Each day millions of people walk into a workplace in the United States and I think most of them have witnessed or faced a moral dilemma at work. I have witnessed and faced ethical dilemmas in my life as well. And, the recent dilemma that I witnessed is when we had a difficult situation at my last job where the information came to light about misuse of the company‘s time keeping machine. It took place in 2014 when I was working as a staffing coordinator at one company. I had the responsibility of determining staffing needs and scheduling staff for effective patient care, monitor shift duties and performance, ensure accurate and efficient patient care, train and monitoring new staff in the company’s protocols, rules, regulations and safety issues, and complete and approve timecard of employees to submit to payroll. I started my job in the beginning of 2014 and incident occur around summer when one employee told me that some employees are misusing company’s time whether it was covering for someone who shows up late or altering time card by clock in on their behalf. So, I started rechecking the timecard at the end of the day to examine the situation.
One day when I was rechecking the approved time card by employees to submit to payroll and I saw that two of my employee was clocked in on time. Yet, they arrived late that day because I remembered another MA’s saying that both of those employees are coming late as they were stuck in traffic due to an accident. I was angry and upset that it occurred under my watch and I knew one of the employees personally. However, the actions need to be taken because it was against my professional standards and ethic that I could let go of this situation. Therefore, I decided to contact my supervisor and assistant director of our department to discuss this situation to take further actions. Then, we set up a meeting with both of those employees to make them aware about the situation and they will be facing consequences if they found guilty. During our investigation, we found out more employees who were altering with timecard machines because other employees came forward to tell their stories or names who witnessed these incidents.
Thus, we decided to fire all of the employees who were misusing company’s timecard after reviewing all the facts of this situation such as evidence, honesty, fairness, and how our decision will make an impact on other employees. Also, we installed new timecard machines which includes employee’s fingerprints to clock in and we started to approve time card at the end of the day instead of weekly for all departments. Beside that I believe it was fair decision because those employees’ shows lack of responsibility, honesty and professional ethic and values toward their job or the company. Moreover, I believe they will learn a lesson from this mistake which caused them their job. Also, I think this situation would not have happened or become this worse if I or management team had paid more attention to the timekeeping records and employees. Additionally, I think I would have acted differently if I had known about these incidents earlier and the outcome would be different for those employee who lost their job. I believe one of the problems of making ethical decision is that you cannot be certain about the impacts of your decisions at the time you make them.
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However, I think all of the employees including myself have learned from this event that we have to work as team where the rules and regulations are being treated fairly because rules were implemented in an organization to ensure safety and equality. Also, we all have choices in every situations where we have to make decision based on our one moral values over others. Also, I believe, we have to make our choices and decisions wisely after reviewing all the facts and consequences because our choices and judgments shows our moral values and it shapes our personality. Overall, this situation improved my ability to think creatively and have an innovative mindset and skills to be effective leader to a team. Also, other key aspects that I learned from this situation is to communicate with others more on daily basis at work to maintain professional standards and motivate others to work with dignity to achieve success in a company or in a life.
