Business and society - Essay Example

Therefore, when a few employees are causing a hindrance in the achievement of any or all of these goals, it is naturally the employer’s responsibility to approach the employee with at least constructive criticism, if not a serious warning. This restaurant chain employs hundreds of people to perform its daily operations. Most of them are young adults, due to the nature and the low wage rate of the job. As recent reports have indicated, in Western society, the abuse of drugs for recreational purposes is extremely high in the case of this age group.

This fact automatically leads to the assumption that quite a few of this restaurant’s employees may be included in this national statistic. At a superficial glance at this assumption, there seems to be no need to explore the matter. As long as the employee performs at par at his or her job, there is no reason to interfere with what they choose to do in their personal life. It can even be labeled an ethical dilemma as to whether the employer should give this much attention to an employee’s personal life outside the job.

However, if one chooses to explore the statistic that the reports have laid out, with more depth, there is more reason to explore the problem. As the reports go on to elaborate, this drug abuse has a major negative impact on the professional lives of these young adults too. The companies that they work for suffer major losses each year, due to the drug problem of these employees, as it causes delays, accidents, lower productivity, and expensive healthcare. The report estimates these losses to be around seventy five to a hundred billion dollars per year in the US.

Considering these significantly huge figures, the directors of this company realize the importance of addressing the problem. They realize how relevant this issue could be to their own workforce, and how urgently it needs to be addressed. There is still the argument of whether it is fair to take on such a serious matter when it can be a very private matter for the employees. A casual drug abuser would not want their employers involved in such a matter, because not only would it they be in the danger of losing their jobs, but it would harm their reputation in society as well as for future employers.

This major ethical dilemma would pose a problem for the employers wishing to take action against this possible drug problem. It would help, perhaps, to view this problem in the light of the ethical theory of utilitarianism. This theory preaches that the actions one takes should be those, which maximize the utility that can be derived from the action. Enforcers of this theory believe also, that one should always seek to maximize the benefit that their actions have on the whole of society, instead of just themselves.

This is often a guiding principle for people who find themselves at a crossroad, and have to choose between an action that would seems right, and one that seems moral. In this case, it would be beneficial to view the problem at hand in the light of utilitarianism. It seems like the wrong thing to do to approach a group of employees and try to screen out the drug users from amongst them. Nevertheless, this action would be in the best interest of the employee, her coworkers, her family as well as the restaurant’s productivity.

As this ethical theory states, one should always prefer the action which ‘brings about the greatest good for the greatest number’