Are employees motives any of the employers concern

Reference no: EM133200848 , Length: Word count: 2 Pages

Assignment Task: Your task is to consider the ethical implications, if any, of the scenario below, and to subsequently prepare a short (c.200-300 words) reaction paper outlining the actions you would take in the given situation and the justifications for your action. The purpose of a reaction paper is to help students think critically about an assigned scenario.

(What Would You Do?): A junior sales employee recently asked the company [major US electronics retailer] to decrease his hourly rate of pay from $10 to $9. When asked why, the employee explained that he had previously qualified for government assistance in securing health insurance. However, at a pay rate of $10 per hour, he now makes too much money to qualify for government assistance and has been dropped from the program. On the surface, it appears to be a straightforward win/win situation. The employer can effectively cut its cost by 10% and the employee can enjoy an improved standard of living. However, are there any ethical implications embedded in this situation? Consider the following five questions:

1) Is it ethical for the employer to alter its pay standards upon request to enable individual employees to qualify for 'outside' assistance? Are the employees' motives any of the employer's concern? If so, how?

2) Does it matter that the employee asked the employer to decrease his pay? How is this different from an employee asking for a pay raise in recognition of their on-the-job performance?

3) Does the employer have an obligation to help employees achieve financial independence? If so, where does that obligation begin and end?

4) Consider an alternate scenario: What if the employee's primary objective in seeking the pay cut was to decrease the amount of money paid out in spousal or child support? Would your point of view change on any of the above? If so, why?

5) Would any of your answers change in any way if, instead of being an American electronics retailer, the organization in this scenario was a UAE-based major electronics retailer but other scenario details remained the same?

Reference no: EM133200848

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