Ethical Decision Making Framework
Discuss About The Investigation Impact An Ethical Framework.
The individuals are at times, required to make certain decisions especially in the organizational environment, on a regular basis. Working in a company often requires the employers to follow an ethical framework or model, at the times of making decisions. Organizational leaders are needed to be consistent at their ethical decision making procedures. An organization’s chosen course of actions can affect all the business aspects which include marketing, customer relationships, financial investments and others (Walker, Sque and Long Sutehall 2017). The organizational ethics are needed to be kept in front of the managerial processes and all throughout their levels by using a decision making framework. An ethical decision making framework can be employed easily in order to ensure the ethical actions of a company. Moreover, a solid framework should adequately address the issues, which the organizations face on a daily basis (Martinez and Wueste 2016).
The ethical decision making framework helps in providing step-by-step, fair procedures in order to help and guide the staff members, board members and other employees (Sque, Walker and Long Sutehall 2014). The report addresses a moral dilemma, using the framework of ethical decision making. It mentions about a company which meets its service deadlines by making the workers work beyond their eight hour paid shift. The staff members are well aware of this and are working unpaid overtime in order to ensure their job security. Being the manager of the company, it has been seen that this practice is becoming a part of the organizational culture. Moreover, it appears that even the Chief Executive Officer of the company is aware of these issues as well.
|
Framework |
Public |
Company |
Colleagues |
Individual |
Clients |
Industry |
|
Benefits of this action? |
Avoiding disruption of services where the workload is difficult to share among the entire work force. |
A company is able to deal with busy periods, staff shortages, cover the absence of staff and staff shortages without having the need to hire new staff. |
A more flexible work environment is created if employees agree to work overtime. |
Increased opportunity of earning for the employee who works overtime as well as for the employer. |
Clients do not face disruption of work. The clients receive uninterrupted service even after the stipulated shift time of the employees. |
The industry also benefits if the employees employed in the industry work overtime. The productivity of the industry increases which ultimately results in the profitability of the industry in concern |
|
Harm caused by this action? |
Working even after the stipulated shift time for the additional monetary benefits is a practice that adverse affects the quality of life of the people. It has also been reported that working overtime ultimately results in the creation of negative health consequences. It also results in increased occupational injuries. |
The companies have to bear the premium expense of overtime rates which are generally higher than normal wage rates |
Regular long working hours can have a negative impact on the entire workforce. The long hours of work can adversely affect the health of the employees and can also disrupt the work life balance of such employees. |
Increased fatigue due to working overtime can cause absenteeism and lead to unsafe working practices. |
The clients are required to pay an additional amount if they seek the services of employees who work overtime due to increased wage rates of overtime workers. There is a high probability that the services received by the client will be of substandard quality due to the fatigue and burnout of the employees who work overtime. |
Although apparently it seems evident that the productivity of the industry increases with if the employees work overtime, however in reality the quality of the work or services provided by the employees to the industry gets compromised due to the fatigue caused by the long work hours. Therefore the industry suffers a detriment. |
|
Benefits if action is universalized? |
If the practice of working overtime is universalized, it will have a positive impact on the public due to the increased availability of the services and reduced disruption of services. |
The companies will be more productive due to the overtime work of the employees. If the practice of working overtime is universalized, there is an increased chance of the expansion of the business of the company due to increased profitability. |
If the practice of overtime work is universalized, it will help in the creation of a more flexible and cooperative work environment for all. |
The employee who will work over time after their stipulated shift hours will have an opportunity to earn more if they choose to work overtime. |
The clients will receive active feedback from the employees about the work delegated to them even after the stipulated shift time of the employees |
The productivity of the industry will increase. |
|
Harm if action is universalized? |
The balance between the work and family life would be adversely impacted. |
If the practice of working overtime is universalized, the companies will be required to compensate employees by providing overtime wages due to the slack in the pace of work of the employees |
Resentment of employees if the practice of working overtime is withdrawn can be expected and this might result in inflexibility. |
Quality of life is compromised. |
The quality of the work delivered to clients is compromised if the practice of overtime is continued for a long time. |
The Industry is likely to become dependent on the additional efforts provided by employees in overtime. |
|
Contradiction if universalized? |
If it is universalized then the internal public will get highly affected. |
Lack of trust among the employers and employees. |
Colleagues will get affected, team morale will lessen. |
