Values and Ethical Decision Making

Values and Ethical Decision Making Values and Ethical Decision Making Jack Taylor, a former WWII Navy fighter pilot, started a car leasing business inside the basement of a car dealership in 1957. While serving for the military, Jack learned about values, integrity, team spirit, hard work, and the ability to do the right things which he embraced and used as the foundation for Enterprise Rent-A-Car (Enterprise, n. d. ). He admired these traits that were apparent in his first few employees which set the tone for future generations of car rental agents.

Employees of Enterprise start out as management trainees learning to run the business as an entrepreneur. As sales and fleet growth increase, employees are eligible for promotion with endless opportunity on compensation. Through this entrepreneurial spirit and dedication of all employees, Enterprise has expanded into several markets such as rental for personal, business, or insurance replacement purposes, car sales, and fleet management. As the company matured, Enterprise was guided on Jack Taylor’s philosophy: “if you take care of your customers and your employees first, the profits will follow” (Enterprise, n. . ). This has led Enterprise to grow to become the largest car rental operation in the world with over 6,500 locations in the U. S. within 15 miles of 90% of the U. S. population, with other locations in Germany, Canada, the U. K, and Ireland (Enterprise, n. d. ). Recent college graduates are solicited for the management trainee program with high hopes of running a local office or airport location. Enterprise promises in return for hard work, dedication, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done, an endless amount of money that could be earned.

The challenge becomes what ethics and morals are a person willing to overlook to make the most money. From the start of your employment with Enterprise Rent-A-Car each person is compared to his/her peers within their region on a rating system called the matrix. The matrix compares the daily rates of rentals and additional sales that are added to each rental contract. Additional sales include pre-paid fuel, varied insurance policies, and navigation devices such as GPS systems. Unfortunately, each branch is in constant competition with each other and has their own ways of producing the numbers required for pay raises and promotions.

Ethics and morals are not part of the matrix system. This has caused a huge dilemma for many previous and current employees who are not driven to make the most money at a cost of violating one’s personal moral and ethical standards. The Williams Institute Ethics Awareness Inventory assessment provides insight to how people and company’s approach ethical behavior through what is called an A3 approach focusing on awareness, articulation, and application or action (The Williams Institute for Ethics and Management, n. d. ).

The assessment presents a series of questions to measure each element of ethical decision making based on the responses provided. After completing the assessment and evaluating the results to the statements made on Enterprises website, it is very apparent the company they strived to be is not who they are today or do their ethical standards align with many employees personal ethical standards. Enterprise is in business to maximize profit while overlooking their obligation to conduct themselves ethically while serving the communities in which they operate.

As a previous management trainee for enterprise Rent-A-Car, there are many examples that caused a dilemma between exceeding goals of the branch while violating personal morals and ethics. The first example is when local area managers for the Tulsa, Oklahoma market ran a contest for a day on rental occupancy at each location. At the top of each hour every location was ranked on how many cars were and was not assigned to a written contract. For every car sitting on a lot not making money the branch would be deducted points each hour until the branch could attain or reach near full occupancy.

That same day a customer returned his rental vehicle and warned the manager on duty that the vehicle was experiencing serious safety concerns. The customer demonstrated that the turn signals were not working, break lights were out, and the tire pressure light was signaling that two tires were losing pressure. The manager assured the customer the car would be sent over to a dealership for repairs before allowing the vehicle to be assigned to another rental contract.

The manager knew if he sent the car to the dealership, his overall rating for the daily contest would be impacted. Instead of doing the right thing, the manager ordered Jennifer his new management trainee to clean the vehicle for the next customer. Jennifer refused to take part in the matter. However, she needed her job and the manager threatened to write her up which could result in her losing her job. Jennifer cleaned the vehicle, however advised the manager when the vehicle s brought back, even if it were later that same day it would be taken to a dealership for repairs by her personally. She was very nervous about the vehicle continuing to be used and refused to write any future contracts until the issues were fixed. The manager nominated himself to write the next contract and assigned the vehicle that needed repair. This boosted the branches numbers at the end of the day and the employees were recognized for their hard work and world-class customer service. Jennifer started to realize the type of company she was working for.

After working at various locations Jennifer had the opportunity to discuss her concerns with other current and previous employees. She was able to work side-by-side with many management trainees and managers and realized over time the majority of her co-workers were willing to conduct unethical behavior to achieve personal financial and career goals. This situation as many others helped previous and current employees realize there are two ways of conducting business: ethically and unethically.

It became very frustrating for Enterprise employees to witness peers promoted based on the numbers they produced on the matrix when everyone knew of the unethical business practices that were encouraged or simply overlooked. Enterprise continually hires new employees to fill their management trainee positions. Many don’t last due to the unethical behaviors and fierce competition between all levels of management. A new hire is assigned to a local branch within his/her community for about the first five to six months before they are required to complete a six month rotation at the local airport.

After almost three months of employment Jennifer was sent to the Tulsa International Airport to fulfill her six month rotation obligation as a management trainee. It only took a week for her to realize the airport operation was not like other area locations. Every Enterprise airport employee was still compared to their peers on a sales matrix system however, the system used made it impossible to cheat the customer. The managers enforced policies and procedures to be sure all vehicles were compliant with safety regulations.

Rates were already pre-determined and could not be changed to cheat the customer. It was up to each employee to use their salesman abilities to increase revenue to improve their overall rating on the monthly matrix report. Jennifer became content with her position at Enterprise and joined the competition amongst her peers. Jennifer spent 6 months at the airport and achieved number one in sales for the airports matrix for four months in a row. She grew to understand the business and demonstrated her knowledge though various steps in the management trainee program.

Two months before she would leave the airport and be relocated to another neighborhood location Jennifer had an opportunity to be promoted to an assistant manager position. Jennifer was in direct competition with another airport management trainee for the promotion. As she continued to work beside her co-worker she quickly realized he was manipulating contracts and having customers pay for services they originally declined. This unethical conduct increased his overall sales and he quickly became the front runner for the promotion which he eventually received.

Enterprise was founded on employees who were dedicated to learning the business based on the expectation that employees did the right thing and willingly went the extra mile to be sure every customer was completely satisfied. Andy Taylor started Enterprise Rent-A-Car with employees who were dedicated to learning the business from an entrepreneur stand point. Currently, the Tulsa market fuses the founding principles of the company with a twist of doing whatever it takes to meet the standards of the company matrix to ensure eligibility for promotions and an increase in pay.

The foundation of the company that has been in place since the beginning has grown apart from what the company has grown to be today. References Enterprise. (n. d. ). Culture of Customer Service. Retrieved from http://aboutus. enterprise. com/customer_service. html The Williams Institute for Ethics and Management. (n. d. ). The Williams Institute EAI. Retrieved from http://ecampus. phoenix. edu/secure/aapd/Vendors/TWI/EAI/a