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.
My organization portrays a number of values that
include honesty, integrity, hard working, trustworthy, dedicated and
distinctive. While my organization does portray these values as whole in a
positive environment and does its best to assist its employees and our students
we are also prone to negativity as not all individuals in the organization are
working for the best interest of the organization. Some workers make poor
decisions and therefore the organization can suffer from the poor choices these
workers make, whether it is in an instant or over the course of a period of
time.
When it comes to unethical choices,
there are some individuals who do not feel as though that what they are doing is
unethical. Simple things that people do on a daily basis can be looked at as
the norm instead of stealing. If workers are taking pens, paper or other office
supplies home, is this unethical? If there is only one individual doing this
then is it as unethical or as bad if 200 workers are doing? Something as simple
as taking a few pens home may not seem so unethical to some but if you consider
how much money is walking out of the door of the organization then you might
begin to feel differently. Companies lose hundreds if not thousands of dollars
in workers using their products and supplies for personal use instead of just
for work. I have seen things like this happen in our organization, while I can’t
say that it happens on purpose or in major excess, I do see that it does happen
from time to time.
Another unethical occurrence that
takes place is when individuals do homework at work. It is said that we can do
homework at work during our lunch break; however what happens when individuals
are completing homework assignments during the work day? If completing a
discussion question on your 15 minute break unethical if it is not your lunch
break? What if your work does not suffer even when completing your assignments?
What if workers who are doing their homework as well as completing all of their
necessary work throughout the day? Should this be considered unethical? The
answer would be yes, however if workers feel as though they are getting their
job done as well as their work they are not doing anything wrong, however if
one worker was doing this then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, but if 200
employees were doing this then the company would view this as stealing company
time.
Surfing the internet and logging
into social media sites and other non work related sites is also another issue
that our organization experiences. There are many individuals who have a face book
or MySpace account and spend time having conversations and making posts on
their friends or family’s pages. Many would not consider this unethical as most
individuals get their work done throughout the day, however this is also
considered as stealing time. While each of these tasks do not seem as though
they could hurt the company too badly at first glance, when you look at the
behind the scenes costs and money that is put into the organization and the
time that can be spent on our students, we should each really look closer at
the contribution we are making on a personal level to our employer.
While we do have a few unethical
practices that occur in our organization, I do believe that Embry-Riddle is an
excellent employer and that for the most part the workers in this organization
have its best interest at heart. We work hard for our students and do our best
to work cohesively in getting out students and prospects what they need and when
they need it. I believe that every organization will have unethical practices;
however they just must do their best in keeping the major and minor ones under
control so the integrity of the company is maintained.
Cassandra
R.