Quality of life will degrade |
Clients will get affected as the employees’ work quality will degrade |
Industry’s reputation will get maligned. |
|
Used as means to end, violating their rights? |
No, not used as means to end |
Yes, used to end the organization’s right of minimum wages |
Exploitation of the workers, violating their rights |
Yes, it is used as means to end the right to quality of work |
Yes, used as means to the public’s end against exploiting their money |
Yes, used as means. |
|
Violating rights, seen as unjust, action taker has more power? |
Violation of the workers’ rights as they are made to work for than maximum work hours as prescribed by the law |
It is a violation of rights of employees if they are not given overtime pay |
Colleagues will also get affected if violation of the law occurs as they work in the same organization. |
Unjustified actions will lower the individual’s morale and work flow. |
Clients will get less impacted |
The overall industry’s reputation will get damaged. |
As indicated by Wood (2016), it is a matter of fact that when the employees of a business organizations do overtime it brings in numerous advantage for the employees as well as for the business organization; though it can potentially bring in some disadvantages for both parties. As stated by Kossek, Thompson and Lautsch (2015), it can be said that if the employees of a business concern get engaged in overtime works frequently that can effectively give a boost to the productivity of the company which will automatically bring in profitability for the concern. As predicted by Eberth, Elliott and Skåtun (2016), in this regard, it can be said that the management of the business organizations can provide monetary benefits to the employees and the employees can also get rewards like recognition at the workplace that can effectively increase their motivation and loyalty towards the organization they work for.
Benefits and harm of specific and universalized actions
It can be said that the management of the business organization can also improve their reputation in the market of operation if the employees start doing overtime as then the customers will not face any types of delay or interrupted work and the overall effectiveness of the general workforce of the business concern gets a major boost. In this regard, it is worthwhile to mention that if some of the employees get engaged in over timing, it can potentially increase the professional ability or the professional skills of those employees (Kang, Matusik and Barclay 2017). The employees who frequently get engaged in over timing in the workforce are seen to have huge loyalty for the company and their motivation to work is seen to be on the higher side which is immensely beneficial for the company. As predicted by Eberth, Elliott and Skåtun (2016), the aim of the management should be to retain or to sustain this mentality of the existing workforce by rewarding them with either monetary or recognition as a mean of benefit so they do not lose their motivation and loyalty towards the organization.
In this regard, it should be mentioned that the there can be some negative impacts of overdoing over times in the workplace and that includes numbers of factors that can effectively reduce the effectiveness of the workforce or the overall organizational performance. If some of the employees of the workforce gets engaged in working overtime for a longer period of time it can have a negative impact on their health and that can effectively refrain them from performing their daily tasks and at that point of time the company starts losing their daily productivity. Doing overtime can affect the personal life of the employees too and for that they can lose their motivation to work which can invoke serious trouble for the management of the business concern.
As indicated by Wood (2016), it is also a matter of fact that due to extensive work, the quality of the work gets compromised and that is not beneficial for the business organization as it can potentially affect the reputation of the business concern. It can be said that the management of the organization may get negative impacts if the majority of the employees of the workforce intends to do overtimes in the workplace; a dependency on the higher income can be installed among the minds of the employees of the concern and that can adversely affect on the mentality and morale of the existing workforce of the company (Eberth, Elliott and Skåtun 2016).
Contradictions, means to end, and violation of rights
Therefore it can be stated that there are numerous advantages and disadvantages if the employees do over time work in the workplace. Therefore, it should be the duty of the management of the business organization to effectively analyze the situation and allow only a number of people of their disposal or workforce to continue over timing as that can improve the situation (Pausch et al. 2016). As indicated by Wood (2016), apart from that the management can introduce a rotational shifts where each week a number of employees will be able to do overtime shifts and in this way everyone will get chance to do overtime and that would not bring in harmful effects that has been mentioned above.
Business leaders and their companies need to remain consistent in their entire ethical decision making procedure. A chosen course of action of the company has several ramifications which affect their business infrastructure that include consumer relationships, financial investments and marketing. The ethics of the companies are kept at forefront of the processes all throughout the levels by using the decision making framework (Martinov Bennie and Mladenovic 2015). According to Ferrell and Fraedrich (2015), decision making framework is a tool that is easily employable and designed to ensure the ethical areas of the company’s choices. Therefore, a solid framework helps in addressing the issues of the organizations in the most effective manner.
