Employment At Will Doctrine Essay

Summarize the employment-at- go forth doctrine and evaluate each of the octet (8) scenarios described by determining The employment-at- pull up stakesing doctrine states that an employee apprize be fire or released from a comp whatsoever for vex or no cause at wholly. The employee also has the reclaim to quit a job for any reason. Under this legislation, neither the employer or employee incurs adverse legal consequences (NCSL, 2014). There be three exceptions that are ob resolved by the integrity to include a dismissal that violates a states public indemnity, where there is an implied rivet for employment, or where there is an implied covenant of good faith and fair trans pull with (Muhl, 2001, p4). People can non be dismissed ground on the individuals race, color, religion, sex, or national origin (Halbert & Ingulli, 2012, p134). An individual can also non be fired based on a disability or overdue to filing a workmans comp claim.Imagine you are a recently-hired Chie f Operating Officer (COO) in a midsize community preparing for an Initial Public Offering (IPO). You quickly collar multiple force play problems that require your immediate attention. As an astute manager, you will deal to take apart the employment-at-will doctrine and determine what, if any, exceptions and liabilities exist before taking any action. oWhether you can legally fire the employee include an assessment of any pertinent exceptions to the employment-at-will doctrine. oWhat action you should take to limit liability and impact on operations state which ethical theory best supports your decision. conjuring trick posted a harangue on his Facebook page in which he criticized the shouters close to grievous customer. Johns actions took place on his own time, and the entropy was posted on his soulfulnessal site. The action from the political party would depend on whether John made the post and n unity of his coworkers chimed in or concur with him, or if someone did agree with him. Concerted bodily process is protected on a lower floor the law but not grunts and groaning from one employee. According to Eidelson (2012), concerted activity will take different forms for different workers. Quite simply put, Johns post could cause a loss of business for the club or even a disgruntled customer, not to mention the familys most important customer. The go with would be protected in release him. I made this decision based on the ethical motiveof Care. John made a comment ab egress our most important customer, and it is the participations business to make sure the customer continues to be our most important customer.Jim sent an email to other salespeople protesting a transport in commission schedules and bonuses and suggesting everyone boycott the next sales meeting. Jims study is interesting. The answer to firing him is it depends. If Jim is disgruntled and just intractable to send out an email to all of his coworkers to get them roweled up, th en he could be fired legally. However, if he had been talking to other employees and then sent them an email to push talk nearly actions to take, he would be protected under(a) the law as protected concerted activity (Eidelson, 2012). Also, the judge may savor at Jims case to see if he talked with any of the pep pill management about concerns before trying to get others to boycott. The judge would regard to see if Jim was part of a union as well. In one case where an employee sent an email, the judge ruled that her firing was legal, because her email solely expressed an individual gripe rather than any shared concerns about working conditions (Newby, 2013).Since this description did not say that other employees joined in with Jim, the judge would rule that his firing was legal. After firing Jim, I would call a meeting with the rest of the employees to make sure that Jims strength towards the company had not sp withdraw to others and to try to find some solutions if it had. I made this decision based on the Virtue morals model. Ellen started a blog to protest the chief operating officers bonus, noting that no one to a lower place director has gotten a raise in two (2) years and portraiture her heades as cut-nothings and out-of-touch. Ellen started a blog to protest the chief executive officers bonus. The employer would need to make sure that Ellens post had not been commented on by other employees who were in agreement with her. The company should also look to its amicable media policy if it has one. The employer could be covered if the policy states that employees cannot speak derogatorily about their boss or coworkers online.The National Labor Relations Act states that workers hold up the right to discuss their wages and conditions of employment however, griping or ranting by a single employee is not protected (Rogers, 2013). Ellen stepped across the line by criticizing the CEO of the company and calling him names. This could cause a rift in th e company and lower morale. The company would be justified in firing Ellen. I would do this based on Deontology which focuses on rights and duties,telling the truth and lawfulness (Halbert & Ingulli, 2012, p17). pinnacle has been using his company-issued BlackBerry to run his own business on the side. Bill was abandoned the company-issued BlackBerry to use for work. As I read in most articles, it is expected that in this digital age employees will use their employers equipment for some type of personal use. Most companies have policies on the use of company equipment. If Bill is a good employee, there is no loss of productivity, and the majority of his personal business is taking place during off-time, Bill should not be fired, and it would not be deemed legal, unless the companys policy says something different.The companys policy should be clearly communicated to all employees and and be consistently enforced as well (BizFilings, 2012). Bill should be mindful that the employer generally can monitor, listen in and record employee phone calls on employer owned phones to include voice mail and text messages (Bussing, 2011). So if his employer rear that he was exchanging insider information about the company through the company BlackBerry, they would be justified in firing him. I chose this course of action based on Virtue Ethics. If Bill feels