Company Overview and Benchmarking
Quick 2 Serve is a company that operates within the hospitality industry, and specializes in hot foodstuffs, beverages and offers lodging services. It was launched in 2008 starting its operations as a small scale restaurant in New York, but has since increased in size opening three new branches within the city. Some of the offered products and services offered by the restaurant include the following:
- Solid foods: Noodles, rice meals, pastas, pies etc.
- Liquid foods: Hot beverages such as tea, coffee, soups, chocolate etc.
- Lodging services.
There should be specific codes of conduct that must be followed for the business to operate without daunting problems. In this section, the author provides a critic for codes of conduct of similar companies that include McDonalds, Darden, as well as Marriot Restaurants.
McDonalds Restaurant
McDonald restaurant has a well defined code of conduct that covers both their suppliers and employees. For example, it specifies that all employees deserve to be handled with dignity and respect, and all parties should always be ethical, truthful and dependable when offering their services (McDonalds, 2010).
Darden Restaurant
Darden’s has a well stipulated code of conduct that touches several areas such as conflict of interest, corporate opportunities, confidentiality, fair dealing, and compliance with various laws among others. It is strictly prohibited for the employees to have conflicting interest with the company, disclose confidential information about the company, or fail to adhere to the governing laws (Darden, 2011).
Marriott International
Marriott international fosters its tradition of integrity that is guided by strict values of conduct. These include accuracy, honesty, and fairness; deterrence from illegal behavior; abiding by the law; realizing the repercussions of one’s actions; being trustworthy, maintaining dignity and respect, as well as working for the benefit of the community (Marriott, 2011). In all the scenarios, employees are expected to follow the codes of conduct in order to avoid facing disciplinary actions of risk being loosing employment.
Ethical Challenges and Codes of Conduct
Since Quick 2 Serve provides foodstuff and offers lodging facilities, it falls under the hospitality industry; hence, there exist several ethical challenges that may affect the business. Some of these challenges include the problems associated with the implementation of a rewarding scheme, supervisor authority, as well as reporting of unethical behavior. However, the following codes of contact will be employed in order to maintain a high level of efficiency and productivity for the organization:
- Integrity, Honesty, and Fairness: Employees should serve with integrity, honesty and fairness.
- Conflict of Interest: Employees must deter from having conflicting interest with Quick 2 Serve Restaurant.
- Compliance with Laws, Rules and Regulations: Employees should adhere to all statutory laws, rules and regulations.
- Reporting of Unethical Behaviors: Employees are encouraged to report any illegal or unethical behavior to the appropriate departments.
- Supervisor-Employee Relationship: Each party should treat the other with respect and honesty according to the organizations values.
- Dignity and Respect: All parties must handle each other with dignity and respect.
With this code of conduct, the organization will operate effectively within the region for the benefit of all the parties.
How FSGO Influences the Ethics Program
The Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations (FSGO) is a remarkably valuable body of government that ensures organizations establish ethics programs, which will assist the management in conducting ethical business practices. Therefore, the body will influence the success of the organization by enabling the following:
- Induce the reduction of potential cases for criminal conduct through the implementation of compliance rules and regulations for the company.
- Enable the identification, selection, and appointment of high-ranking personnel that will ensure compliance of the aforementioned rules and regulations.
- Ensure that the codes of conduct are carefully passed through training programs and publications, which pass on what is need with a significant level of detail.
- Ensure the creation of responsible, honest, and trustworthy relationships through the application of disciplinary actions to unethical individuals (United States Sentencing Commission, 2011).
Challenges in Adoption and Enforcement of the Code of Conduct
During the adoption and enforcement of the codes of Conduct for the organization, there are several challenges that are expected. The following challenges have been identified and their subsequent solutions given as appropriate.
Rewards Scheme
As established in various studies, incentives and reward systems within an organization play a crucial role in motivating workers towards an increased productivity (White, n.d.). Unfortunately, the idea of rewarding workers for ethical behavior is difficult to realize as the scheme is the least well developed; hence, this would be a huge setback in setting it up within the organization.
However, a scheme to reward the best employee that has shown outstanding ethical behavior over the longest duration shall be employed. As such, this will be much easier by establishing a yearly reward scheme; this gives adequate time for identifying the most outstanding employee.
Supervisors
While establishing the codes of conduct, it is crucial to observe the important role played by supervisors. Several surveys have established the fact that supervisors’ behaviors are a key influence during business decision making (White, n.d.). In its attempt to set up an acceptable code of conduct, the company is exposed to serious challenges due to the risk brought forward by supervisors putting the wrong kind of pressure on employees.
Usually, the supervisor-employee relationship determines the level of risks that should be expected; for instance, a bad relationship would result in the supervisor pressuring the employee to deliver what is realistically impossible. As a result, the employee may decide to compromise his/her own values alongside the organizations standards in an attempt to save the situation at hand.
As a solution, we shall establish a code that provides a chance for employees to report to senior management where they feel they are put under pressure for what is impossible to achieve. This will ensure that supervisors do not unfairly treat employees and that they maintain a good working relationship.
Whistle Blowing
On several occasions, it is normally beneficial for the company to allow reporting of illegal behavior by employees within an organization. However, some employees may take advantage of others by giving false reports about them so that they can be sacked.
Such cases have been experienced in other organizations where the report criteria are superficial and there are inadequate evidences to prove the validity of such claims. In Quick 2 Serve, however, there shall be stern repercussions for employees who will give false reports about others, and may include loss of employment.
Relevance of the Code of Conduct
Despite the fact that there are constant influences created by changing political, economic, social, technological, and cultural forces on organizations, the codes of conduct must remain relevant within the coming years. As a way of ensuring the codes of conduct remains relevant, they have been produced in a standard format that will be acceptable over a long duration.
Additionally, there is room for changes and modification on some of the codes of conduct to accommodate any future changes that may occur. This will ensure that the organization is natured towards the right direction for the success of the business.
References
Darden: RP-3: Code of Business Conduct and Ethics. (2011). Web.
Marriott: Business Conduct Guide. (2011). Web.
McDonalds: Standards of Business Conduct for Employees. (2010). Web.
United States Sentencing Commission: 2011 Federal Sentencing Guidelines Manual. (2011). Web.
White, T. Ethics Incorporated: How America’s Corporations are Institutionalizing Moral Values. Web.