Code of Ethics Assignment: Case Analysis of Flight Centre

Question

Task: To prepare this code of ethics assignment, you are required to research recent news articles and other information about Flight Centre. Your task is to draft a Code of Ethics for Flight Centre. The word limit is 2000 words.

Answer

Codes of Conduct
According to the research on code of ethics assignment, a code of conduct or ethics is principle guidance that helps professionals conduct their business with integrity and honesty. The code sets forth the standards of behaviors and conducts that are expected of all the company’s people on the basis of their laws and values. Furthermore, it connects the how and why of the company's work and the fair policies that helpsthey deliver their services fairly to the employees, colleagues, customers, and stakeholders(Singh & Prasad, 2017). The code helps the company when it is uncertain what and when to navigate the tough situations and decisions. When the company gets into a tough situation, it isn't easy to navigate in a fair manner, which is possible with the help of conduct that strives to make the company perform with honesty and integrity. The core value of any company is to carry out their duties dedicatedly and devotedly along with following policies, procedures, and laws. The training applicable to the trainees is completed, and they seek guidance from the team leader for any queries they have. They further devote themselves not to engage themselves or ignore the behaviors of others who breach the code of conduct or any framed policies or law. The Code of Ethics will be drafted in this report, analyzing the recent news articles about Flight Centre. The commitment of the Flight Centre travel group is to be sustainable and responsible for travel and tourism, together with identifying and preventing any form of modern slavery in the supply chains and business. They seek to surpass their competitors honestly and fairly.

Discrimination
Discrimination: Discussion
Discrimination in a workplace appears when an employee, because of their gender, race, religion, disability, maternity, or pregnancy, is treated unfavorably. It might be unlawful if someone possessing different characteristics than the other staff members is treated differently. Direct discriminations occur when the payment is less for an employee than the others for no particular reason, or there are no reasonable adjustments made for the disabled workers, for instance, an employee has all the qualifications to do the job but is not allowed because of the employee’s genetic information (Fekedulegn et al., 2019). Indirect discrimination happens when there’s a disadvantage set for some members due to certain rules and regulations; for instance, if it is a compulsory working day for all the employees on Sundays, then it could be termed as discrimination against the Christians who recognize it as a day of worship. Talking about the NAB, they strive to provide and promote a safe and healthy workplace (Thorburn, 2015). Also, they approach zero tolerance which helps them provide a safe environment free of bullying, harassment, and unlawful discrimination. The EEOC frames and enforces laws that govern and protects the employee from employment discrimination. The laws are enforced to safeguard the employees when they're treated unfairly because of their race, religion, gender, pregnancy, age, or genetic information. The laws are also enforced when there is denial in a reasonable chance of the workplace due to the disability or religious beliefs and safeguard from any disclosure or improper questions related to the medical or genetic information.

Discrimination: Code of Ethics
The code of conduct in the Flight center creates and supports a work environment that is safe and provides equal opportunity to the employees.

• Employees should not support or tolerate any kind of discrimination, bully or harassment.
• Employees must completely be respectful to human rights, and adhere to the Flight Centre policies.
• Employees must raise issues that are of concerns to them, for instance, any kind of frauds or harassment.
• Employees must be proud of the diverse belief, cultures, and backgrounds of other employees and recognizes all are different, thus commits to provide fair and equal treatment to all regardless of where they come from or who they are.

Exploitation
Exploitation: Discussion
Exploitation refers to situations or cases where employers are voluntarily or pressured to work for long hours and in poor and unfavorable conditions, where they withhold their pay or salary. The exploitation goes way beyond the destitute employment practices and is a combination of inhumane, harsh conditions with frequent fraud, blackmail, and deception in the workplace (Hamann&Bertels, 2017). There are cases where the individuals are made to work in a fire hazard and take products from boiling waters, where a careful employer will take all the necessary steps to safeguard their employees. There has been a record of some cases where the employees are made to work extremely long hours with one short break and the long hour travels are not included in the hours of working. In labor exploitation, the employees are paid less than their actual pay and are also denied the remuneration for overtime. Some employers often put pressure on the employees through threats or blackmail and put restrictions on their freedom of movement, making them imprisoned even after working hours (Livne-Ofer et al., 2019). As in Wesfarmers, they have understood and are committed to respecting human rights and providing a safe environment for the workers. They are also committed to reacting towards any violent or fraudulent practices that violate human rights, including the exploitative practices against the employees.

Exploitation: Code of Ethics
The Flight centers are committed to human rights and identify any indications of exploitation. Here, the employees are encouraged to bring any issues related to the working conditions and treatments that might have been concerning them.

• Employees must strive to be provided with a safe working environment with good pay according to their job value and righteous working hours.
• Employees must speak against any exploitation being faced by them.
• Employees must be entitled to a safe working environment with proper protection and precautions being provided by the employers.

Corruption
Corruption: Discussion
Corruption is the act of dishonesty that is one form of criminal activity, which can be committed by an individual or a group(Bahoo et al., 2019). The act of corruption violates the rights and privileges of other people, and this is a punishable act. The act of corruption mostly includes bribery or embezzlement, and this is caused to due to the lack of transparency, absence of accountability, poverty, and so on. An example of two acts that amount to corruption in any organizationis the abuse of power and bribery by the employees or the company's management.When the management of the company misuses its power for their gain, they are indulging themselves in corruption. Companies such as Woolworth have implemented a policy named Speak Up, and this helps the company to identify any act of safety breach or corruption in their organization. They can also misuse their power to manipulate the business environment and make it favorable for themselves. An example is a bribery, which occurs when an employee or member of management accepts money illegally for work. This act is unethical and breaches the concept of trust in business, and this is considered corruption.

