Business Ethics & Sustainability

Topic – 10
Internal Stakeholder Issues
 LEARNING OUTCOMES
• LO4: Implement the sustainability concept to the organization’s
business strategy
 OUTLINE
• Employee Stakeholders and Workplace Issues
• Employee Stakeholders: Privacy, Safety, and Health
• Employment Diversity and Discrimination
Employee Stakeholders and Workplace Issues
The New Social Contract
 Employee Engagement

• Companies that support employee engagement through mentoring

programs, career development training, and annual employee surveys
that result in actions have notable key outcomes, including
outperforming companies who do not have active employee
engagement programs in areas of customer ratings, profitability, and
productivity.
• Despite these obstacles, employee engagement is a concept that is
central to most business’s employee stakeholder management.
• It is particularly important as businesses deal with an increasingly distal
workforce while still trying to instill a sense of identity with the
organization that might inspire loyalty and commitment.
 The Employee Rights Movement
• In contrast, the private sector generally has not been subject to constitutional control because of the concept of private
property, which holds that individuals and private organizations are free to use their property as they desire.
• Before we consider specific employee rights issues, we should discuss briefly, what we mean by employee rights.
• Rights provided by the law are called statutory rights.
• Union contracts, by contrast, provide workers with rights established through the process of collective bargaining.
• To summarize, employee rights may be based on economic, legal, and/or ethical sources of justification. In this way,
management may provide the employee rights as part of an effort to be socially responsible or to display moral
management.
 The Right Not to Be Fired without
Cause
• Belief in the good cause norm stands in direct opposition to the
employment-at-will doctrine, which many private employers believe is
their right based upon current laws.
• With employers and employees holding such contradictory views, it is easy
to see why so many disputes occur, and terms like unjust dismissals and
wrongful discharge have become part of today’s employment language.
• Three broad categories of issues that illustrate the legal challenges that
have arisen with regard to employment-at-will discharges are
• (1) public policy exceptions,
• (2) contractual actions, and
• (3) breach of good faith actions.
 The Right to Due Process and Fair
Treatment
1. It must be a procedure; it must follow rules. It must not be
arbitrary.
Due process is the 2. It must be sufficiently visible and so well known that potential
right to receive an violators of employee rights and victims of abuse are aware of it.
impartial review of
one’s complaints or
opinions and to be 3. It must be predictably effective.
The following are the main dealt with fairly.
requirements of a due- 4. It must be institutionalized—a relatively permanent fixture in the
process system in an organization.
organization:
5. It must be perceived as equitable.

6. It must be easy to use.

7. It must apply to all employees.

 Freedom of Speech in the
Workplace
• A whistle-blower is a
former or current
organization member
who discloses “illegal,
immoral, or illegitimate
practices under the
control of their
employers, to persons or
organizations that may
be able to effect action.”
 Freedom of Speech in the
Workplace
• Management Responsiveness to Potential Whistle-Blowing Situations
The following are suggestions for how to accomplish that goal:
• 1. Managers must be clear not only to accept suggestions—they must also invite them.
• Managers cannot implement all suggestions, but it is important for managers to acknowledge
each one.
• 2. Managers must refute commonly held assumptions and organizational myths that discourage
communication.
• For example, they can counter the commonly held belief that employees should give managers
suggestions in private by explaining that openly discussed ideas are likely to be useful.
• 3. Managers should tailor rewards so that employees share more directly in any cost savings or
sales increase from ideas they offer.
• Tangible rewards can help employees to overcome intangible concerns.
Employee Stakeholders:
Privacy, Safety, and Health
 Privacy in the Workplace
In the realm of employee privacy, the following four important issues stand out as
representative of the major workplace privacy issues:

1. Collection and use of employee information

• Background checks of both applicants and current employees have become a source of concern for privacy advocates.

2. Integrity testing
• Many companies now use question-and-answer integrity tests (also known as honesty tests), which are a specific type of personality test.

3. Drug testing
• Drug testing is an umbrella term intended to embrace drug and alcohol testing and employer testing for any suspected substance abuse.

4. Monitoring of employee work, behavior, conversations, and location by electronic means

• Technology changed all that as cameras and listening devices gave way to computers and satellites as options for employee monitoring.
• In some cases, the method is passive, such as installing video cameras in a lobby.
• However, most companies use active methods of monitoring their workers, such as recording their phone calls or voice mail, reading their
computer files, monitoring e-mail or Web access, and videotaping them.
 Workplace Safety

seven most common causes of workplace the workers who are more likely to experience
accidents: workplace violence include:

1. Shortcuts • Workers who exchange money with the public

2. Overconfidence
3. Poor, or Lack of Housekeeping
4. Starting a Task Before Getting All Necessary
Information
5. Neglecting Safety Procedures
6. Mental Distractions
• Workers who deliver passengers, goods, or services
• Workers who work alone or in small groups
• Workers who work late at night or very early in the
morning
• Workers who work in community settings and homes
where they have extensive contact with the public

7. Lack of Preparation • Workers who work in high-crime areas

 Health in the Workplace
Research has also demonstrated that allowing
smoking in the workplace has several strong
disadvantages that relate to health and safety that
management’s need to consider. Among these are:
• Higher rates of absenteeism among smoking
employees
• Shortened equipment life
• Higher cleaning and maintenance costs
• Higher health, life and property insurance costs
• Loss of worktime due to smoking activities
• More fires and other accidents
• Difficulty hiring employees who are sensitive to
smoke
The Family-Friendly Workplace
Employees are increasingly less willing to spend
every waking hour at work and are more
committed to having time to spend at home
with family.
Despite the challenges of a 24/7 workplace
culture, companies are searching for more and
more ways to help employees achieve work–life
balance, which is defined as “a state of
equilibrium where the demands of a person’s
personal and professional life are equal.”
Employment Diversity and Discrimination
 Diversity in the Workforce

• Workplace diversity refers to the variety of differences between

people in an organization.
• It encompasses race, gender, ethnicity, age, religion, personality,
tenure, education, and more.
• Most businesses refer to diversity management as assembling and
then retaining workers from different backgrounds and experiences
that together create a more innovative and productive workforce.
 Expanded Meanings of
Employment Discrimination
• two specific kinds of discrimination exist: disparate treatment and
disparate impact
 Issues in Employment
Discrimination
• Issues in Employment Discrimination
• Inequality Persists Despite Diversity Efforts
• Race and Ethnicity
• Colour
• Gender
• Other Forms of Employment Discrimination
• Religious Discrimination.
• Retaliation.
• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination.
 The Future of Diversity
Management
• Increasing minority buying power and influence are also incentivizing companies to want to
undertake voluntary programs to increase the diversity in their workforce and their bottom
lines.
• New analytical tools can provide opportunities to identify gender and race inequalities in the
workforce and offer some new opportunities for diversity management.
• New software tools allow companies to detect potential gender and race gaps in outcomes
like pay, recruitment, and promotion, given different inputs like training, mentoring, and
company policies and practices.
• These offer opportunities to provide “real fixes” for workplace bias that can be
institutionalized in the design of the businesses themselves, and perhaps, even to put an end
to discrimination.
• While it is early to see if these tools can truly make the workplace fairer, more inclusive, and
productive, they provide one more way to ensure that underrepresented groups receive a
fair shot in the workforce.
REFERENCE
 REFERENCE

• Archie B. Carroll, J. A. B., & Buchholtz, A. K. (2018). Business & Society:

Ethics, Sustainability, and Stakeholder Management (10th ed.).
Cengage Learning.