The Key spect Of The Business Ethics - Essay Example

Essay: It is argued these days that the method involved in drug testing puts the privacy of an employee in serious jeopardy. However, keeping in viewall the horrendous losses and sloppy attitude that rapidly started to become the manner of Mr. Bowie’s employees, I will argue for the claim that “drug testing was the most appropriate idea amidst much stress that clicked in Mr. Bowie’s mind at the right time.” Mr. Bowie has the right to use drug testing as means to protect his company from losses, since it was already being practiced in many other outlets of his company. He has to take some initiative to spare his company from grave losses. First of all, I argue that if habitual drug use was the main cause of the declining profit, Mr. Bowie has the right to defend his company by conducting the drug test. As the leader of a company, Mr. Bowie has to fulfill his duty and responsibility to ensure the safety of the company to satisfy the stockholders. It is natural for him to feel so dejected about his company’s future, since he has struggled a lot for the betterment of the company’s productivity. Still, bad performance began to be displayed by his employees due to lack of professionalism and loyalty for the last fifteen years. Finally, he discovered that the root cause of all the mishaps is that most of the employees relied on drugs. Now, when he is finally familiar with the root cause of the problem and the effective results implemented by the strategy of drug testing, he unequivocally has the right to use the drug test and it is even his job to do so, because if he goes on ignoring the method, it would mean that he is not fulfilling his duty as the chief manager of the company. The strategy that is to be discussed presently and which I support, is “drug testing”, that includes having an employee tested for their urine in the presence of two other persons of the same sex in the same room. Now, this idea of having the urine tested explicitly in front of two other persons, no matter if they may be of the same sex, can very potently appear to be extremely humiliating and embarrassing for any employee, and that is the major reason why people stand up against this method. That does not mean this strategy should be eradicated or banned completely. I, personally, believe this to be profoundly vital for the long-term success of any company because sometimes, the very threat of drug testing can work miracles. This threat is especially functional when it is effectively used at the time of employing new persons as well as to deter the drug usage by already employed workers. When talking about Mr. Bowie’s case and the losses he has to go through owing to the illicit drug use by his many employees, a question surfaces that does Mr. Bowie stand any other chance if he does not consider the idea of drug testing? Knowing that the main cause of the problem is related to the employees’ drug use, the strategy of drug test becomes even more necessary because the productivity of his company is at stake. A company has to move systematically, and since Mr. Bowie also has to conduct the system of his company smoothly, he has the right to conduct the drug test and screen out the workers using drugs. Secondly, I suggest that the drug test has to be introduced to Mr. Bowie’s company because the effectiveness of the test outweighs the risks rising from privacy invasion of the employees. It is identified in the text that at the beginning of implementing drug test, the costs of the human resources losses, law suits regarding privacy violation, and decreased loyalty of employees may be significant. But, according to the other executives of the publishing company, once the test becomes routine and as soon as the employees recognize the improving performance of the company, these costs will gradually decrease and the implementation will prove to be profoundly vital for the long-term success. According to the text, the drug test was passed by the U.S congress as legal and this means that there will be no problem regarding legality when drug test is implemented. Based on this legality, there are various successful cases of implementing the drug test. The textbook identifies that the drug test was already proven to be effective in other branches in Latin America as well as in other publishing companies in U.S., after it was incorporated as an essential feature in the company laws. I believe that the drug test, no matter even if it violates the privacy in some ways, has to be seriously considered and different strategies have to be implemented in order to ensure safety for the future of an organization. This is because the chances of drug use in workplaces are high and the cost that a company has to pay due to drug use by its employees is significant enough to threat the future of that company. The text identifies that 70% of the workers use drug, and roughly 11% of the workers in publishing industries use it on the job. This data proves that there is a high probability that each 165 workers out of 1500 will use drugs on their job and create various problems that can cost a company a significant amount of money annually. Lastly, while drug testing can unequivocally mitigate horrendous harms that can ruin an organization’s whole setup, still some find it unreasonable to consider on the grounds of ethics. Cranford (1998) has expressed his feelings regarding this issue in words which can be considered perhaps the strongest objection to the claim I am defending. According to Cranford (1998), there is no ethical justification for such tests, since it puts the privacy of an employee in serious jeopardy and their personal documents are handled in a way which is irrelevant to the terms of employment. However, I believe that this objection fails and I have reasons to prove this. Basically, such tests can never go against terms of employment if they are already included in the employment contract and that is actually the decision made by Mr. Bowie, to include this condition so that no one can deny going through the test. Moreover, privacy issues can also be mitigated because it is the intention of Mr. Bowie to preserve the privacy of an employee in the best way. The test reports are ordered to be reported only to Mr. Bowie to himself, ensuring minimum involvement of non-concerned people. Some people claim that drug testing leads to faulty detection since it mostly detects the metabolites, not pure drugs themselves, and so metabolites can be mistaken for illicit drugs. Now, this claim is also plausible in relevance to Mr. Bowie’s case, because he is particularly concerned about false or negative tests and he intends to make it his business to accurately evaluate the tests, so that no employee can bring any sort of claim against him for breach of any contractual right like unfair dismissal. Mr. Bowie is against dismissing such employees, rather he wishes them to go through rehabilitation programs, and if they deny going through such programs, then dismissal is his choice. To sum up, I recommend Mr. Bowie to implement the drug testing to screen out the habitual drug users and prevent any further losses of the company. First, Mr. Bowie has the right and duty to effectively manage the company as the chief executive. Secondly, the company is experiencing considerable losses due to the employee’s drug use which outweighs the costs of individual’s invasion of privacy. Lastly, the strict condition of drug test will less invade an employee’s rights and simultaneously deter the further loss. Therefore, it is reasonable for Mr. Bowie to implement the drug test. Read More