Business Ethics

...

Summary:

The lack of commitment from Red Lobster to enforce our policies properly, Ruth Hatton, our veteran waitress, should not have been fired since there were multiple violations throughout the restaurant. Because the problem starts at organizational level, reinforcing our company policies would maintain stability and accuracy within the company and create a better experience for our customers.

Right Motivation:

“Red Lobster’s goal is to respect our customers and employees rights at all times to provide satisfaction and fairness. We would also like to ensure that our policies are being properly executed throughout the company.”

What ought to be?

Red Lobster ought to be providing outstanding service to our customers with their best interests always at mind. Our rules and policies, in order to maintain stability and ensure that the company’s right motivation is being kept, ought to be taken seriously and remain in effect.

How to get there? (Recommendations)

First we want to enforce the codes of conduct by personally reaching out to each employee, having them read the policy and making sure they comprehend it. This will take place at the hiring of each employee as well as twice a year as a follow up. The additions made to the code of conduct will be;

-Upper management is to always be notified of a customer’s complaint and/or compliments

- All employees concerns brought up to upper management will be kept confidential unless it must be escalated to corporate. The open door policy is to be enforced.

- All comments in the comment box are only accessible to upper management.

-Actions that may serve to compromise the integrity of Red Lobster will not be condoned or allowed.

-Red Lobster will not show favoritism to the Board of Directors, advisory bodies, staff or consultants.

In order to confirm the employees understanding of the code of conduct, management will create and enforce testing on the policy. The test will include of 20 questions which are all related to the restaurants policy and will be based on terms, real life examples and true or false questions. The test will be given twice a year and the results will determine how well the employees truly understand. If they fail to meet the test grading standard of 85% or above, they will be forced to attend training sessions that will go over the code of conduct in depth, and will be re-tested. If they fail the test a second time, they will be written up as a warning. After the warning, they will have 2 weeks to have a better understanding in which they will be tested for a third and final time. If they fail the third time, it is automatic termination.

Violation of Policy will be seen as a matter of serious consequence and will result in disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal. Any violators will be given the chance to improve their work performance prior to termination. On a first offense, the employees will be given a fair warning and will be suggested to take certain training sessions, depending on the matter of their violation. On the second offense, training sessions are mandatory. The employee must complete at least two training sessions and will be given the chance to give their own insight on how they feel and if they need more and/or different kind of help. At this point, if they do not feel like they are really given the opportunity to improve, they have every chance to say so. On the third violation, the employee will be terminated. Upon termination, the employee will be given the chance to appeal the restaurant decision.