An example I could apply the 3-step approach to solve an ethical problem could be
ordering parts from somewhere, which is cheaper than ordering parts from somewhere
that could arrive faster. Let me explain. I work at Napa Auto Parts and am the store
manager. I do everything from hiring to letting go of individuals. When my job holds
special sales for people, my guys are supposed to order out of our warehouse and the
DC. The DC charges about 3% more than our warehouse does for these parts. Some
counter guys will not care about this and order from the wrong DC's make that store not
make money. These guys do this because they could be upset with the company. So, first,
I have to define the problem. The problem is the store losing money on special sales.
Identifying the cause is the next step. I can identify this problem cause and see which
counter guy is ordering from the DC's and not the warehouse. The last step would be the
solution to this. I could pull the counter guy into my house and have a chat with him. I
could explain why counter people can only order these particular parts from the
warehouse.
The example that I will be using for this post is in a past work place, where I was the
manager for the department. The department I'm referring to is the poke, where we make
poke bowls and side dishes of other items. There is a process of the way we incorporate the
ingredients into mixing the different pokes. So besides the counter service workers, we also
have specific employees that does the mixing as well as customer service. But these select
few are the only ones to do the mixing because it has to be consistent. We also followed a
criteria that no new poke is to be mixed after 5 pm, to make sure that waste is controlled.
So, that usually is my role when I'm working, and there are 2 others certified for that when
I'm not there. I left for the dat, which is at 5, but when I got home around 5:30, I get a call
from one of the employees in my department. She told me that the store manager had
them mix more of the ahi poke after I left, which is a no go, because that employee is not
trained and certified to do so. Because of this, I reached out to my supervisor, which is on
another island, and informed her of the situation. Mind you this was the third time that this
manager has had this done, and I already had talked to him about it, after he did it on the
second time. But because he did another time, I contacted my supervisor, where she flew in
the next day so we could have a meeting with this manager. It was resolved at the meeting,
and he was made to understand why we run the poke department this way. So, after this
meeting, we never had the problem again. My example for this was that even though I was a
manager as well, and talked to this manager before, it took someone higher than us to get
the situation resolved. Sometimes you can resolve it yourself, but other times it would take a
person of higher authority to get the point across and the situation resolved.
