Techfite: Ethical And Legal Issues

A1 - Three Corporate Polices

The first policy that needs to be changed is the hour’s threshold for receiving benefits, specifically health insurance. It is obvious, when hours were cut, that employees were not involved in the process. This goes against TechFite’s company culture of workplace collaboration and employee involvement in corporate decision making. There needs to be informational meetings, with employees, to receive their input on the proposed change to the current policy.

The second policy change will help fund the first policy. The bonuses for top executives must be reasonable. The excessive bonuses do not seem to have been common knowledge which oppose TechFite’s values of employee collaboration and empowerment. The bonuses need

Broken commitments will certainly damage the company’s reputation, at least at the local level. The pledges, to Dellberg will need to be downsized because of Techfit’s limited financial resources. Community events can be sponsored but other sponsors should be pursued to help contain costs. Support for youth leadership by instituting a program to develop young entrepreneurs and providing internships.

A2 - An Ethical and Legal Issue

There are no laws that require employers to provide benefits, specifically healthcare, to their employees. It doesn’t matter whether an employee is full-time or part-time employees. However, health benefits are required for businesses with 50 or more full-time employees because of the Affordable Health Care Act.

A company with 60 full-time employees could fire 30 full-time employees and hire 60 part-time employees avoid the requirements of the AHCA. This would be morally/ethically wrong but perfectly legal. In this same scenario, if the lowest wage earners were all women and they were the only ones fired, there could be a case of gender discrimination.

A3 - Three Ethics

Not keeping commitments made to the city. TechFite has a social responsibility to follow through on their community commitments. It is important for a company to be honest with employees, vendors, and the community. Dishonesty will damage corporate culture and the company’s reputation.

A4 – Ethics Officer

An ethics officer designs and implements the ethics compliance program. They create a culture of integrity that is organizational wide. Duties and responsibilities include developing training for employees, conducting investigations and responding to complaints. An ethics office must be a high-level executive since other high-ranking officers could be accused of an ethical violation.

Training is important, so all employees understand the ethics code of the organization and new employees can be oriented to the company ethical structure. Investigations are launched when misconduct is reported These inquiries are sensitive because the source must remain anonymous and someone could be disciplined or terminated. Complaints must be logged and acted upon. Complaints will require interviews and could evolve into investigations.