Paper 1

Daniel Worm

11/16/14

Application Chapter 5.2

Some companies require that their employees work long hours and travel extensively. Employees with young children, employees taking care of elderly relatives, and employees who have interests outside the workplace sometimes find that their careers are jeopardized if they try to work more reasonable hours or limit their work-related travel. Some of these employees feel that it is unethical for their managers to expect so much of them in the workplace and not understand their needs as parents and caregivers.

1. What are some of the ethical implications of requiring long hours and extensive amounts of travel for some jobs.

Some of the ethical implications are those like keeping you away from your family and not being able to be there for them all the time or when you are needed. Another may be the fact that because you work such long hours you don’t have enough time to see your friend’s family and others that those relationships start to suffer as a consequence. I think that if you take a job that doesn’t allow you to see the people you love then you are the one making the choice to hurt that relationship. You should know before you take the job what the job requires of you and if that will work with what you have going on in your life.

2. What obligations do you think managers and companies have to enable employees to have balanced lives and meet non-work needs and demands?

I think that managers should, if they are going to ask employees to work extra or send them away, make up for it with compensation or some kind of benefit that will make it some what of an equal trade off. I also believe that they should be up front in the beginning about how much travel is required and how long the hours are going to be, and if the person accepts the job, they have no room to complain about what they are given. In my opinion everyone has things that they have to do and unexpected things come up, so their...