Question
13 Ethics Essay-Payroll You recently began a new job as a part-time retail associate after school You need the income to help pay for gas money and insurance now that you have your own car. When you receive your first pay-check you realize that you were paid for 25 hours of work-even though you only worked 20 hours that week.You could really use the extra money, but you know your employer made a mistake. What should you do? Explain your answer in detail in 4-6 complete sentences for full points specifying the actions you should take square Paragraph V B I U A
Answer
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Quentin
Master · Tutor for 5 years
Answer
1. Verify the discrepancy by recounting your hours and corresponding payment.2. Inform immediate supervisor/management upon discovering or clarifying that you were indeed overpaid.3. Execute instructions issued by management, towards correcting the overpayment situation. 4. Adopt an ethos of enacting based on personal integrity even when others aren't watching. Transparency, owning up to unintentional beneficial errors ultimately fortifies personal character. Such honest acts also help nurture and sustain beneficial mutual trust within the workplace. Measures such as rightfully returning what was not deserved not only fortifies self-respect but also elicits recognition upholding professional core values.
Explanation
The above scenario poses an ethical dilemma which could be justified and rationalized either way, depending on personal ethical composition and internal standards of right versus wrong. Receiving payment for unworked hours constitutes unjust enrichment, which from all ethical viewpoints is remonstrated by most social norms. A great philosopher spoke of ethics as 'what one does when no one is watching', thus intrapersonal values are tested in this matter. Money, especially when there is urgent need for it, can provide strong temptation to overlook such violations.1. The appropriate action to take would first be to re-check the hours worked and corresponding payment to confirm you have indeed been overpaid. 2. Secondly, seek guidance or report the discrepancy if confirmed to your supervisor, management, or appropriate human resources/personnel if available. 3. Follow through on whatever actions/requests they put forth to correct the situation. These steps uphold the commonly recognized ethical guideline of integrity, which entails honesty in ones word as well as actions, reflecting inner values. Therefore, by all ethical regards, one should inform the pertinent authorized person upon discovering the miscalculation.