Critical Thinking Exercise 4-2
critical thinking exercise 4-2
Ethics in the Workplace
Below are several situations that present ethical questions in a business such as compensation, expense reports, reporting profit and losses of the company, misrepresentation of facts on resumes, doing personal business on company time, and basic theft from the company. How should these situations be handled? At what point do employees cross the line? What can be done to minimize these things from happening?
Look at the following and answer the questions based on your interpretation and personal feelings about ethics in the workplace:
- You work for a large cable company and your CEO makes the local news because of his excessive salary and benefits while the local economy is on a downslide and many people are out of work. His total compensation is 30 times the normal paid employee and his benefits include use of the corporate jet, unlimited expense account, and lucrative stock options. Answer the following questions:
Scenario:
Your neighbor, who husband is out of work,reads about the CEO of your company inthe newspaper because of his high salary and benefit package and questions you abouthow difficult it is to read about the out of control compensations that still occur whilemany qualified professionals are out of work.
Your immediate feelings are: (circle one)
(a) You are already used to this typical way companies do business and are numb to all the negative discussions.
(b) You are embarrassed being associated with the company and would leave immediately if a comparable job was available.
(c) You have asked your immediate boss the procedures for sending feedback to upper management as your intentions are to speak your mind regarding how difficult it is to work for a company that has little regard for the average worker when considering the pay and compensation that upper management enjoys.
(d) You are pleased with the compensation practices of the company because you see yourself moving up the company ranks and envision yourself getting well paid in the future with the same company or elsewhere.
2.You work for a small parts manufacturer company and your co-worker does a lot of travel calling on numerous accounts for the company. In a conversation about personal spending for family and friends during the Christmas holiday season, your co-worker expresses his strategy to inflate his expense reports as a way to get extra money for holiday gift spending. This is somewhat of an eye-opening conversation. Answer the following questions:
Scenario:
You are having your annual review with your immediate boss and it is positive as youexpected. Before the review is over, your boss asks if there is anything on your mindthat you would like to discuss. Your conversation with your co-worker about inflatingexpense reports had just occurred that morning.
critical thinking exercise 4-2 (continued)
Your immediate feelings are: (circle one)
(a)You are already used to this typical way employees take advantage of companies and are numb to all the earlier discussion.
(b)You are embarrassed being associated with your co-worker and would leave immediately if a comparable job was available.
(c)You ask your immediate boss the procedures for reporting employee infractions.
(d) You are fine with the employee practices of the company and have ideas as to how you might put in place the same tactic for your own gain.
3.You work for a large advertising agency and interview a potential new employee who appears to be well versed and, based on his resume, has lots of industry experience. Following the interview, you make phone calls to the previous companies the candidate has worked for and find out that one of the stated companies used the candidate as an independent for hire worker. The candidate did not hold the impressive title of senior account representative nor did he bill a million dollars in business as the resume states. However, the person does report the impressive skills of the candidate and would highly recommend his employment with your company. Answer the following questions:
Scenario:
You are discussing the interview with the new candidate with your immediate boss, andthe word is this is a great potential new hire for the company. Your boss asks you point-blank how soon the candidate can be hired and up to speed on his job duties,etc.
Your immediate feelings are: (circle one)
(a)You are aware of these types of incidents regarding falsifying resumes and discuss the steps to get the new candidate hired.
(b)You are embarrassed being associated with such an interview and would give this responsibility immediately to someone else if possible.
(c) You ask your immediate boss if you can confront the candidate about the false information on the resume and see how the discussion develops.
(d)You are fine with the false resume reporting to some extent and feel that the candidate is too good not to hire and plan to get some pointers from the candidate on how to beef up your resume at a later time.