Ethics at the Workplace

As a junior manager at the Raytheon Company I am in charge of the production and testing of military weaponry under the department of guided missiles. My head manager travels a lot for the sake of research and coordination of activities outside then company. For this reason, most of the times I am in charge of the company in my department, as the CEO and CFO are not in charge of production. My duty is to coordinate operations at the department responsible for the production of military weapons. As weapons are, specificity in terms of requirements, standards and safety precautions are some of the vital elements that need to be observed with a very keen interest. For this reason, my job description is to be in charge of production of guided missiles to ensure that standardization of the products, safety, and the health of employees is in place.

Besides what I am required to do in the company and my job description, I have an ethical obligation to employees, the organization and to myself. Observation of work ethics where everyone has the right to be heard, to be protected, and to be covered in terms of health and other social terms are my missions in the company. In regard to the government and the constitution, in terms of code and ethics, my vision is to keep the company and my department within the requirements of the law. In addition, I would like to motivate employees to vest their abilities and hard work into their lines of duty to uplift the standards of the company as they uplift their individual image in the corporate world.

Respect, responsibility, punctuality, and accountability are the core values that govern me as a junior manager. With respect, I get to relate with colleagues and employees fairly well, while, at the same time, I get the top executives to respect me back. The building of the company’s image starts with every individual stakeholder and with teamwork, the objectives of the company are maintained and achieved. From the start of production to the delivery of products, punctuality plays a role that stands out as a personal and general value. Given the nature of activities Raytheon Company engages in, engineers throughout all departments and fellow managers use accountability as a personal value and as part of control factor to prevent them from engaging or being used to create weapons outside the premises.

Raytheon’s culture and climate in terms of ethics is to work within different schedules and an environment employees and managers are comfortable being, respectively. Inspite of the fact that the organization deals with weapons mostly for the purpose of government use through the defense forces and internal security purposes, it is through punctuality and hard work that the culture of delivering within different schedules has originated from. There is no guarantee that products fitting the requirements of consumers are available at all times. For this reason, short-scheduled tasks require working much time on and exhibition of hard work. Through this culture, the organization’s relationship with the client base and the government – that happens to be the biggest client, is professional and short of disappointments. The purpose of this culture is to give the company an image that client scan live and operate without ethical malpractices.

The comfortable climate, besides high levels of security and accommodating nature of the executives, is brought by the personal responsibility that each stakeholder exercises. Responsibility by the management allows the employees to make their decisions and confirm with the necessary personnel before acting on them. At the same time, communication channels are open between the managers and the executives, employees and managers, and employees and executives. The mixed mode of communication allows each participant of every taskforce a free entity who can air and listen to opinions (Velasquez, 2006). For this reason, the grievances of employees and other stakeholders are highly compensated with strategic, financial, and emotional support. Friendliness, compassion, and moral support are among the elements of association that create the comfortable climate at the Raytheon Company.

As a whole, Raytheon’s vision and mission in terms of ethics is to foster good management practices that take into consideration personal issues for every employee. Inspite of the ethical consideration and the constitutional demands, the nature of products manufactured in this organization requires management to know its employees at a personal level, otherwise, emotional and mental instability of any particular employee can result to legal matters. For this reason and the ethical requirements, the climate of the organization is modified and engineered to accommodate the personal social, psychological, and emotional issues for everyone.

The code of ethics at the workplace allows the relationship between management and workforce fair in that, after all, tasks have to be accomplished and management has to do its work. Respect between colleagues is highly campaigned for, because without this aspect of association, teamwork that plays a great role in corporate fields cannot be registered.

Raytheon Company has a social responsibility of balancing its operations with the protection of environment. For the sake of environment and the welfare of the society, Raytheon is obligated to use mechanisms that take care of pollutants. With industrialization, world bodies that foster for a greener environment have been urging organizations to take care of their pollutants and avoid dumping them in the environment. Raytheon is an example of manufacturing company that engages in the production of environmentally harmful products, as well as the emission of gases and liquids that have the capability of devastating life on earth. Following this concern, Raytheon have devised a mechanism through which its social responsibilities can be taken care of.

The manufacturing of weapons and missiles, to be specific, requires the use of harmful chemicals the preparation of which gives a rise to unwanted products. In addition, the usage of the weapons creates a loop to contaminate and pollute the environment further. As a means of reducing, the environmental hazard brought forth by the manufacturing of weapons and their general use by clients. Raytheon has taken safety measures in its line of manufacturing practices to produce environmentally friendly weapons. In this case, chemicals and materials used in manufacturing of these weapons are environmentally friendly. By this, Raytheon is not responsible for the damage caused by the weapons once used, but they are responsible for the chemical composition of their weapons and the degree of damage to the environment they have. By taking care of this by using bio-dissolving and biodegradable chemicals and materials, respectively, Raytheon is taking its social responsibility positively.

To measure the level of social responsibility of the organization, the actual amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the organization and the results after use does not amount to recognizable levels. According to Oxford’s University Ecological Student’s research on the level of emission, this organization contributed only 5% of hydrogen, and 3% of oxygen ions were reported. In general, according to the study, Raytheon produces two molecules of water and one hydroxide ion for every emission of gas to the atmosphere that has no actual harm to the environment and to life (Department of Ecological Studies Oxford University, 2011).

Raytheon’s ethical analysis relies heavily on the use of analytical appraisal approach within which the ethics of individual stakeholders are weighted along a certain period. Besides the ethical and logical binding every stakeholder is tied down to, it is expected that they observe caution by using common sense. However, the nature of activities that Raytheon is involved in does not allow such choice to be made by individuals. In this case, individual behavior of the stakeholders is not expected to be in accordance with the organization’s requirement through self-direction and personal choice between right and wrong. Following this, the organization uses a model of measuring the effectiveness of individual behavior in terms of ethics, as required by the law governing such activities as the manufacturing of weapons and personal ethics. The model used is to mark the effectiveness of individuals in terms of how they respect time, one another, and the policies of the organization.

To give managers and employees a sense of responsibility in terms of ethics and association with one another in accordance to the interests of the organization, training programs like workshops and teamwork have been implemented to take care of that necessity. In workshops, individuals are trained on how to be responsible and are allowed to make independent decisions that affect the outcomes of their projects. With teamwork, the organization through management trains the individuals how to be sufficient and reliable team players. Teamwork, as a program on its own, requires every individual to contribute effectively and equally as any other. In the end, the success of the team depends on the joint individual efforts of every team member. The difference between teamwork as a program and teamwork as a requirement of duty is that outside the line of duty, individuals can exercise being team leaders and then apply their prowess in the line of duty. Finally, majority of the stakeholders are trained how to be leaders and the current leaders are trained how to be better leaders (Velasquez, 2006).

The weakness of the programs is that they do not allow the individuals to exercise full control in terms of assuming leadership roles, and they limit the scope of professional guidance. However, the strengths of the programs outshine the weaknesses in that they are aimed to foster accountability, responsibility, respect, punctuality, and make individuals to be result-oriented. In this case, with absence of the team leaders, supervisors, and department managers, potential personnel to run and oversee the activities are readily available.