city millions of dollars giving them a surplus for the first time in years. The fact the Susan is practicing effective spending and saving the City millions is a plus for Dennis as the City Manager. Does he want to put that in jeopardy?
Dennis has to really think carefully since “Government is not in the business of producing ethics according to Dennis F. Thompson. Efficiency, economics and effectiveness is the way he wants the city ran. If Susan and Gary are in a personal relationship it may even help the City because they will work even harder to ensure they are practicing ethical behavior on the job and running the City to the best of their abilities. They are being respectful to others and themselves, then it should not be a concern of the City if they are in a relationship.
Many employees meet their spouse in the workplace it is a fact that employees spend the majority of their time with their coworkers. Relationships can become friendships and often times leads to marriage. Employers can have some restrictions but they are normally not enforceable. The policy of the city could possibly be violating the personal liberties of the employees. There are simply no federal or state laws that prohibit employees from seeing one another. After all, this is America: you have the right to do what you wish with your private life. Another point is the ethical climate of the organization.
Does this relationship reinforce or detract from the organizational values. The efficiency, effectiveness, excellence and teamwork seem to be working in this situation since Susan found the errors which will allow the Municipality to save millions. “Do ethical climates of public organizations reinforce or detract from organizational values? Such as efficiency, effectiveness excellence or teamwork, According to Menzel he hypothesized that as the ethical climate of an organization became stronger, the five aforementioned performance values will be strongly
supported”
Dennis should focus more on the four key components of hiring, performance training and auditing and he will be a more effective and efficient city manager. Ethics is not the act of controlling co-workers behavior.
References:
Menzel, D. C. (2012). Ethics management for public administrators: Leading and building organizations of integrity (2nd ed.). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharp, Inc
Heatfield, S. (2014) Fraternization Policy Sample; About Money
http://humanresources.about.com/od/policysamplesfg/qt/fraternization-policy.htm
Isabel Carter
PADM505 October 19, 2014
Kennedy Maranga
Dennis the city Manager is working late and he catches his new Budget Director Susan in a compromising situation with the Assistant City Manager. The employee policy prohibits this type of behavior between their employees. According to the City Code of Ethics this type of behavior is unacceptable and calls for dismissal.
Ethics is not the act of controlling co-workers behavior. Dennis may have a duty to discuss what he saw in the workplace. The fact is he only saw the two employees embrace, he would be better off if he discussed the situation with the two employees and find out the issue. He could off interpreted the embrace as passionate and it could have been an embrace of two friends. He is assuming the two employees are having an inappropriate relationship. Does Susan report to Gary directly? Dennis should discuss the no dating policy with the employees, before he makes any assumptions. “A fraternization policy needs these components. It must prohibit romantic relationships between a manager and a reporting staff member. It must define the behavior that is acceptable and what is not acceptable. The policy must supply the potential consequences of breaking the policy. It must provide courses of action that leave an …show more content…
employee with opportunities to understand and follow the policy.”(HumanResources, 2014)
The next issue at hand would be how a relationship between the two employees would affect their work. The City is having financial problems and the major concern would be to get the Cities budget under control and if the of Susan is Budget Director and she is doing her job and helping the City. She discovered a major errors which will save the city millions of dollars giving them a surplus for the first time in years. The fact the Susan is practicing effective spending and saving the City millions is a plus for Dennis as the City Manager. Does he want to put that in jeopardy?
Dennis has to really think carefully since “Government is not in the business of producing ethics according to Dennis F. Thompson. Efficiency, economics and effectiveness is the way he wants the city ran. If Susan and Gary are in a personal relationship it may even help the City because they will work even harder to ensure they are practicing ethical behavior on the job and running the City to the best of their abilities. They are being respectful to others and themselves, then it should not be a concern of the City if they are in a relationship.
Many employees meet their spouse in the workplace it is a fact that employees spend the majority of their time with their coworkers. Relationships can become friendships and often times leads to marriage. Employers can have some restrictions but they are normally not enforceable. The policy of the city could possibly be violating the personal liberties of the employees. There are simply no federal or state laws that prohibit employees from seeing one another. After all, this is America: you have the right to do what you wish with your private life. Another point is the ethical climate of the organization.
Does this relationship reinforce or detract from the organizational values. The efficiency, effectiveness, excellence and teamwork seem to be working in this situation since Susan found the errors which will allow the Municipality to save millions. “Do ethical climates of public organizations reinforce or detract from organizational values? Such as efficiency, effectiveness excellence or teamwork, According to Menzel he hypothesized that as the ethical climate of an organization became stronger, the five aforementioned performance values will be strongly
supported”
Dennis should focus more on the four key components of hiring, performance training and auditing and he will be a more effective and efficient city manager. Ethics is not the act of controlling co-workers behavior.
References:
Menzel, D. C. (2012). Ethics management for public administrators: Leading and building organizations of integrity (2nd ed.). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharp, Inc
Heatfield, S. (2014) Fraternization Policy Sample; About Money
http://humanresources.about.com/od/policysamplesfg/qt/fraternization-policy.htm