Ethics

Facts surrounding the Case
The facts surrounded the case are as follows The Company, Rockland International adopted a new policy named as Whistle Blowing Policy. This policy provided assurance to the employees of the company that they will not be discriminated or penalized in any way if they reported the company of any misdoings of their fellow employees or supervisors. This policy was developed and under the supervision of Mr. Ken Dryden, who was in charge of the implementation of this policy. Art Holmes, a salesperson, contacted Ken Dryden with the information that one of his supervisors has been issuing payments for goods not delivered, and he also provided Ken with documents to prove this. When the supervisor was questioned, he accepted that he was cheating the company and committing fraud. Thus he was fired. Now Ken came to know that Art Holmes had the information of his supervisor committing fraud for about a year, yet he only presented them when he suspected that he was about to be eliminated from the company due to his poor performance as salesperson, and Ken suspected that he kept the information as a guarantee and used the whistle blowing policy to make sure he is not terminated by the company.

Key issues of the Case
The first issue of the case is for Ken Dryden to decide whether he should penalize Art Holmes for withholding the information regarding his supervisor for one year, or he should let Holmes go. If Holmes is penalized, then this would be against the spirit of the Whistle blowing policy and it would scare the other employees of retribution and discrimination if they told the company about the wrong doings of other employees. On the other hand, if Art Holmes is let go without punishment, then other workers might get the idea that they can also store information regarding the wrong doings of fellow employees and supervisors and use it as guarantee against them, and keep it to be later use as a safeguard to secure ones employment.

The second issue in the case that Ken Dryden has to face is what changes he should implement in the policy so make it more effective in the future. So that employees must not withhold information about fellow workers and supervisors and not use it as guarantee. Also Ken must decide on how he should communicate to the employees the proper function of the Whistle blowing policy so that any employee must not misuse it in the future.

Listing and evaluation of the alternate courses of action
The first action that can be taken by the company would be to fire Art Holmes as he can be considered as a sort of accomplice to the supervisor as he did withhold the information of wrong doing from the company. This course of action would seem to be just as it was clear from the dates on the receipts that Holmes had withhold this information for his own motives. But on the other hand, the implications for penalizing Holmes would be felt by the other employees of the company. They would seem to think that Holmes have been fired from his job because he blew the whistle on his supervisor. That would scare the other employees as they would think that the policy is just an activity and nothing serious. Thus this would kill the spirit of the policy.

The second action that could be taken by the company would be to let Holmes go and not penalize him for withholding information about the corruption of his supervisor for over a year. This would show the employees that the management is serious about the Whistle blowing policy and that the other employees would feel more secure in telling the company management about the wrong doings of any of the employees as well as supervisors. This would be major victory for the company as this would stop any corruption at all levels of the company as the employees will be afraid that their colleagues might tell the management. But letting Holmes go would also show the employees that they can withhold the information and use it later when it is advantageous to do so. This would start a trend of blackmailing in the company.  

Recommendation for future course of action
My recommendation regarding this case is that Holmes should not be penalized for his withholding the information regarding his supervisor because there are no specification  in the Whistle blowing policy that after how much time should an employee report the  wrongdoings of other members of the company. Also the removal of Holmes would generate fear among the other employees and they would never give information of any wrongdoing in the company, and this would kill the Whistle blowing policy.

Also the company should improve the Whistle blowing policy to include that the employees should inform the management about ay wrongdoings done by any employee or supervisor as soon as possible. The company should also tell the employees that if the are found to be withholding the information, they would be treated as accomplice to the crime. This will become effective in preventing any employee from withholding the information and storing it for any gain such as blackmail. Thus the company would be free from any sort of wrongdoings by employees as well as wrong usage of information such as withholding, blackmail etc by employees.