Introduction
In my career as a groomer I have seen many cases of theft, sabotage and other unethical behaviors. The most recent example that comes to mind involves all of these behaviors. My last co-worker would routinely take grooms “under the table” (taking cash straight from a customer in exchange for a groom rather than recording the transaction and taking a percentage of the charge in commission). She would also grant deep discounts to regular customers, sabotaging her own commission and pay, yet using this as an excuse to steal. She would fail to leave any instructions on her grooms in the event that if she were fired, the customer would not be happy with her replacement as they would not know how the customer would like their groom to be. Towards the end of her tenure it came to light that customers preferred my grooms over hers, and she began sabotaging my schedule and my grooms.
Toward the end of last year, cash began to go missing from the front desk on the veterinarian side of the business. As a precaution, the cash box was removed from the grooming department as a way to control where the cash was going. My coworker spent several weeks complaining to anyone who would listen that the removal of the cash box inconvenient and was necessary to keep the customers in grooming happy. This triggered an internal investigation into her transaction history.
At this point my coworker had announced that she would be leaving soon to start her own business, prompting management to hope that the situation would take care of itself. However, when the time came for her expected two week notice, she asked our boss if she could stay on another year. She was informed there was already a replacement lined up for her position, so she trie...
... middle of paper ...
...03.
Seabright, M. A., Ambrose, M. L., & Schminke, M. (2010). Two Images of Workplace Sabotage. In J. Greenberg (Ed.), Insidious Workplace Behavior (p. 77-99). New York, NY: Routledge.
Sheppard, B. B., Lewicki, R. J., & Minton, J. W. (1992) Organizational justice: The search for fairness in the workplace. New York: Lexington Books.
Snyder, N. H., Broome, O. W., Jr., Kehoe, W. J., McIntyre, J. T., Jr., & Blair, K. E. (1991). Reducing Employee Theft: A Guide to Financial and Organizational Controls. New York, NY: Quorum Books.
Skarlicki, D. P., & Folger, R. (1997). Retaliation in the Workplace: The Roles of Distributive, Procedural, and Interactional Justice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 434-443.
Trevino, L. K., & Youngblood, S. A. (1990). Bad apples in bad barrels: A causal analysis of ethical decision-making behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 378-385.
This involved sacking of all the employees who had involved themselves in the scam and ensuring that they faced the full force of the law as it is required under the law. A back with such kind of reputation to be implicated in a huge scandal like the one it was involved cannot be looked upon lightly. The news posts suggest that such acts and those who were involved should not be left to go scot free as they have gained a lot from the scandal. The news post also questions the code of ethics in operation in the bank. Ideally, bank staffs are supposed to observe high levels of disciplines especially when the customers are involved. The employees’ actions were a manifestation of how weak the code of conduct with which the bank is applying is and therefore needs a lot of
Workplace bullying is defined as any as any type of repetitive abuse in which the victim of the bullying behaviour suffers verbal abuse, threats, humiliating or intimidating behaviours, or behaviours that interfere with his or her job performance and are meant to place at risk the health and safety of the victim (Murray, 2009). Bullying can take many forms, some blatant, others more subtle. Researchers ha...
The Hollate Manufacturing case provided by Anti-Fraud Collaboration has well illustrated how several common issues in an organization contributed to the fraud’s occurrence. These issues can be categorized into two major groups: ethical culture (internal aspect) and internal control system (external aspect). By taking effective actions to enhance these two aspects, an organization can protect itself against the largest frauds, which result in financial and reputational damage.
One major issue businesses around the world face in today’s society is workplace bullies. In almost every workplace there is a bully. In today’s world there are so many different life styles, and there is usually that one person that believes it is their job to push others around. What is workplace bullying? What makes these people become a bully? Who are the bullies and the victims? How do we prevent bullying? Those are some questions I will answer in this paper.
Tepper, B. J. (2007). Abusive Supervision in Work Organizations: Review, Synthesis, and Research Agenda. Journal of Management, 33(3), 261-289.
