Human Factors in Technology Tec/401
Technology and Ethics
Forrest La
University of Phoenix
HUMAN FACTORS IN TECHNOLOGY TEC/401 JEFFERY MESSINGER
9/13/2008
Technology and Ethics
Ethics has become the defining point of businesses around the world. If a person dislikes a company, usually the first thing they talk about is how unethical the business is. Take for example Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retail store. Yet there are people in this country who refuse, in fact eve protest, Wal-Mart. If you ask them why, the answer is that they think that Wal-Mart employs unethical work standards, labor standards, and pay standards. Does Wal-Mart employ these standards? The answer comes down to who you ask. The point is that in the business world of today, ethics are key goals that a company tries to maintain. Technology has helped to ensure these standards are meet, and sometimes exceeded. So how can technology help keep ethical standards in place? Well, I would like to give some examples of how my company maintains those standards. As a company we expect that all of the workforce will be upfront, honest, and polite to our customer base. One way to ensure of this is by random call monitoring. This system helps management ensure that each employee is providing factual information to the customer. Also, this ensures that employees do not write down customer information, save the information and email it. If a representative lies to a customer, or knowingly provides false information, these recordings can help either retrain the employee, or pursue disciplinary actions. Call monitoring started at first to be random. Throughout the day, at random times, the computer system would record anywhere from two to ten calls a day (this could be adjusted for employees who are having a difficult time with quality or questionable ethics). The Verizon Wireless started to do customer surveys, and discovered that many of their customers were under the assumption that representatives were lying to them, or
Forrest La
University of Phoenix
HUMAN FACTORS IN TECHNOLOGY TEC/401 JEFFERY MESSINGER
9/13/2008
Technology and Ethics
Ethics has become the defining point of businesses around the world. If a person dislikes a company, usually the first thing they talk about is how unethical the business is. Take for example Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retail store. Yet there are people in this country who refuse, in fact eve protest, Wal-Mart. If you ask them why, the answer is that they think that Wal-Mart employs unethical work standards, labor standards, and pay standards. Does Wal-Mart employ these standards? The answer comes down to who you ask. The point is that in the business world of today, ethics are key goals that a company tries to maintain. Technology has helped to ensure these standards are meet, and sometimes exceeded. So how can technology help keep ethical standards in place? Well, I would like to give some examples of how my company maintains those standards. As a company we expect that all of the workforce will be upfront, honest, and polite to our customer base. One way to ensure of this is by random call monitoring. This system helps management ensure that each employee is providing factual information to the customer. Also, this ensures that employees do not write down customer information, save the information and email it. If a representative lies to a customer, or knowingly provides false information, these recordings can help either retrain the employee, or pursue disciplinary actions. Call monitoring started at first to be random. Throughout the day, at random times, the computer system would record anywhere from two to ten calls a day (this could be adjusted for employees who are having a difficult time with quality or questionable ethics). The Verizon Wireless started to do customer surveys, and discovered that many of their customers were under the assumption that representatives were lying to them, or