Question

Choose one or more topics from Exhibit 5.3 (pg 146) and discuss their current status and the ethical issues surrounding them.

Exhibit 5.3:

EXHIBIT 5.3
Current Ethical Issues in Business

CEO pay	What is a fair level of pay for a top executive? Twenty times what the average company worker earns? Whatever other companies pay their top executives?
Climate	What is a company’s responsibility for its impact on the climate? For example, if operations in one country contribute to rising global temperatures that lead to greater floods in another country, how should the company respond?
Globalization	When a company operates in countries with lower costs, what are its obligations, if any, to the workers in those countries? What standards should it meet for pay rates?
Health care	With health care costs outpacing inflation, employers struggle to cover the cost of health insurance for workers. Are they ethically obligated to provide this benefit?
Obesity	As an obesity epidemic threatens health and adds to health care costs, what role, if any, should employers play in encouraging healthy employee lifestyles?
Online privacy	What obligations do employers have in protecting the privacy of employee information and information about customers?
Politics	Since 2010, businesses and labor unions in the United States have wide latitude for making anonymous contributions to political candidates. What are the ethical limits of such contributions?
Social media	What ethical obligations do employees have in commenting about their employer on social media? What ethical obligations do employers have concerning their employees’ privacy on social media?
Telework	When employees work at home or in other remote locations, how can they and their employer ensure that these arrangements are fair to the employees, their co-workers, and the company?
Wages	When adjusted for inflation, the median wage in the United States has fallen over the past few decades. What should employers do to promote a sense that their compensation is fair?

Answer 1

"Obesity - As an obesity epidemic threatens health and adds to health care costs, what role, if any, should employers play in encouraging healthy employee lifestyles?"

Over the years, organisations have constantly struggled to control the health care costs of their employees and the associated chronic diseases that their workforce is prone to because of unhealthy lifestyles that they lead. The technique of reducing the healthcare costs by providing necessary insurance facilities and availability of a good network of hospitals for good medical care of employees hasn’t produced great results in the past. Now, many organisations are gradually shifting their focus at the root-cause of the problem and, that is, to promote healthy lifestyle among their employees. This is being achieved by incorporating employer-sponsored wellness and weight management programs.

The main problem with obesity as a disease is that not everyone may be aware that there is an obesity epidemic throughout the world. People do not realise that obesity is often the root cause of prevailing chronic lifestyle diseases such as heart attack, heart failure, high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, and cancer and even the psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. Employers can play a huge role in encouraging healthy employee lifestyles and raise awareness about obesity and its effects and preventive measures that can be taken by organising awareness programmes and inviting fitness and healthcare experts to conduct talks and workshops on creating healthy lifestyle habits. Many employees complain that their jobs require them to sit and work for long hours and it leads to obesity for them. People with job profiles such as analysts, consultants, researchers, coders, developers, testers, etc. spend as long as upto 14-16 hours per day sitting and working in front of the their laptops and desktops and are therefore, exposed to chronic diseases and increased mortality rates. Newer organisations have innovated the desk and workspaces by incorporating standing desks and treadmill desks where people can stand or move around while working.

In addition to low physical movement, another root cause of obesity is the diet of the employee. Organisations are often accused of providing unhealthy food alternatives to their workforce such as frequently serving sweetened beverages like coffee, tea, having vending machines in workplaces that serve soft drinks, soda and a kitchen or cafeteria that prepares oily, unhealthy food for its employees. All of these food options gradually lead to obesity on their daily consumption. Employers can instead replace these with healthy alternatives such as green tea, salads, healthy juices, wholegrain breads, oatmeals, etc.

Stress in the workplace is also a key source of poor health of the employees. Having poor organisational culture, vertical organisational hierarchy, autocratic bosses, undistributed workload, strict targets, etc. can all lead to lack of sleep, stress eating, obesity and imbalance of metabolism among the employees. Therefore, to remove stress as a barrier to healthy lifestyle, the top executives of the company should promote a healthy and positive workplace environment in the organisation, human resource managers should conduct stress-management training programmes for the employees and help them lead a healthy, stress-free lifestyle. Organisations can also conduct outdoor training sessions, fitness and exercise classes to improve physical activity of the employees.