It is ethical to come out as an organization and apologize to the public in case any of your employees acts recklessly towards a customer. On the other hand, apologizing can spread the message that your organization’s employees’ are not well trained. This is likely to destroy the reputation of an organization leading to a great loss in terms of customers and other potential clients.
JetBlue Company was expected to apologize to the public and the customers who witnessed the whole incident between Steven Slater and one of their clients. However, this could lead to further damage as most of the other customers will learn about it via the media in case of an apology.
Employees are usually protected by laws set out by different states and firing requires a certain procedure to be followed depending on the laws that are in existence in a particular state. Furthermore, most legal procedures require that an individual is first warned for a specific number of times before being fired. JetBlue Company did not want to associate with Steve’s actions; hence they fired him without any warning which was wrong, but his continued stay at the company could have damaged their reputation.
JetBlue did not take the best legal action since all states have rules that protect employees from their employers in cases of dispute and one of those rules is on the procedure for termination of employment. Most of the laws in place today require that the employee is warned and counseled first before their dismissal. This factor was not considered by JetBlue Company. The best course of action should have involved transferring Steve to another section that involves little or no contact with the customers after warning him (Fagothey 2010, 36).
Ethically JetBlue was right in that they ensured their customers were treated in the best way since in business it is ethical to put the customer first and provide them with the best services. Some great businessmen went ahead to coin a phrase on the same, “the customer is always right”. JetBlue Company must have employed this phrase in their action since that is the course of action that was desired by the customers. However, there was a bit of a problem with their ethics in relation to the firing of Steve. It was unethical to fire him without a warning, and they should have either sent him on a compulsory leave or transferred him to another section of the company.
JetBlue Company has a lot to do to rebuild its reputation and to avoid too much publicity on the incident, JetBlue should try to apologize to the individuals who were on board when the unfortunate incident occurred.
They should also assure them that such an incident will not repeat in the future (Fagothey 2010, 51). This can be done by making phone calls to the clients, sending them text messages or emailing them and in the process it will help to regain their popularity and still cushion them from damage that may have occurred due to a public apology. They could have also settled the problem with the client out of court to avoid dragging the name of the company on the muddy grounds of justice thus reducing any damage to the company’s reputation. These remedies present alternative ways that JetBlue could use to clear its name and reassure its customers.
Reference List
Fagothey, Austin. 2010. Right and Reason, Illinois: Tan Books & Publishers, Rockford. Web.