Please answer these ethical dilemmas for Human Resources. The Limited Taps Techn
ID: 370693 • Letter: P
Question
Please answer these ethical dilemmas for Human Resources. The Limited Taps Technology to Communicate Benefits CASE Employees' satisfaction with their benefits is driven contact individuals on a more frequent basis to pro- in part by a company's ability to effectively commu vide them with up-to-date information about ben- nicate available services and opportunities. A number efits, and it provided employees with instant access of companies are now relying on technology in the to benefit support. For instance, some of the avail- form of social media and employee blogs that provide able options included around-the-clock access to employees with important information about their physicians, assigned health consultants, and support benefit options. These technology-based strategies for child-related matters. can be further supported by reaching out to employ The Limited also created a program called To- ees with more traditional forms of communication. tal Value of Health that educates employees about The Limited, a medium-sized women's apparel retailer located in the United States, is one company that has adopted these approaches. Since the firm has thousands of employees spread across many storefronts located in 42 states, it had to develop a way to communicate appropriately about benefits in a way that would be appreciated by its work- force, which tends to be young and female. It was decided that all communication content would be developed in house to minimize costs. Messages fo- cus on how to develop healthy lifestyles such as eat- ing better and minimizing stress, as well as how to improve financial well-being. their benefits. A website, benefit guide, blogs, and newsletters were all offered to better inform indi viduals. These communication efforts have resulted in greater familiarization with, understanding of and utilization of the company's benefits. They also demonstrate how well technology can help HR pro- fessionals promote benefits to employees.105 QUESTIONS 1 . How would you evaluate The Limited's ap- proach for communicating information about benefits to its employees? What might you have Another important part of The Limited's ben- done differently if you were an HR professional efit strategy focused on using social media to en- hance communication with employees. This was 2. If you were to use technology to assist witlh a practical approach since employees used blogs, communicating about benefits, how would you Facebook, and other forms of online communicaapproach doing it? What are the potential chal tion, The appr in the company? roach also enabled the company to le nges associated with your strategy?
Explanation / Answer
Case: The Limited taps technology to communicate benefits
1. The approach adopted by The Limited to communicate with its employees can be evaluated as a technology-driven experiment. While it is understandable that using social media and blogs to engage with employees can result in good visibility, there is a risk of compromising with privacy and confidentiality of the information. Health benefits are private to each employee and specific information need not be accessed on a platform that is accessed by many others.
A responsible HR professional must make sure that private information about specific benefits unique to each employee are not shared on social platforms. Employees may be connected to family and friends on these social media platforms, who are not part of the organisation and they are not supposed to access such company information. However, information related to general awareness about the benefits can be posted on blogs and social media for easy and wide reach may be shared on these technology platforms.
2. The approach to using technology to communicate about employee benefits must be based on systems that are secure. One such approach maybe to have all the information and specific data on the company’s own or hired server. Access to information must be controlled, authorisation to view, modify or delete information must be in the hands of a responsible person or team of the company. The design of the system in terms of features and functionalities must be similar to popular social media and blogs. Once the systems is setup, the employees can be invited to join upon accepting the privacy and usage policies.
The main challenges to a formal approach is to generate enough interest amongst the employees to use a new teachnology platform. The costs of developing and maintaining the technology may or may not exceed the overall benefits.
Case: Building a culture of safety
For Messer Constructions, the challenge is to generate interest amongst the employees to attend the safety program and implement the learnings at their workplace. While many of the OSHA standards are mandatory and have a non-compliance cost, the company may not necessarily develop a safety culture.
Employees may forcefully be following the rules of eye protection, attending daily meetings and reporting incidents as amongst their routine work. This may improve compliance, but may not result in a culture change. HR may want to modify the approach by asking the employees to come up with their own ideas or solutions to safety issues, based on their practical experiences. If these ideas are included in the broader OSHA framework, the chances of compliance along with cultural change increases, since the employees would feel that they have participated in the process and that they are empowered.