October 19, 2015
An Ethical Dilemma: Troy Buchanan and Circa Communications (Chapter 3; page 127-128)
Answer the following questions in your discussion post:
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Q1. First, Troy should be keeping accurate records of the time he is working for every assignment and for every client, if time tracking is part of his company’s policy. It’s somewhat unclear if Troy has been billing hours he’s been working and simply already putting in the effort to get the job and assignments completed on time.
Q2. Somewhat of an answer, or next step to Q1, but I would recommend Troy approach his supervisor with the hours he’s been working, on average, against the actual hours billed, and discuss what the organization’s policy is for such a variance. Because Troy is still “new” to the role and company, he could approach the situation by seeking clarity in the company’s policy, somewhat as an “out” to at least open the dialogue. Depending on the answers Troy receives, he should be prepared to consider other options. If he’s consistently putting in 10 to 20 hours more a week of work, than is actually billed or for himself getting paid/compensated, and this is in fact the expectation of leadership, then he should potentially being looking for alternate employment. A possible outcome from his meeting could be that he is eventually reprimanded for capacity for workload and effectiveness in his role, however, the more likely upside is worth the limited risk of the alternate scenario.
Q3. This issue stems from potentially two major issues; the first being a lacking of training and expectation setting, and the second being lack of oversight by leadership to actual work spent versus billed hours. The first can be corrected by establishing or re-communicating expectations of their editors. If Circa Communications doesn’t have a policy, then senior leadership should be presented one for approval to be adopted and presented out to the teams. The second, if leadership is aware of the situation and have chosen to accept and/or ignore, is a larger issue in which Troy may need to decide if he’s comfortable with the situation, or would like to seek alternate employment options. In both issues, they pose the potential being ethically problematic.
Ethics, MMC6213, Strategic Communications,