Eth 316 - Organizational Ethics

Organizational Ethics

Maurice Moore

ETH/316

24 September 2014

Prof. James Woods

Organizational Ethics

Within the Veterans Administration there are several agencies and within these agencies there are several services that makes up the entire Veterans Administration organization. The ethical principles that are practiced throughout the VA Hospitals is my focus. There are a number of Veterans Hospitals across the United States, also there are quite a few out patient clinics that service veterans. All are supposed to have the same goal of servicing the veteran. From the top down leadership molds their subordinates accordingly, provided through training and mandates. Every year each and every employee has to take ethics training, this training is supposed to make sure that all employees know, understand and will abide by the highest standards of ethics possible. The common ethical goal within the VA is “Excellence”, this excellence can come in many different forms. From greeting the veteran to staying calm and positive at each and every encounter you have with the patient.

Customer Service is also an ethical principle that can affect and effect the organizational issues within the VA. The customer service role that most Veteran Administration hospital employees face comes from within. Because if the employees can’t respect one another, how can they respect the millions of veterans that come thru the doors of the hospital. The employees that have tenure at the VA carry themselves totally different from those throughout the hospital industry. This is simply due to the fact that the VA is part of the government and goes by a different set of rule regulations and disciplinary measures. This by itself can cause an ethical dilemma compared to an employee at your local county hospital.

The external social pressures from individuals, local and city government as well as federal government officials can have an unbelievable influence on how the tides can turn. This is because when a veteran has a problem and makes a formal or informal complaint, it affects the entire Veterans Administration. Then the media gets involved most of the time, once that happens, there is no room for the VA to make excuses for an employee because as part of the government, that employee and his/her service organization is held fully responsible. Mainly because that employee has been trained over and over again and have read some form of an employee handbook describing how and what to do when engaged in any situation. Compared to a city or county hospital, there may be an employee to get terminated or some form of discipline being handed down. Then after the media gets involved it seems to all go away very quickly. That is not the case with the government due to the simple fact that, veterans are involved, those men and women that keeps the American way of life free.