his employer trusts him, he will most presumable remain trustworthy and honest to the company.The secretaries in the account statementing department decided to dress in black-and-white stripes to protest a memorandum announcing that the company has installed keylogger software on all company computers. The secretaries could not be legally fired in this instance. The secretaries would also be covered under the National Labor Relations Act. They are silently protesting the keylogger software. There is to a greater extent than one person involved in this silent protest and they have the right to discuss conditions of employment (Rogers, 2013). I chose this based on the Ethics of Care. The secretaries obviously do not agree with a new action in the workplace. The upper management should not come down on them for that. The secretaries are quietly organizing themselves, and they should have the right to disagree.After beingness discipline for criticizing a customer in an email (sent from his personal email account on a company computer), Joe threatens to sue the company for invasion of privacy. order computers are company computers. The company has the right to information that is sent on its computers, especially during work hours. Joe should not be discussing work business through his personal emails. Joe would not be covered under the FirstAmendment, because it protects all of us from the government, not from private companies (NOLO, 2014). I chose this action based on Free Market Ethics. This model focuses on what is good for the company. Joe cannot stay with the company while criticizing t he customers, especially through his personal email at work. If the company keeps Joe around and the information gets out, it could lose more than it would by letting him go. unitary of the department supervisors requests your approval to fire his depository for insubordination. Since the secretary has always acquire glowing reviews, you call her into your office and determine that she has refused to prepare false get down reports for her boss. The secretarys firing would not be justified in this situation. Although the secretary is an employee at will who could be fired for cause or no reason at all, it appears that the secretary is being retaliated against for refusing to prepare dispirit documents. The secretarys reviews have always been great, so there is no presence of a developmental plan or previous violations of company policy. The company most likely has some type of policy for imperfect discipline, so if the supervisor did not follow the plan to the letter, the firing would not be justified. I chose this action based on Deontology. The employer has the obligation to be honest and to remain steadfast to universal principles (Halbert & Ingulli, 2012, p17).Annas boss refused to score her leave request for jury duty and now wants to fire her for being absent without permission. Annas boss could not legally fire her due to serving jury duty. Most states prohibit employers from firing or disciplining employees called to serve on a jury and some states prohibit employers from trying to admonish or intimidate employees from serving (NOLO, 2014). Annas boss could be held in contempt of court if Anna did not show up to court because of her employers decision (Gordon, 2012). I chose this action based on Utilitarianism, because the choice of firing Anna due to attending jury duty may have a detrimental effect on the entire workplace. As you proceed with your investigation, you discover the company has no whistleblower policy.Take a position on whether or not you would recommend to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) that the company adopt a whistleblower policy. Support the position. I would recommend to the CEO that the company adopt a whistleblower policy. It is important to have much(prenominal) a policy so that people know the proper step to take when disclosinginformation of mistake in the workplace and know that they will be protected for communion such information. In the situation surrounded by the supervisor and his secretary, a whistleblowing policy could have exposed the issue earlier. It seemed that the secretary did not tell anyone about the supervisor pressuring her to create false documents, until she was confront with losing her job.Justify at least three (3) fundamental items that should be include in a whistleblower policy. Provide a rationale for your extract of each of the three (3) recommended items. The first item that should be included in a whistleblower policy is the responsibility to disclose that info rmation to distract parties inside the organization (Barnett, 1992). The employees are the ones who are going to see the wrongdoing most likely. Without laying the responsibility on the employees, they may not know how important it is to the company and may not feel supported in their efforts to share information. This part of the policy should also include that the process will take place within the organization and that all information given should be done so in good faith (Barnett, 1992). The stake item that should be included in a whistleblowing policy is a group of neutral people outside the chain of command as complaint recipients (Barnett, 1992).This should make people feel more comfortable communion violations, because they dont have to worry about backlash from sharing information. It would make it much harder for an employee to disclose information to the group if he knew the person he was telling on was best friends with someone on the committee. Finally, the policy sh ould outline the steps of the investigation process and give assurance to the whistleblower that there will be no adverse employment consequences (Barnett, 1992). The whistle-blower Acts should also be included in the employee handbook so that employees not only understand the policy within their current workplace, but as it is stated by the government. The employee will know what is covered and what is not.ReferencesBarnett, T. (1992). Why Your guild Should Have a Whistleblowing Policy.Retrieved May 4th, 2014, from http//ethics.csc.ncsu.edu /old/12_00/basics/whistle/rst/wstlblo_policy.html BizFilings. (2012). employ Policies to Address Employees Personal Use of BusinessEquipment. Retrieved May 4th, 2014, from