Web Porn at Work - Essay Example

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Web Porn at Work

‘Web porn at work’ is a story of a medium-sized manufacturing firm, Rayburn Unlimited founded by Al Smetana. The company has a strong organizational culture based on integrity, honesty, and intrinsic value of each employee. Al, the company’s president, dismissed an employee after realizing that he violates the organizational culture by tapping into the company’s computer systems and monitoring other employees’ private sites like emails and visited websites. However, the dismissed employee in protest gave a signal to Al about the computer usage of his old friend, Craig Lindley, who is also the associate vice president for human resource of the company. Upon inquiry, Lindley admitted his addiction to web pornography that he watched daily for at least an hour even during office time. He claimed to be ashamed of the act and was afraid to tell the wife.

Ethical issues

In this case, there are ethical issues that need to be addressed on individual, organizational and societal levels. At an individual level, confidentiality and professionalism of employees are necessary. Confidentiality is one of the most violated ethical issues in organizational level. However, it is expected that information that is passed or conveyed by participants in the course of their communication will remain confidential unless revealed by them. To maintain this level of confidentiality, computer records are always protected by strong passwords and electronic cording and notes and other records are regularly kept under lock and key. Irrespective of any program legal responsibility the best policy remains confidentiality. However, in this case, an employee violates the privacy of other employees by reading their private emails. Therefore, this calls for the need to address the issue of confidentiality.

Another ethical issue that needs to be addressed on an individual level is the professionalism of employees in an organization. Professionalism requires that one recognizes the ethical implication of certain decisions made. This including maintaining an honest ethical code of broadcasting only what is considered to be true, and understanding the consequences of leaking information considered personal. According to this case study, two employees lack professionalism. The sacked employee lacks professionalism because he taps into the computer systems of the company and reads private emails of other employees. Again, Lindley lacks professionalism because he wastes the company’s resources by watching pornographic films at work.

On an organizational level, one of the ethical issues that need to be addressed is fairness. The organization needs to ensure that there is equitable treatment of all the employees irrespective of the position one holds. Being fair to all employees has many benefits to an organization. Some of the benefits include avoidance of counterproductive behavior and maximizing employees’ performance because of a healthy environment that favors growth and flourishment. To ensure that an organization is fair, the concept of justice should be one of the key things to consider as a pillar. Taking the case study at hand into consideration, Al should not hesitate to sack Lindley to ensure there is fair treatment of all employees bearing in mind that he had already sacked an employee for the same reason.

Alternatives for characters

In this case study of ‘web porn at work’, three characters are involved. These characters have made decisions which can be considered otherwise given the alternatives. For example, the dismissed employee for reasons of tapping into the organization's computer systems and violating other people’s privacy made allegations in protest that Lindley was doing something that was also contrary to the organization’s culture. However, in another perspective, the employee would have made is mind known about other employees violating the same organizational cultures without mentioning names. He would have made Al aware of the information and let him do his own investigation if interest.

Al had also an alternative to the decision he made of dismissing the employee. Even though the employee was bound to be sacked, Al should not have sacked him immediately without taking him through a counseling session to determine the reason for his behavior and also to make him aware of the consequences of his behavior. The counseling would have reduced the effect he felt during the dismissal that might also have included the protest shown by revealing other people’s names.

Again, Lindley had alternative too in his decisions of admitting being hooked on web pornography. Even though he was morally right to accept his mistakes, he would have thought of the consequences of accepting them because in my opinion, denying any wrongdoing had lesser effect than accepting them

Perception of different group to the alternatives

The alternative of the dismissed employee to avoid revealing the name might have different reactions by different groups. By not revealing names, president of the company and the entire company might find it not challenging to handle the case because none of the senior personnel of the company might have been mentioned. The society, on the other hand, would as well welcome the move of not revealing the name of high profile personnel to save the image of the company that was already looming. However, there is a category of individuals who were happy with the revealing of the name. These include other employees who might have had more secrets hidden behind the emails and revealing names left them out of the hook unless further investigations are done by the company.