Corruption: Code of Ethics
Following are the code of ethics that needs to be followed by managers and employees of Flight Center to eliminate corruption:

1. Introduced and implemented anti-corruption policies in its organization so that it can eliminate the act of corruption from its organization across its globaloperation. Since the FLT has a global business, it needs to ensure that its policies are implemented in all its branches so that no branch will indulge in the act of corruption, and they can take appropriate action.
2. The employees of needs come and speak about any act of corruption happening in the organization. When an employee talks to the management about the occurrence of corruption, then the management can take possible action to eliminate those activities. The employees in the organization must be aware of the anti-corruption policy of the company so that they can help the company in identifying and eliminating corruption.
3. There needs to be an open flow of communication in the organization so that employees can pass information at any time.

Dishonest and Fraudulent Behavior
Dishonest and Fraudulent Behavior: Discussion
Dishonest behavior in a workplace includes character traits of employees such as cheating, deceiving, and lying. Such behavior by employees can happen intentionally or unintentionally, and it gives negativity to the character of the employees. On the other hand, fraudulent behavior is the intentional misuse of the assets and resources of the organization where the employee is working. In this act of misconduct, the employees seek monetary or non-monetary benefits from their illegal activities. Examples of acts that amount to dishonest and fraudulent behavior are forgery and falsification. Forgery is the act of imitating and copying the intellectual property that belongs to the other person without any prior permission. The second act is falsification, which is the altering of information and issuing misleading information to the people (Tompros et al., 2017).

Dishonest and Fraudulent Behavior: Code of Ethics
The code of ethics for dishonest and fraudulent behavior is necessary for FLT because the employees of the organization have claimed that the company has been directing them to charge doubtful mark-up prices and getting engages in wrong practices of payments.

1. An open-door policy needs to be implemented by the managers that will help it to prevent any fraudulent activity by ensuring and open communication between the employees and management of the organization.
2. A fair and transparent work culture needs to be adopted by the company so that all the employees feel equal.
3. All the activities of the employees need to be monitored on a regular basis and they need to abide by the rule and regulations of the company.

Whistleblower Protection
Whistleblower Protection: Discussion
Whistleblower protection is a practice in an organization where the employees are encouraged to report any wrongdoings occurring within the organization (Yeoh, 2014). Through this policy, an organization can identify and the illegal practices and violations of rules through the credible information of volunteers and employees working in the organization. In this manner, the organization can stop its employees and the manager from indulging in any wrong practices that can harm the profit and reputation of the company. There are several advantages of incorporating a whistleblower protection policy within an organization because it ensures transparency and better governance. It also helps the company to make an appropriate structure for the organization and foster a culture that reduces the risk of fraud and corruption.

Whistleblower Protection: Code of Ethics
Following are the ethical code that needs to be followed by the employees is the managers:

• The employees should provide appropriate information and assist in the investigation process.
• The information that is received should be timely and credible.
• All the employees need to comply with the rules and regulations of the company.

Enforcement
The overall report on code of ethics assignment gives an overview of the ethical code draft for Flight Center so that they can identify and rectify various unethical and illegal activities going on in their company. This draft was prepared because the company was accused of misleading their consumers and not paying fair wages to their employees. In this company, there needs to be a set of ethical codes that will tell the employees and managers regarding their duties and responsibilities. The employees of Flight Center should be educated about the ethical codes by providing guidelines regarding acceptable behavior at the workplace and, along with that, how they can put forward their grievances to the management. The ethical codes will all the company to ensure integrity and transparency through which they can eliminate the risk of fraud(Singh & Prasad, 2017). This can be ensured only when the company assigns a penalty such as job dismissal or pay cuts for the wrongdoing of the employees. If the company fails to penalize the wrongdoers, then there will be no point in incorporating a code of ethics.

References
Bahoo, S., Alon, I., &Paltrinieri, A. (2019). Corruption in international business: A review and research agenda. International Business Review, 29(4), 101660. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2019.101660

Fekedulegn, D., Alterman, T., Charles, L. E., Kershaw, K. N., Safford, M. M., Howard, V. J., & MacDonald, L. A. (2019). Prevalence of workplace discrimination and mistreatment in a national sample of older U.S. workers: The REGARDS cohort study. SSM - Population Health, 8(1), 100444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100444

Hamann, R., &Bertels, S. (2017). The Institutional Work of Exploitation: Employers’ Work to Create and Perpetuate Inequality.Code of ethics assignmentJournal of Management Studies, 55(3), 394–423. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12325

Livne-Ofer, E., Coyle-Shapiro, J. A-M., & Pearce, J. L. (2019). Eyes Wide Open: Perceived Exploitation and Its Consequences. Code of ethics assignment Academy of Management Journal, 62(6), 1989–2018. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2017.1421

Singh, C., & Prasad, M. (2017).(PDF) CODE OF ETHICS IN AN ORGANISATION.ResearchGate.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321938144_CODE_ OF_ETHICS_IN_AN_ORGANISATION

Singh, C., & Prasad, M. (2017).(PDF) CODE OF ETHICS IN AN ORGANISATION.ResearchGate.

Thorburn, A. (2015). NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK Code of Conduct. https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nab/documents/policy/corporate/code-of-conduct.pdf

Tompros, L., Crudo, R., Pfeiffer, A., &Boghossian, R. (2017). THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF CRIMINALIZING FALSE SPEECH MADE ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES IN A POST- ALVAREZ, SOCIAL MEDIA-OBSESSED WORLD. Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, 31(1). https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/assets/articlePDFs/v31/31HarvJLTech65.pdf

Yeoh, P. (2014). (PDF) Whistleblowing: Motivations, Corporate self-regulation, And the law. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280193862_Whistleblowing_Motivations_Corporate_self-regulation_And_the_law