Watch the two videos from
business ethics speakers and discuss how your organization portrays its values.
Share any examples where behaviors were portrayed positively by your leaders or
an instance where someone was unethical in your work environment.
The current company I work for, as
well as the previous company I worked for, both had a vast range of rules and
regulation that corresponded with the values held by the companies. The organization I currently work for has a
set of values that work with the employee’s emotions, as well as customer care
since we work in an industry that relies heavily on the customer and their
experience. Maintaining a strong
customer experience sometimes gets in the way of employee happiness and well
being within the organization. Because
the rules are set up in a way that can be ‘altered’ and adjusted depending on
the scenario, it is up to each individual store or district to determine how
best to incorporate these rules.
Recently, we had
an employee transfer from a different district where they handled the rules
differently. This employee had
difficulty adjusting to the new rules, as her entire life was structured in a
way that benefited from her previous set of rules in the other district. It matched her way of living and our rules
did not. She struggled greatly and did
not understand why we did things the way we did. It was difficult to be angry with her, as she
made great points as to why the rules did not make sense compared to what she
was dealing with prior to that.
Workplace flexibility is key in developing a broader business strategy
for succeeding in today’s work environment because the workforce is becoming
much more diverse and challenging. (Katsikakis, 2014) For instance, we set our employee time
schedule every Tuesday; however, since we are so lightly staffed in management,
that schedules sometimes do not make it out till Wednesday or Thursday morning. Our district has set it up so that it is up
to the individual employee to figure out their schedule and they are not
allowed to call to get the scheduled – they have to either come in or find out
from someone else. This individual who
transferred from another district did not have to deal with this issue. She was able to call and get her
scheduled. She did not own a car at the
time, so she rode her bike 20 miles to work when she was scheduled. One day, she rode her bike on her day off to
get the schedule and the schedule had not been posted. This was her tipping point and she ended up
quitting. Because our district
interpreted our corporate rules in such a way, we were simply not flexible
enough or accommodating enough for people to work with us. (Fell, 2014)
Flexibility and understanding our key to having happy workers, and our
policy failed to reason with that concept, which is why we are struggling now.
In my corporate
job previous to this one, I worked in an office cubicle, similar to the
discussion that Chuck Gallagher mentioned about the office printer. I worked in the graphic arts area, so we had
access to all sorts of equipment that made printing so much easier. I shared a cube with another artist and we
got along very well. The way my company
structured themselves made it difficult to plan out work for the entire
year. We were separated from the people
were worked directly with, so the flow of work we were given was sporadic and
irregular. Some months we would have
more work than we could handle, and other months we would be so slow that we
would have nothing to do for weeks. The
girl I shared a cube with had a side business where she designed invitations
and business cards for people. She spent
a lot of her time at work doing these designs for her separate business. The company I worked for at the time had a
rule stating that you could not do freelance work outside of the job while
working for this company. Let alone, you
definitely could not do you freelance work at work! But since the company failed to pay attention
to the needs of my previous work group, we were left separated from our
coworkers and with nothing to do. In
this instance, the company’s values clashed with this employee’s ability to and
desire to work, so she did what was against the rules because she would rather
do that than nothing at all.
When company
values are set up in a way that are overreaching for the entire company, with
not specifications for individual sections, it can be difficult to follow them
when they interfere with your life.
Especially in the case of the girl who rode her bike, flexibility should
have been something we made exceptions for, as her case was unique and she was
exposed to a different set of rules. I
think it is important for our leaders to lead by example as well. In both scenarios, I had bosses who preached
about ethical behavior, but then failed to follow it themselves. It sets a bad example for new employees who
are still feeling out the do’s and don’ts of a company when the leader is saying
one thing and doing another. It is important
for management to carry this message through, so that people understand that
these values and rules are set in place for a reason, but that we are still
flexible when the situation calls for it.
References
Katsikakis,
Despina. "The Hidden Value of Workplace Flexibility." The Huffington
Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 July 2014. Web. 10 May 2015.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/despina-katsikakis/the-hidden-value-of-workp_b_5561476.html>.
Sutton
Fell, Sara. "Your Workers Want Work Flexibility But Companies Benefit
Most." Entrepreneur. 30 Oct. 2014. Web. 9 May 2015.
<http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239111>.
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