Ethical Dilemma in the Workplace

Business Management

Ace Hardware is a large national chain of independent hardware and home improvement franchise retail outlets. At the particular retail store in question, the policy of employee seniority, as it relates to all matters other than vacation allocation,

is either applied inconsistently, or ignored outright, resulting in antagonism between co-workers, erosion of respect for management, and ultimately, undermining employee morale in general.

Occupational Situation:

Manager Mike Riley has been with the organization since 1994 and has been in charge of day-to-day operations since 1998. Several employees have worked at Ace almost as long as Mike, while two others, Brian Knight and Kevin Brady, were hired more recently, by Mike, since his promotion to Management. Brian and Mike

grew up in the same neighborhood, attending the same high school where they were good friends before losing touch while Brian served four years in military service.

Kevin was first introduced to Mike by Brian, who had befriended him shortly after they met playing in the same weekend softball league.

According to company policy, vacation time, work shift preferences, and choice of assignments are to be awarded based on seniority, provided employees fulfill their obligations with respect to minimum scheduled hours and satisfactory job performance. Corporate directives have issued very specific instructions as to the proper allocation of vacation time among and between co-workers in good standing, based strictly on seniority. As a result, Mike has always honored vacation requests appropriately, according to the relative seniority of employees. On the other hand, corporate headquarters has never specifically enforced its other policy elements of seniority, particularly as it relates to honoring shift change requests and preferences for specific work assignments.

Joe Leonard and Marie Delacruz have been with the company since 1995 and

1997, respectively, both having worked side-by-side with Mike before his promotion to Manager in 1998. Whereas Brian and Kevin both maintain social friendships with Mike outside of work, Joe is quite a bit older than any of his co-workers and spends all of his personal time away from work with his family and rarely, if ever, maintains any social contact with Mike outside of work. Likewise, Marie is a single, working mother who attends nursing school in the evenings; she has little interests in common

with Mike and his friends. Joe and Marie both perform quite satisfactorily, in fact,

they helped train Brian and Kevin after Mike hired them.

Initially, Mike honored Ace company policy in entertaining employee requests for shift and assignment preferences in accordance with seniority. Gradually, as he and Brian rekindled their old friendship, Mike started giving Brian preferential

treatment, often disregarding Ace policy on employee seniority, to the detriment of Marie and Joe whenever their wishes conflicted with those of Brian. More recently,

Mike joined the same softball team where Brian and Kevin first met, which greatly exacerbated the problem.

Since then, Mike has allocated work shift and assignment preferences with complete disregard of seniority as between Brian, Kevin, Marie and Joe. Mike's unofficial policy seems to be that softball-related scheduling issues take precedence over any matters where the wishes of other employees conflict with those of Brian or Kevin. To make the situation even worse, Mike simultaneously uses the convenient excuse of "seniority" to justify his decisions anytime Carlos Ramirez, his most recent hire, puts in a request that conflicts with the preferences of his other employees, including Joe and Marie. Mike's unofficial policy seems to be that seniority is respected, but only whenever it does not conflict with his softball team's schedule.

As a result, Joe and Marie have become quite dissatisfied working for Mike,

and a thinly veiled atmosphere of antagonism exists on their part toward Mike, Brian,