Understanding the need for Corporate Social Responsibility and its integration into values and ethical standpoints
On average people consider their ethical standpoints as an unshakable attribute by which they determine the inherent rightness or wrongness of a particular set of actions however one inherent problem with this is that a standpoint is based on the point of view of each unique individual resulting in a veritable plethora of views, opinions and standpoints (Canavagh, 2010).
For me, the basis of my values and ethics is one that requires an incorporation of corporate social responsibility into my decision making process in order to properly evaluate the ethicality of my decision. This is not to say that I use CSR (corporate social responsibility) as an everyday method of evaluation, instead, I use it as a method that takes into account the ramifications of my actions on customers and clients. The reasoning behind this is based on the idea that what is ethically dubious for one individual is ethically sound for another (Scott & McManus, 2010).
Take for example the case of Glacéau, a subsidiary of the Coca Cola Corporation, their line of business deals in the sale and distribution of vitamin water, a supposedly healthy beverage choice for people that want to incorporate more vitamins into their daily diet. Studies into the properties of vitamin water have shown that not only does it contain 32 grams of high fructose corn syrup which has been connected to rampant obesity but the supposed nutritional value of the vitamins in the water have been proven to be mostly ineffective since the populations that the company is marketing the drink to (mostly U.S. consumers) have been shown to possess more than adequate amounts of vitamins in their system.
In fact the product itself has been shown to be more detrimental rather than beneficial to a person’s health due to the large content of sugar and chemicals present in the water. Yet Glacéau continues to market the product under the claim that it will improve a person’s health and is beneficial towards a healthy lifestyle (Glaseau lands Coke in deep water, 2010). The continued marketing campaign of the company not only is a violation of the standards of corporate social responsibility but also endangers consumers since many of them might use vitamin water as a replacement for actual water and as a result endangers their health.
As a future manager of a company or organization I have to think of not only the ramifications undesirable business practices have on the reputation of the company but also how they affect ordinary consumers. It is due to this that my personal code of ethics in any business practices that I enter will be based on the concept of corporate social responsibility wherein the company will ensure its actions create a positive impact on consumers, employees and markets under fair and ethical business practices. Any business practice that seeks to malign, fool, misrepresent or otherwise cause a negative impact will not be tolerated and subsequently removed from the company business model.
My own personal values in future management decisions will be guided under the concept of normative ethics where before I proceed with any decision I will determine whether what make my action right is actually based on an unbiased ethical viewpoint. For the managers at Glacéau, their marketing of vitamin water is for them ethically sound since it provides a means of income for the company yet such a standpoint is ethically dubious since the potential results could possibly endanger people.
It is due to this that personal values cannot be truly trusted, as such, deep introspection must first be accomplished before any decision is undertaken in order to determine whether the decision made is ethically sound both for me and other people. Based on this it becomes obvious that my personal mission statement is to conduct business in a way that incorporates corporate social responsibility into all decision making matters in order to produce a profit without it adversely affecting consumers, markets or the environment.
Assessing Organizations and their compliance to corporate social responsibility in order to comply with ethical and moral business practices
Currently I am not employed with any company or organization however I did try a job as a customer service representative with Convergys due to the urgings of various friends. As a company whose line of business lies in outsourcing the customer service departments of various multinational corporations Convergys places an emphasis on workplace ethics because employees deal with the complaints and concerns of various customers day in and day out which require a certain ethical fortitude.
The inherent business culture of the company centers itself around the development of employees as being part of teams with each account floor being separated into 13 teams of ten individuals each. It is the belief of the company that by creating a sense of camaraderie and friendly competition between the various teams that this would in turn contribute to a more effective operational output. The vision/mission statement of the company is to outthink and outdo the competition by providing the best services for its clients using sound business practices.
The code of ethics of the company centers on the development of individual workers to their full potential, the company does not count workers as merely a number on a sheet but considers them an important resource to be developed. As such the company’s code of ethics encourages managers and team leaders to treat even the lowliest employee as equals in order to foster an open environment where ideas are easily exchanged in order to improve business practices.
The reasoning behind this particular organizational structure lies with the fact that the customer services industry is actually a high churn market with employees entering and leaving companies at a rate much higher than in other industries. Companies seek to retain more employees that they loose and as a result have had to change ethical and value standards in order to encourage employee retention.
Under corporate social responsibility an organization is not only ethically liable to its customers but to its employees as well (Scott & McManus, 2010). While the customer service industry does not have the as much of a social impact as compared to other industries its social responsibility to its employees are much higher due to the constantly high stress environment that an employee is subject to. It is due to this that the social responsibility of the company to its employees is to be able to provide adequate stress relief in order to offset the effects of the high stress environment that they have to endure.
Convergys provides all its employees with above average health insurance benefits, sick leaves, vacation leaves as well as various company outings that act as a form of stress relief. In terms of company effectiveness in meeting its responsibilities employee retention within the company is among the highest in its industry and various employee surveys regarding overall satisfaction with the work place environment have shown high scores.
The training programs of Convergys focused on two distinct aspects: namely that of account information and agent ethical training. While the reason behind knowing the various nuances of an account is obvious agents are also expected to develop certain ethical practices for the information that they are handling. On occasion agents are expected to handle personal information, credit card details and various other details. In other words agents would be given information that if placed in the wrong hands would result in substantial financial loss for the customer.
