Ethics
Ethics
Legal and Ethical Responsibilities Paper
Brian Ruddick
MGT/567
Nov 13th, 2012
Dr. Burgoon
Legal and Ethical Responsibilities
Memo
To: Company owner
From: VP of Human Resources
Subject: Reduce incentives and layoff proposal
Sir, as VP of Human Resources, I would advise you to highly reconsider your proposal to reduce incentive payments for salespeople and implementing a month-long layoff for all production workers.
Although you are legally within your rights to do so, however from an ethical stand point, reducing incentive payments and laying off some of our lowest paid employees while the higher paid managers are completely un-effected in this cost reduction effort can be considered unethical. This proposal will be economically devastating to most of our sales and production force and possibly counterproductive to our company itself.
If we implement the reduce incentives and layoff as currently proposed, the potential for future complications is highly probable. We face the likeliness of low employee morale, substandard sales efforts, and the potential loss of other valued employees due to fear off being laid off. We will also loose of internal and external stakeholder confidence as well as our reputation as an employee friendly company that will hinder future hiring of top applicants.
I believe ethical responsibilities are crucial in the workplace because a tough ethical code provides a non-threatening environment with high employee morale, companies that exhibits straightforward ethics tends to show higher production and profits, lower employee issues and it’s just the right thing to do. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of business.
For example, Aaron Feuerstein, CEO of Malden Mills, could have closed his plant after a devastating fire and move it overseas but he pledged to rebuild his plant at the same location and keep the jobs in the local community. But even more surprising, he promised to continue paying his
Legal and Ethical Responsibilities Paper
Brian Ruddick
MGT/567
Nov 13th, 2012
Dr. Burgoon
Legal and Ethical Responsibilities
Memo
To: Company owner
From: VP of Human Resources
Subject: Reduce incentives and layoff proposal
Sir, as VP of Human Resources, I would advise you to highly reconsider your proposal to reduce incentive payments for salespeople and implementing a month-long layoff for all production workers.
Although you are legally within your rights to do so, however from an ethical stand point, reducing incentive payments and laying off some of our lowest paid employees while the higher paid managers are completely un-effected in this cost reduction effort can be considered unethical. This proposal will be economically devastating to most of our sales and production force and possibly counterproductive to our company itself.
If we implement the reduce incentives and layoff as currently proposed, the potential for future complications is highly probable. We face the likeliness of low employee morale, substandard sales efforts, and the potential loss of other valued employees due to fear off being laid off. We will also loose of internal and external stakeholder confidence as well as our reputation as an employee friendly company that will hinder future hiring of top applicants.
I believe ethical responsibilities are crucial in the workplace because a tough ethical code provides a non-threatening environment with high employee morale, companies that exhibits straightforward ethics tends to show higher production and profits, lower employee issues and it’s just the right thing to do. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of business.
For example, Aaron Feuerstein, CEO of Malden Mills, could have closed his plant after a devastating fire and move it overseas but he pledged to rebuild his plant at the same location and keep the jobs in the local community. But even more surprising, he promised to continue paying his
References: Hartman L.P, DesJardins J (2011) Business ethics: decision making for personal integrity and social responsibility/2nd ed.