ETH 316 Week 3 Personal and Workplace Ethics Example

Twenty-Nine Hours a Week: A Store Manager's Personal Values and a Workplace Scheduling Dilemma

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

ETH/316: Ethics and Social Responsibility

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Crossroads Fresh Markets, its managers, employees and figures are composites written for a model paper.

Denise is a composite store manager at Crossroads Fresh Markets, the 42-store central Indiana grocery chain discussed in earlier weeks. She runs a store on the north side of Indianapolis with 96 employees. Last week her district manager told her that, starting next month, part-time employees must be scheduled for no more than 29 hours a week. The company's health plan is offered to employees who average 30 or more hours, and benefit costs have risen 18 percent in two years. Eleven of Denise's part-timers have been working 32 to 36 hours for more than a year. Several have told her the health plan is why they stay. This paper examines her dilemma.

The Policy and the Law

Capping hours below a benefit threshold is legal. Federal rules require large employers to offer coverage to full-time employees, defined as those averaging 30 hours a week, but do not prevent employers from limiting hours. Crossroads is not breaking the law. Denise's dilemma is whether carrying out a legal policy, in the way she has been told to, is right.

Denise's Values

Denise describes three values that guide her: fairness, loyalty and keeping her word. Her mother lost health insurance after a factory layoff when Denise was 12, and the family went without care for two years. She has told employees that she would "look out for them" when they asked about hours. She also values loyalty to Crossroads, which promoted her from cashier, and to her district manager, who has supported her. Her annual bonus depends partly on labor costs.

The People Affected

Eleven part-timers who would lose eligibility for health coverage, including a single father whose son has asthma and a 58-year-old employee who cannot afford individual coverage.

Other employees, who would pick up extra shifts or see new part-timers hired to cover the hours.

Denise, whose bonus and relationship with her boss are at stake.

Crossroads, which faces real cost pressure, as Weeks 1 and 2 showed.

Why Good People Go Along

Kish-Gephart et al. (2010) pooled dozens of studies on why employees act unethically and concluded that the person, the nature of the issue and the surrounding organization each play a part. Unethical choices were more likely when people held a relativistic outlook, when the harm seemed distant or small and when the organization's climate emphasized self-interest or lacked enforced codes. Denise faces several of these pressures: the harm is spread across eleven people she can avoid thinking about one by one, her boss has framed the policy as routine and her bonus rewards lower labor costs.

Detert et al. (2008) studied moral disengagement, thinking patterns that allow people to act against their values without feeling guilty, such as displacing responsibility to authority, minimizing consequences and using gentle labels. They found that moral disengagement was linked to unethical decision making. Denise has noticed herself thinking, "It's not my decision," "They can get insurance elsewhere" and "It's just scheduling." Each is a form of disengagement.

It's not my decision, they can get coverage elsewhere, it's only scheduling: three sentences that make a hard choice feel easy.

The District Manager's Side

Denise's district manager is not a villain. He oversees eight stores, and his own bonus depends on keeping labor and benefit costs within a budget set at headquarters. Benefit costs have risen 18 percent in two years, and he has been told to bring them down. He sees the 29-hour cap as a simple way to do it that every manager can carry out the same way. Understanding his pressures matters, because Denise is more likely to persuade him if she offers ways to meet his budget rather than only objecting to his instruction.

What the Company's Code Says

Crossroads's code of conduct says the company will "treat every associate with dignity and fairness" and asks employees to "speak up when something doesn't seem right." It also provides an ethics line run by an outside firm. The code does not address scheduling or benefits directly, but its language gives Denise a legitimate basis for raising the issue. Research on codes of conduct supports this: codes affect behavior mainly when leaders' actions back them up (Kaptein, 2011). That applies here: if Denise is punished for raising a concern the code invites, the code loses meaning for everyone who hears about it.

Applying Ethical Theories

From a utilitarian view, the policy saves the chain money, perhaps $70,000 a year at Denise's store, but imposes serious harms on eleven people, some of whom may go without medical care. Kantian ethics asks whether Denise would be treating her employees merely as means and whether she would break her word to them. Virtue ethics asks what a fair and honest manager would do. Each points toward not simply carrying out the policy without question.

Denise's Options

Comply silently: cut hours next month. Protects her bonus and relationship with her boss; breaks her word and harms employees.

Refuse: keep scheduling as before. Likely leads to discipline; does not change the policy.

Comply but tell employees honestly: respects them as persons but does not reduce harm.

Raise the issue: gather data, meet with her district manager and propose alternatives.

Escalate: if the district manager will not listen, use the company's ethics line or speak with human resources.

Recommendation

Denise should raise the issue before implementing the policy. She should prepare data: turnover costs for part-timers, about $3,500 each to replace, and her store's record showing that part-timers with benefits stay twice as long. She should propose alternatives: grandfathering current part-timers, offering a lower-cost plan or moving some of the eleven into full-time roles that are already open. She should frame her concern around shared goals, such as retention and the chain's reputation as a neighborhood employer. If the district manager insists, she should comply honestly, telling her employees the truth and helping them find options, while asking human resources to review the policy chainwide. She should document each conversation.

Conclusion

Denise's dilemma shows how a legal policy can still raise ethical questions and how pressure, distance from harm and rationalizations push good managers to go along. Research on workplace ethics and three ethical theories support raising the concern with data and alternatives before acting, keeping her word to employees by being honest and using the company's channels to seek a better policy.

References

Detert, J. R., Treviño, L. K., & Sweitzer, V. L. (2008). Moral disengagement in ethical decision making: A study of antecedents and outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(2), 374-391. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.93.2.374

Kaptein, M. (2011). Toward effective codes: Testing the relationship with unethical behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 99(2), 233-251. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0652-5

Kish-Gephart, J. J., Harrison, D. A., & Treviño, L. K. (2010). Bad apples, bad cases, and bad barrels: Meta-analytic evidence about sources of unethical decisions at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017103