On the other hand companies do not inherently trust their employees and as a result use various unethical practices in order to safeguard proprietary and customer information such as round the clock surveillance on all employees where every single action, detail and phrase stated to either a customer or inputted into the system is scrutinized by computer programs in order to determine whether what the agent is doing is within company guidelines. Such practices where employees lack virtually all privacy in their working environment is somewhat unethical since all employees have a distinct right to privacy in the work place. While the method of training in which proper customer relation ethics is taught to an employees is a definite bonus the fact remains that a distinct weakness for the company is the lack of privacy they are giving to their employees.
To a certain extent it can be reasoned that the lack of privacy is a direct result of the companies need to safeguard information but this distinct lack of trust is in direct opposition to the supposed open and friendly environment that the company is trying to achieve. For me the moral philosophy and ethical practices of the organization can be compared to the concept of applied ethics where, in a performance driven environment, what is determined acceptable behavior on the part of the company towards its employees is based on concept of metrics and the ability of individuals to perform. Metrics is a term used as a form of measuring the performance of certain individuals under a normal work day (Jacques, 2010).
It varies from person to person but there is always a median point where employees have to meet a certain level of performance in order to reach company targets and this is based on the metric system developed by the company. High performers who meet and exceed established targets are rewarded through promotion, while employees that fail to meet the average performance metric rate are either retrained or summarily dismissed from the company.
The basis of applied ethics in this particular aspect of the company is based on the fact that employees that do not perform well are considered detrimental towards the overall performance of the company and as such should be dismissed in order to make way for better performers. The ethical argument of managers in this particular situation is that it is considered morally right to dismiss the employee because they failed to meet the standards everyone else was meeting and that it would be unfair for the others who worked hard to remain with the company. As such it is considered ethically correct to dismiss the employee from his/her position. While I do agree with the standpoint of the company in terms of how performance evaluates whether a person gets promoted or dismissed the fact remains that the use of a system of metrics is in itself a morally ambiguous practice (Jacques, 2010).
Various employees have their own unique skills that they bring to the table that a system of metrics cannot effectively measure, while such individuals may not excel in terms of overall performance they do excel in independent thinking and creative action. As such the ethical principles that the company abides by are inherently flawed and should be changed since they are dismissing employees who might potentially help improve the company with their original ideas. The most important concept I learned from this course is that the concept of values is often related to the vision that an organization has.
Earlier on in this paper I presented the example of the Glacéau Company and how it was falsely marketing a product on the basis of making a profit. When I visited the Glacéau website there was very little mention of any sort of moral or ethical considerations the company had. In fact based on the website alone I can say that the vision of the company was one where they wished to expand their line of business and continue to market their supposedly “healthy” vitamin water.
For them the concept of values is not integrated into their vision or rather their values are virtually nonexistent since they show next to no care for the potential long term harm their drinks could cause to their consumers. In other words what Glacéau is doing right now is an example of what not to do under the various concepts of business ethics that I learned from this course. On the other hand Convergys whose vision is to provide the best possible services for its clients through the effective utilization and build up of its human resources is in fact taking to heart the concept of values in relation to its vision for the future of the company. The latest industry data has shown that the company has been consecutively ranked as one of the best companies in the world to work for and is the leader in relationship management (Datamonitor: Convergys Corporation., 2010).
There are two inherent aspects to the company that I would like to change in order to improve its organizational culture, the first would be less stringent measures of observation on employees in order to uphold their rights to privacy and second would be to radically change the current metric system in order to take factors beyond performance into account when either promoting or dismissing an employee. By changing these specific aspects of the company not only would this help to improve employee relations and mutual trust but it would also help to retain more people with the company who have truly original ideas.
The problem with the current system is that its methods are in a slight gray area of ethical ambiguity and such require a radical change in order to properly address the rights of the employees and conforming to corporate social responsibility (Cavanagh, 2010). My plan, in order to implement these changes, would be to gradually scale back the level of operations devoted to observing employees, I would inform them via team meetings and mass emails that the company would like to give a show of faith to them and as such would give a lot more privacy as compared to the previous situation.
The reasoning behind this plan is to help improve employee relationships between upper management and lower tier employees, the fact remains that employees within Convergys are often times constantly stressed by the fear of always being observed and it is this factor that contributes to worker stress. By helping to reduce employee stress this would not only help the employees but would be beneficial for the company as well since this would improve employee relations. The second aspect of this plan is to completely change the metric system of the company. I have observed on several occasions numerous smart and creative thinkers being summarily dismissed from the company due them being unable to meet the appropriate performance metric.
It is due to this that should I be given the opportunity I would completely change the system or even abolish the concept of being fired due to not meeting the desired level of performance. Instead what will be instituted is a program that encourages people to improve their performance due to subsequent rewards such as raises and promotions and to create a secondary evaluation tool that helps to determine original thinkers within certain groups of employees and establish them under a different method of operations. As a result of all of this I expect a distinct improvement in employee morale and performance as well as a better adherence to the proper methods of corporate social responsibility.
References
Cavanagh, G. F. (2010).Ethics in business requires moral maturity. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20(4), 717-718.
Datamonitor: Convergys Corporation. (2010). Convergys Corporation SWOT Analysis, 1-9.
Glaceau lands Coke in deep water. (2010). Marketing Week (01419285), 33(31), 12.
Jacques, A. (2010). Socially conscious: Companies share CSR best practices. Public Relations Tactics, 17(7), 12-13.
Scott, L., & McManus, J. (2010). Under pressure. Management Services, 54(4), 33-37.