Business Nutrients Tips

Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category

The field of investigative reporting involves bringing to the fore facts and figure that affect human interests and fair governance. This means conducting in depth research, looking at public records, doing extensive interviews, as well as checking and rechecking of facts before publication. Whether print or television, investigative reporting is essentially “watchdog” reporting. This means reporting crimes, unfair practices, injustice, as well as other human interest aspects like environment, disease, and so on.

Investigative journalism can move public opinion and instill fear in those treading the wrong path. Slave trade, gun running, terrorist activities, drug trafficking, money laundering and so on are brought to the notice of the world by investigative journalism.

An investigative journalist must be unafraid, determined, patient, watchful, fair, as well as dog minded to be successful. The questions a journalist seeks answers to are: who is responsible for the wrong doing; what methods were employed; what are the consequences; what can be done to correct the wrong; can the wrongdoers be brought to book?

The keys are to dig up the first lead, tip, or hunch. Then sniff around for facts. Form an investigative hypothesis. Next, like a detective, gather evidence that will prove undeniably the hypothesis. This will involve interviews, documents, records, proofs, and intense paper work. Organize the information and write the report. Check facts, check chances of libel, and the laws. To be good at your work it is advantageous if you are familiar with the law, know the procedures, can conduct quick and accurate research, follow the money trail, and dig out facts.
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We hear about law everyday whether we realize it or not. It’s in our Government, in our work, and even in our houses. One type of law is Criminal law, which is also known as Penal law. This is “The body of statutory and common law that deals with crime and the legal punishment of criminal offenses.”

Inside of criminal law there is four major theories of criminal justice:
- Punishment
- Deterrence
- Incapacitation
- Rehabilitation

This form of law is essential in many cases because it can distinguis between crimes from civil wrongs. Criminal law has been around for ages, and is seeing as the fundamental system of regulating the behavior of individuals and groups relatively to what is defined as the social norms. This differs between civil crimes, where the difference is between two individuals and their individual rights and obligations under the law which is ruling the entire society.
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Many movies have been made about the tragic story of the Titanic. Arrogance and ignorance was definitely present during its maiden voyage, which was Titanic’s last voyage.

Many warnings were given, but unfortunately, the warnings were not taken seriously. On April 14th, 1912 Titanic received six warnings that icebergs were present in their perimeter. On the night of April 14th, Titanic struck an iceberg and ultimately sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

For other entities, what happened to the Titanic does NOT have to happen to them. Many have learned from the mistakes that Titanic had made.

There are several examples that follow and form a parallel to what happened to Titanic and how an entity can learn from Titanic’s mistakes.

1. The Titanic only had 16 lifeboats, which was not nearly enough to save everyone on the ship.

Only about 60% of the entire lifeboats’ capacity was utilized! Does your company have a disaster plan in place? Are your computers, especially your servers, being backed up on a regular basis? Many servers are now being backed up on a daily basis and sometimes on an hourly basis.

When I was working at a Helpdesk, one of our afternoon gals was named the “Backup Queen” because she took EVERY major server backup VERY seriously. The company was very lucky to have the “Backup Queen” because there were several instances where our most critical server had crashed and lost information. Fortunately, information restoration was quick and painless due to the machine being backed up on a regular basis.

We were very lucky to have someone who took the initiative to handle the server backups. Is your company that lucky? Yes, doing backups can be VERY unexciting. However, losing valuable data can be very exciting, but in a negative way.

2. The crewmen in the lookout tower, or the “crow’s nest,” were not issued binoculars to better search for icebergs.

Employees were not given the proper tools to use to do their job. Is your company using the right software for the job? Are you saving money on upgrading your operating system and software, but are losing customers? If you are losing customers, you’re NOT really saving any money at all.

The right equipment can range from the very basic, such as issuing headphones that are compatible with the phone system to customer service representatives, to ensuring that a backup generator can adequately run due to a power outage.

3. Titanic had a total of 16 watertight compartments. Initially, it sounded fine, but unfortunately, each compartment did not hold water on its own. Every compartment was similar to an ice cube tray. When one compartment overflowed, water flowed into the next compartment. Each compartment did not completely seal off water on its own.

Does your company have a good disaster recovery plan in place? If a flood or a fire struck the premises, would you be able to resume business operations in a matter of days or would it take a matter of months?

Is your information that you have on site being sent off site so you CAN have another place to access your valuable information?

4. The Titanic was going at full speed at night in iceberg-infested waters.
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This article describes how some people abuse the benefit of sick pay in the workplace. I am going to explain a couple of examples of this, which I have come across over the last couple of years.

There are many people who are in employment where if they are off work sick, they do not get paid. It must very much annoy these people to hear about the fortunate workers who are still paid when they are ill, abusing the system.

I have a friend who recently told me about a lady he works with. At times she will come to work with a really bad cold or cough, when really she should be at home in bed. By going to work she could be infecting other people with her germs of course. She would be asked why she had come to work when she obviously should be in bed. Her response would be that she did not want to waste her sick days when she was ill. She might as well come to work and be ill there, it would be no fun at home, she would continue.
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