McKinnell, J. (2012). When your boss is almost a psychopath. Maclean's, 125(32), 64. Retrieved from EBSCOhost Database (AN: 78546729)
I discovered how sticking to one’s morals should be the topmost priority for everyone involved in business, whether personal or professional. Regardless of what the consequences may be, the intensity of the problem, and the complexities it may bring, sacrificing one’s integrity should never be an option, as integrity goes hand-in-hand with the morals of an individual (Duggan & Woodhouse, 2011). They further go on to say that having individuals take part in building a code of ethics that supports employee integrity, they will act ethically. Also, I believe that companies should place more emphasis on the moral behavior of their employees, and clear-cut policies should be set regarding such ethical situations. Furthermore, I realized how serving justice while making decisions really helps in the long run, and that opting to go for the ideal rather than they deserved is not always the best option, and could hurt a company in more than one
Even if salary was satisfactory and removed from the equation, the combined negative impact of all other factors affected in a toxic work environment handily overcomes salary as a priority in the minds of employees. This is supported by the “Hawthorne effect,” a term coined by Henry A. Landsberger, which allowed George Elton Mayo, an organizational theorist, to recognize that workers have a psychological need to belong to a group and believe that their work organizations care about them (Jones 2014). Allowing a bully to undermine their victims’ sense of belonging damages their relationship with the organization, and the organization
Last year we had a member of our executive management team terminated. He was found to have been stealing money from the company for several years to the tune of around $80,000. He was the leader of our business development team, and would purchase personal items and write them off as business expenses. Essentially what he did was hide the personal expenses in his large business expense reports. Groups provide a shield of anonymity so that someone who ordinarily might be afraid of getting caught for stealing can rely on the fact that other group members had the same opportunity or reason to steal (Robbins & Judge, 2009). This particular employee was able to hide most of his transactions as other members of the group also had large business expenses. How could this have been prevented? It is important to establish a "zero-tolerance" program regarding employee theft. Make sure that it is understood, during orientation that the company will take legal action against employees caught stealing (Walsh, 2000). In addition a team built on a covenant requires more than just a loose and vague commitment to the relationship; on the contrary, entering into a covenantal relationship requires steadfast and active commitment (Fischer, 2012) thus providing the group with a mutual
Understandably, one might be easily distracted by the differences of the terms, definitions, descriptions, and qualifications in the discourse on workplace bullying. Nevertheless, the following definition of workplace bullying, proposed by Carbo and Hughes (2010), provides an adequate concept for the purpose of discussion:
The phenomenon of workplace bullying refers to a gradually evolving process, whereby an individual ends up in an inferior position and becomes the target of systematic negative social acts by one or more perpetrators (Brodsky, 1976). Workplace bullying consists of repeated and prolonged exposure to predominantly psychological mistreatment, directed at a target who is typically teased, badgered and insulted, and who perceives himself or herself as not having the opportunity to retaliate in kind (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Copper 2003). After investigating three research studies related to workplace bullying, it is quite evident that bullying can have serious consequences on employees; therefore, it is important for employees and employers to know how to recognize it within their working environment. According to the Australian Council of Trade Unions (2013), “bullying presents a threat to the mental, emotional and physical wellbeing of a worker and is dealt with under t...
Focusing on what is best for the organization as a whole and not self greed, not focusing on short-term profits but the long-term profit goals for the shareholders, investors, and employees would help keep employees ethical (Ferrell, et al, 2009).When an employee is fearful of losing his or her job, unethical conduct can be the result of trying to keep that job (Ferrell, et al, 2009).When pressures are placed on employees to make money quick, fast, and in a hurry, the results could be unethical behavior (Ferrell, et al,
The following memorandum written by a director of a security and safety consulting service discusses a critical issue effecting business in our economy today, that of employee theft. "Our research indicated that, over past six years, no incident of employee theft have been reported within ten of the companies that have been our clients. In analyzing the security practices of these ten companies, we have further learned that each of them requires its employees to wear photo identification badges while at work. In the future, we should recommend the uses of such identification badges to all of our clients." The issue of employee theft is a broad problem and has different labels to identify it, shrinkage for the retail industry and hidden profit loss in the technology sector are serval examples of common terms used for employee theft. The author of this memorandum presents several data points and suggests one recommendation to effect the issue of employee theft based on a sampling of the client population.
Bullying is everywhere and everyday among students and teachers, wage workers and managers, and families. It involves actions toward another person that are repeated and unwelcomed which are perceived as negative (Geller, 2014). The behavior that people reflect might be intentional or unintentional, and the outcome includes the possibility of posttraumatic stress and suicide, and people perceiving the message feel the inability to defend themselves (Geller, 2014). As an illustration, behavior from a manager, supervisor, line leader, coach, or guardian can be considered as bullying even though the intention to distress or harm was unintentional (Geller, 2014). The workplace bullying not only affects the employee productivity, but it also affects the company’s bottom line (Denise, n.d). Victims of such intimidations silenced believing there must be something wrong with them, they are not good enough, or they must work harder to win their supervisor’s approval (Pomeroy, 2013). The verbal abuse, offensive conduct, humiliating or intimidating, work interference, sabotage prevents victims from getting their work done (Pomeroy, 2013). It causes many businesses the loss of time, loss of productivity, and loss of valuable employees, but the victims leave with low morale and a bad experience (Pomeroy, 2013).
sensitivity to disempowering behavior in organizations: Exploring an expanded concept of hostile working environment. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 16(3), 135-147.