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The ethics of rewards… what would you do?

Wednesday 28 October, 2020
by Anonymous

You are the member of an executive team and your role is to assign performance-based bonuses. Due to the extraordinary impact of Covid-19, the board has asked bonuses be forgone this year. The organisation has made a profit. Your team has worked extremely hard. You feel uncomfortable about not being able to provide them with the promised bonus. It seems unfair. 

There have been several issues scrutinised regarding the proportionality of payments, bonuses and subsidies throughout this year. You understand the impact these issues are having on perceptions and reputations; however, this decision seems terribly unjust. 

What would you do?

What ethical considerations would you give to your decision-making?

We encourage you to post your answers in the comments so we can create a healthy discussion, with the aim of learning from our peers, becoming aware of differing perspectives and challenging our own biases.

We need more dilemmas please! If you would like to submit an ethical dilemma to feature in an upcoming weekly challenge please email: dilemma@bfso.org.

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There are 1 comments for The ethics of rewards… what would you do? .

Re: The ethics of rewards… what would you do?

Friday 30 October, 2020
by Matthew
It is a tricky time of year for these conversations. On one hand you have a workforce who have been putting in a considerable effort with some exceeding expectations during this time. An employer wants to reward this in order to keep the staff member feeling appreciated and engaged. It doesn't paint a good picture in the local community when people are losing their jobs and suffering excruciating mental illness as a result of the pandemic to be celebrating and paying out bonuses. Quite the conundrum.
On the other hand, and stretching the case, providing bonuses often leads to increased spending in the longer term and provides a level of fiscal injection to the communities they reside in. We know that the multiplier effect has a greater impact.
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