Ethics dilemma 3

This scenario, concerned with issues arising from policies of openness and transparency in employee relations, is taken from a set of four scenarios on teaching ethics contributed by Alison Dempsey (University of British Columbia).

Your employer has been committed to open and transparent information sharing with all its employees for a number of years. The intranet site is heavily visited by employees, but Web delivered information is not yet seen as the primary resource.

A controversial decision was taken to discontinue printed employee booklets and to use Web-based materials as the only written benefits communication for employees. This decision coincides with the release by the human resources department (HR) of a new policy on employee benefits.

The new policy potentially has material implications for some employees. A letter was sent out by HR to all employees last week, notifying them of the new policy and alerting them to the information sources that will be available to them and the relevant launch dates. The new communication process comprises:

• Web-based (intranet) explanatory materials
• group information sessions arranged to address employees’ concerns about the removal of the more familiar booklets and their feeling that HR is becoming too remote – these sessions do not start until [January] due to scheduling conflicts

Your employee communications team has been working closely with HR on the development of the new Web-based explanatory materials. Both teams recognise the importance of a successful transition from the printed handbook. HR is very sensitive to feedback from employees following the decision to switch to Web-based communication.

The link to the explanatory materials went live on the intranet at midnight, on schedule. Due to an unavoidable commitment you have been in [Toronto] for the two days preceding the launch date and have had to be involved in finalising the material via exchange of e-mails, relying on the versions sent to you by the team in [Calgary]. You wake up at 5:30 to log on to the intranet to check that the site links are working. As you test the links you scan through the pages and discover that a section has been omitted from the pages finalised over the last two days.

Take 10 – 15 minutes to consider the following:

1. What action will you take? What policies and factors influenced your decision as to the ‘best way’ to proceed?
2. What are the risks/repercussions?
3. Who will you need to involve and how much information will you share with them?
4. Who, beyond those individuals necessary to implement your plan of action, will you inform? How much detail will you provide?
5. What investigation, if any, will you undertake to determine responsibility and/or to decide how and to whose budget(s) any further costs will be allocated?

Things to consider before you decide what to do:

1. There are no errors in (or further omissions from), the information on the site. While the accuracy of the material on the site is not affected by the missing section, the omission could be misleading.
2. It is 6:00 in [Toronto], but [Alberta], where most of the employees are based, is two hours behind. If the site is suspended within the next few hours, in all likelihood only a few employees will have already visited the site. You feel you have the necessary authority to have the site suspended if it should come to that.
3. Review procedures for joint projects specify that any material amendments to content must have sign off from the heads of both HR and Communications. The latter is your supervisor. In the circumstances, they will want to go through all of the materials – this could take anywhere from 1–3 days since both individuals are extremely busy.
4. Due to recent employee turnover in the IT department the intranet administrator has been working overtime for over a month and is leaving this afternoon for a long overdue three week vacation. If you get in touch with him now it should be possible for him to come into the office to suspend the site before his flight. However, as he has had to do much of the site construction work single handedly, it will be very difficult to test and reactivate the site in his absence.
5. Since employees are aware of the launch dates, any suspension of the site and a three week delay in the re-launch is going to attract unwanted attention to both the changes in the new policy (which HR had wished to downplay), and to the sensitive issue of the transition to Web-based delivery. The attention will likely necessitate further communication to manage expectations and address the likely renewal of scepticism about the new approach. This will increase costs on a project that already exceeds budget.
6. The attention will reflect adversely on both HR and Communications, and you feel your team is particularly exposed due to the sensitivity surrounding the decision to switch to Web-only delivery. You are also worried that the high profile will reflect badly on your reputation. Two skills for which you are valued in the company are your attention to detail and your ability to handle difficult situations, while minimising collateral damage.
7. You recall that one purpose of the group sessions is to get feedback on additional information requirements identified by employees and for this to be fed back into a Q&A section to supplement the core content already on the website. If the omitted section would be viewed as additional, rather than core content, it could (in theory) be added in as part of the employee feedback Q&A.

Last Modified: 30 June 2010