Ethical Challenges in the Workplace

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Ethical guidelines are practices and policies commonly observed by employees of non-profit and for-profit organizations and government agencies. An ethical guideline is like an essential navigational tool that assists the employee to figure out where to go and how to arrive at a projected destination, and what to do and what to avoid in the workplace. When an employee abides by and follows an employer’s ethical guidelines without digression, there is a greater chance that both employer and employee will experience increased productivity in terms of input and output, notice remarkable rise in customer satisfaction, get improved performance, and observe reduction in conflicts of interest.

Boeing Ethical Conduct

Important and noteworthy guidelines worth emulating are that of the mammoth Boeing Company that is a global leader in aerodynamics and space exploration. The company’s ethical business conduct guidelines include commitment to leadership, integrity, quality, customer satisfaction, and people working together, a diverse and involved team, good corporate citizenship, and enhancing shareholder value (Boeing, 2011). Arguably, four guidelines that are of relevant importance in the implementation of organizational change would be integrity, customer satisfaction, quality, and a diverse and involved team. Workforce diversity is an issue that focuses on people and their differences and similarities and what they bring to organizations (Woods, Bormann, & Schmidle, 2010).

Ethical Guidelines

These days, upholding higher degree of integrity has become the hallmark of many successful conglomerations in modern businesses ethics. Integrity which implies truthfulness, truth, veracity, or honesty is the most important tool employer and employees need to be equipped with to construct a credible foundation for any business. In my opinion, quality is another important and outstanding trait that has been credited with solidifying corporate business operations. In the case of Boeing, quality epitomizes improving work performance to achieve customer, employee, and community satisfaction.

In modern business practices, the term customer satisfaction has become a significant philosophical, psychological, or ideological tool and a rallying cry for most business entities, national and international, whose significance is nothing other than attracting consumers to the array of products earmarked for retail or wholesale by producers who are in firm competition for market domination. It has become an observable fact and a widely acclaimed, universal belief that any organization that fails to fulfill the needs of its customers is doomed to fail miserably. In relative terms, the term customer satisfaction signifies business-customer consanguinity, buyer-seller attachment, or giver-taker affiliation.

The sudden increase in global demographic protuberances, political irredentism, social equality, and economic emancipation experienced by humanity in the last few decades has given rise to explosive technological advances, enhanced globalization, and human interaction consequently leading to the elevation of integrated teamwork and inflexible workforce diversity never before seen in human history. In modern times, upsurge in unregulated human migratory patterns have set the stage for teamwork and workforce diversity. Likewise, diversity and teamwork have been making great strides in spurring spontaneous proliferation of global industrial production on a large scale. Thus, teamwork and workforce diversity are of paramount importance if organizational success is to be achieved. However, it should be noted that fruitful results can only be accomplished with strenuous training and regulatory enforcement.

Leadership Style

Two important ethical guidelines I tend to exemplify and intend to unleash in the near and distant future leadership role for effecting organizational change are competence and integrity and confidentiality. With competence an organization is required to have a solid trained workforce that has a firm understanding of the required roles and obligations. Employees will have to perform exceptionally well in the performance of their duties and also avoid making misleading statements that may hurt the organization and client good standing. According to Lamar (2000), confidentiality entails keeping the identity of clients secret especially records, information, and identity. I will expect each and every employee to observe confidentiality as being sacrosanct and inviolable. Since I consider myself a committed and loyal servant who has all the values and ideals of his organization at heart, assisting another leader in evil deeds is my greatest challenge and fear. I am not willing to take risks by contravening the rules and regulations of my organization.

References

Boeing (2011). Ethical business conduct guidelines. Retrieved from http://boeing.com/companyoffices/aboutus/ethics/ethics_booklet.pdf

Lamar (2000). Ethical guidelines for educational developers. Retrieved from http://lamar.colostate.edu/~ckfgill/ethics1.htm

Woods S., Bormann, T. & Schmidle J. (2010). Introduction: Workplace diversity. Retrieved from http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/research/subjectguides/workplacediversity.html

Ethics in the Workplace

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The term ethics, when applied to the workplace, admonishes people having close working relationships to aspire to conduct business in the most applicable manner and to strive to overcome all sorts of acts that may hinder productivity, diminish respect and dignity, and spearhead moral degradation. Ethics, in simple terms, is defined as distinguishing right from wrong. In our lifetime, we encounter various unethical issues committed by people of all ranks, with differing color and creed, religion and origin. Ethical issues in the workplace can best be observed by following the ethical codes of conduct established for each and every office. They are rules and regulations that act and guide the material and moral principles of employees and employers.

One burning scandalous issue that gripped the imagination of the global media has been the much-publicized Halliburton Scandal in which officials from the mega-corporation overcharged the United States Department of Defense (DOD) during the Iraq War after securing a $7 billion contract in Iraq to supply fuel. Former Vice-President of the United States Dick Cheney, who was CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000, finally stepped down after receiving $34 million as compensation (Guardian, 2004). Halliburton is considered to be the second biggest oilfield services corporation in the world and has over 70 operations worldwide.

The company’s corporate policy regarding sensitive transactions states “The Company will conduct its business in compliance with applicable Law (See Corporate Policy 3-0001 with respect to conflicts between United States Law and the Law of another country) and requires all Company Directors and Employees to avoid any activities which could involve the Company in any unlawful practice” (Halliburton, 2003). Even though it is stipulated in its policy, Halliburton leaders saw no problem breaking the law when it came to defrauding its own government.

Founded by Erle Halliburton in 1919, the energy corporation has remained in the spotlights of global and national controversies with officials reaping with impunity. In a well documented testimony, Bunnatine Greenhouse, an employee of Halliburton complained to army officials about the preferential treatment given to Halliburton in the Balkans, Kuwait, and Iraq. Her involvement in the investigations led her to be demoted. Halliburton did harm to its credibility by overcharging the same government that gave it contractual rights to extract oil from Iraq in the aftermath of the invasion. With help from corrupt government officials, the mega-corporation emerged the only entity to have exclusive rights to exploit Iraq’s abundant black gold. Despite the scandal and public outcry, Halliburton escaped unscathed from every scandal including the killing of three of its unarmed security guards who were indiscriminately gunned down by insurgents in Iraq after an Improvised Explosive Device or IED unexpectedly ripped apart the armored vehicle they were travelling in. Harrowing images of the shooting was captured on film by a lone survivor and shown to the world.

References

Frederickson, H. G. (1999), Ethics and the New Managerialism: An Interactive Journal 4(2), 299–324. Retrieved from http://www.spaef.com/file.php?id=1103

David, Teather (February 18, 2004), Halliburton Suspends Bills for Army Meals, World News, The Guardian, London. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/feb/18/iraq.usa

Corporate Policy (2003), Halliburton Company & Subsidiary Companies, Retrieved from
http://www.halliburton.com/AboutUs/default.aspx?pageid=2326&navid=976