The alternative of avoiding a quick move to sack the employee by Al before taking him through counseling might as well be perceived differently by different groups. The company and its stakeholders that include the society, in general, might consider the move reasonable. When an employee is dismissed, many things that may turn ugly if not well handled may result. For example, retaliation by revealing names after being dismissed was just one of the bad occurrences that followed when the employee was dismissed without counseling as witnessed in this case study. In my view, a smaller section of the employees whose privacy was violated might not have mercy to the offender and would congratulate the president for the quick release of the employee. To them, any delay to sack the employee would not have been welcome and would have violated the very culture of the organization they have stood for.

The alternative of Lindley denying any wrongdoing might also be perceived differently by the different groups. Denying any involvement in violation of the organization’s cultures of commitment to honesty and integrity would be negatively perceived by the organization. Even though other employees would not have known the incident unless the dismissed employee went public, Al might not have taken it kindly because he was already disturbed by the comments made by the employee making him very reluctant to let it go. Therefore, the same thoughts of Al not trusting Lindley would be the general view of the whole organization. Having in mind a moral society where honesty and ideal things are paramount, the society would also expect the truth from Lindley and any denial of wrongdoing would be against their expectation. However, not all would share the same thoughts with Lindley by accepting his mistakes very easily. For example, Lindley confessing that he was ashamed of revealing his behavior to the wife and anybody else means that if he revealed his behavior, worse consequences would follow than when he kept quiet. Therefore, this is a case of a lesser evil.

Constraints to the alternatives

There are certain alternatives as discussed above that are not left without constraints making them unfeasible. For example, when we consider the alternative of Al taking his time to counsel the employee before terminating his employment, we realize that majority of the employees offended by would be very much demoralized. The demoralization of the employees will be as a result of what the company has stood for over a very long period, and that is honesty and integrity. Therefore, demoralization of other employees is a major constraint because the company must set an example to others for the very thing they champion for and to do that, it is just to terminate the contract of the employee as quickly as possible.

Organization and society perception of an alternative

Among the three alternatives by the three characters, I consider the alternative of Lindley denying any wrongdoing interesting to elaborate. This is because Lindley is faced with a situation of choosing between two evils and he has to choose the lesser one although any choice that he makes has consequences. In the assumption that the sacked employee will not go public in case Lindley is not dismissed, the lesser evil is to avoid revealing secrete of being addicted to web pornography. This is because revealing secrets might only lead to lack of trust among fellow managers especially Al. However, revealing the secrets as he did is likely to lead to the termination of his employment, destroying his reputation and to a little extent that of the company, creating mistrust in marriage and worse case destroying his marriage among others.

Strategies to overcome negative feedbacks

As discussed, there is likely that there are possibilities of negative feedback in case of Lindley denying any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, these negative feedbacks are also possible to deal with. To begin with, the organization expects Lindley to confess and the avoidance of confession would result in lack of trust which is the kingpin supporting individual performance and outstanding team. To avoid lack of trust which plays a big role in the organizational success, the information about Lindley’s involvement in the violation of the organization’s cultures should not be let out to the public. This can be avoided by convincing the dismissed employee to let it go any information he has about the company and its personnel.

In the circumstance that the information is already with the public and the employee are aware of Lindley denying any wrongdoing, then the organization should inform the employees of the ill motives of the dismissed employee to destroy the reputation of Lindley and the organization as a whole. This is likely to be received well by other employees bearing in mind that the dismissed employee had already offended them hence reducing the effect of any looming revolt against Al and Lindley.

Conclusion

‘Web porn at work’ is a case study of ethics at work. It brings out a picture of a situation where the organization must stand firm for the very principles that it champions. These principles must be upheld by every employee irrespective of their position. Justice must be done to all in order to keep faith in employees for the continuous production of the company. Therefore, after Al made a firm decision by dismissing an employee for violating the organizational cultures, he has no alternative but to dismiss Lindley for the same reasons.