Following the guidelines of course ID guidelinesStudent’s nameUniversity
Introduction
In this paper a brief description of employment-at-will doctrine has been presented to show how a Chief Operating Officer can tackle a number of personnel problems of an organization with the help of a number of ethical theories and ethical consideration. As the Chief Operating Officer a number of scenarios have to be dealt with where one can find unethical use of empowerment with the employees to force them to leave the job. Therefore it is the duty of Chief Operating Officer to investigate such unethical scenarios to make correct decisions whether the employment-at-will doctrine has been breached or not. Considering the issues with provided evidences it is very essential to reach the correct decisions. In this paper a summary of -at-will doctrine has been presented and at the same time the some of the given scenarios have been strictly verified following the ethical guidance and law suits. Besides, a description of the primary actions needed to be taken to limit the aptitude and impact on operations has been presented with the help of proper ethical theories. Finally employment-at-will doctrine policy has been critically analyzed by providing a real world example of an employee utilizing the employment-at-will doctrine policy for his benefit.
Employment-At-Will Doctrine and assessment of the given scenarios
Employment-at-will doctrine suggests to the conjecture that service is for an imprecise phase of time and may be finished either by worker or employer. Employment-at-will doctrine has been historically come to the frame of an organizational structure to interpret employment affiliation. Employment-at-will doctrine has been derived to protect job security of an employee and to save employees from being fired for unethical reasons (Sueda, n.d.). Employment-at-will doctrine has been introduced by the lawmakers in order to balance the bargaining power of employees of any organization. In case of given scenario of the said company as an Chief Operating Officer it is very important to assess the scenarios to verify if the decision makings regarding to the employees are right or undue considering corporate ethical consideration.
In case of Bill where evidences clearly suggests that being an agent of the corporation Bill has misused company provided facilities such as mobile phone to run his own business on the side. This can be considered as completely unethical as far as company policies has concerned and he can be terminated as per the law being charged of misusing company provided facilities for his own business being a part of the organization (Mandle, 2013). On ethical consideration he can be accused to break company’s ethical policy as well. As a result his termination can be guaranteed and irreversible.
Now in case of scenario order five where one of the department supervisors requested COO’s approval to fire his secretary for insubordination, evidences suggests that the supervisor has make such aggressive decision as his secretary has refused to make false expense reports on behalf of her boss. So in this very scenario there is a misuse of position and breach of ethical policy by the supervisor. Therefore by applying employment-at-will doctrine the employee can charge her boss to make unfair way of sacking her from the job as she has objected to make false expenses report (Meng, Othman, D’Silva & Omar, 2014). Critically company can make justice by taking legal action to the supervisor for his wrong ethical doings.
At last for scenario number six it can be seen that Anna has made an effort to grant a leave from his boss for jury job but on the other hand boss wants to terminate her job for being absent without permission. In such case ethical consideration can be taken into the frame to enlighten the matter. As Anna tried to convince her boss for a leave to perform her jury duty it cannot be said that she has committed a mistake. On the other hand her boss has charged her for getting absent without permission which is unethical indeed. Therefore on basis of employment-at-will doctrine Anna cannot be terminated at will of her boss.
Primary actions needed to be taken on basis of ethical theory
In order to control such scenario in an organization both employees and employers must abide by the employment-at-will doctrine and company’s ethical policy. The organization should create awareness about employment-at-will doctrine for employees to make a move if they find any decision they are believed to be imposed on them unethically (Kerley, 2002). Most importantly a specific corporate culture within a corporation can eradicate such personnel problems. In case of ethical consideration a number of theories must have been followed in an organization such as:
Egoism: It defines the self and necessity of an employee.
Deontology: It defines the duty to the organization someone is working for.
Utilitarianism: It defines overall environment of an organization such as happiness and pain within an organization.
Virtue Ethics: undoubtedly this is one of the most important theories that define character of an employee or employer.
Care ethics: It defines empathy, susceptibility and affiliation among employees and employers of an organization.
Therefore it can be mentioned that following these specific ethical theories can eliminate and control personnel problems inside an organization.
Employment-At-Will Doctrine Policy and analysis
Employment-at-will doctrine policy has got three major law prospects to be defined such as Public Policy, Implied agreement of high-quality confidence and Implied Contract. Public Policy can be defined as one of the frequent law expectations to the at-will conjecture that defends employees against unfavorable employment deed within an organization (Covey, 2000). In case of implied contract it is a verbal assurance that can be ethically considered as a proof. Significantly people who have been doing their job considerably well than others can be appreciated and inspired and in cases of unethical situation the appreciation can be counted for their survival in the company. Finally implied agreement of high-quality confidence is a good relationship between employee and employer. Trustworthy employees can be considered for this type of consideration if any unethical doing have been performed on them. In order to describe at-will doctrine a real world example has been presented here.
Ed B. was appointed as a sales executive by M&H Aluminum Sales Corporation where the employee handbook explained that the first three months of the job was experimental stage and the handbook also mentioned that the corporation had got an Employment-at-will policy. For his creditability Ed B. was felicitated by a performance appraisal on completion of his trial period of 90 days and as a result he was assessed satisfactorily. Within next two months Ed B. was fired from his job. In these circumstances Ed B. used Employment-at-will provisions and sued the company for being fired in an unlawful way. He was successfully won the case and compensated $740,000. It was his performance appraisal that taken as a policy.
Now here one can easily find the usefulness of Employment-at-will doctrine to protect job security or any unnecessary incident in the job place forced by the company.
References
Covey, A. (2000). The workplace law advisor. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Pub.
Kerley, P. (2002). Employment law for the paralegal. Albany, NY: West/Thomson Learning.
Mandle, J. (2013). The Place of Rawls in Political and Ethical Theory. Metaphilosophy, 44(1-2), 37-41. doi:10.1111/meta.12002
Meng, C., Othman, J., D’Silva, J., & Omar, Z. (2014). Ethical Decision Making in Academic Dishonesty with Application of Modified Theory of Planned Behavior: A Review. International Education Studies, 7(3). doi:10.5539/ies.v7n3p126
Sueda, K. Negotiating multiple identities.