Professional workers are often forced at their workplaces to work overtime without extra payments. Moreover, they do so in order to keep their jobs. The employers are aware of these facts and overlook the matter, in order to get benefitted. However, in this aspect an ethical framework should be applied for ensuring the employees’ welfare and safety. It is important to avoid the disruption of the services where the work pressure is difficult to share among the work force. The companies must be able to deal with the busy periods, shortage of staff members and absence of staff members. It is not ethically correct to pressurize other employees and stuff them with work just to compensate the absentees’ work (Ford and Richardson 2013).
Moreover, companies can hire new employees in order to distribute the tasks equally among the employees. No employees should be entertained to serve extra hours for the company and even if situation demands so, the employees must be paid extra for the hours they are serving. The human resource managers should take care of these factors and design a proper benefit or compensation structure, in order to provide the employees with the necessary elements required at a workplace setting (Shapiro and Stefkovich 2016).
Summary
Moreover, working more than the stipulated shift timing for additional benefits can also be seen as a practice which affects the quality of the workers’ life to a great extent. The companies also have to bear premium expenses that are generally higher than the normal wage rates. Regular working hours have a severe impact on the entire workforce of the company and the longer hours the employee serve the company, the longer their health gets affected. If this practice of working overtime at the companies gets universalized, then it will have negative impact among the employees and their health (Crossan, Mazutis and Seijts 2013). Therefore, it is unethical for the companies to promote such practices within the workplace settings.
Conclusion
To conclude, making good ethical decisions is an important part of the organizations and it requires extensive training for practicing such methods. The report has given an overview of how the organizations promote overtime services of the workers, without any payments. It is highly unethical for the companies to promote such factors and thus, an ethical framework has been designed in order to analyze the situation, benefits and drawbacks of the factor. There are several ethics and various ways to think about the right and wrong and thus, the companies need to take care of these factors in order to keep their organizational image intact. It is highly important for an ethical decision making framework, so that the companies get highly benefitted on the long run.
References
Crossan, M., Mazutis, D. and Seijts, G., 2013. In search of virtue: The role of virtues, values and character strengths in ethical decision making. Journal of Business Ethics, 113(4), pp.567-581.
Eberth, B., Elliott, R.F. and Skåtun, D., 2016. Pay or conditions? The role of workplace characteristics in nurses’ labor supply. The European Journal of Health Economics, 17(6), pp.771-785.
Ferrell, O.C. and Fraedrich, J., 2015. Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson Education.
Ford, R.C. and Richardson, W.D., 2013. Ethical decision making: A review of the empirical literature. In Citation classics from the Journal of Business Ethics (pp. 19-44). Springer, Dordrecht.
Kang, J.H., Matusik, J.G. and Barclay, L.A., 2017. Affective and Normative Motives to Work Overtime in Asian Organizations: Four Cultural Orientations from Confucian Ethics. Journal of business ethics, 140(1), pp.115-130.
Kossek, E.E., Thompson, R.J. and Lautsch, B.A., 2015. Balanced workplace flexibility: avoiding the traps. California Management Review, 57(4), pp.5-25.
Martinez, N. and Wueste, D., 2016. Balancing theory and practicality: engaging non-ethicists in ethical decision making related to radiological protection. Journal of Radiological Protection, 36(4), p.832.
Martinov Bennie, N. and Mladenovic, R., 2015. Investigation of the impact of an ethical framework and an integrated ethics education on accounting students’ ethical sensitivity and judgment. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(1), pp.189-203.
Pausch, S., Reimann, M., Abendroth, A.K. and Diewald, M., 2016. Work-life integration of dual-earner couples: spillover, crossover, and accumulation of workplace demands and resources within partnerships. Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource Management, 4(1).
Shapiro, J.P. and Stefkovich, J.A., 2016. Ethical leadership and decision making in education: Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.
Sque, M., Walker, W. and Long Sutehall, T., 2014. Research with bereaved families: A framework for ethical decision-making. Nursing ethics, 21(8), pp.946-955.
Walker, W., Sque, M. and Long Sutehall, T., 2017. Ethical issues in bereavement research: Practical use of a decision-making framework.
Wood, A.J., 2016. Flexible scheduling, degradation of job quality and barriers to collective voice. Human Relations, 69(10), pp.1989-2010.
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