Employment at Will Doctrine

Employment-at-will doctrine is a term used in the labor law referring to a contractual relationship where an employer can dismiss an employee for any reason and without a warning. When a worker is recognized as being hired based on the employment-at-will doctrine, the court does not grant the employee any claim for loss associated with the dismissal. This rule has been justified by the fact that employees may similarly leave a job without giving a reason or warning (Miller & Cross, 2010). In fact, the employer has the authority to dismiss a person for any bad or good cause or even no cause. Similarly, the employee is also at will to cease work, strike or quit. For an employee to challenge a dismissal successfully, the victim must have established that his status was not at will or the dismissal was wrongful. If employers enter into a formal employment, contract with employees or the union representing employees, it must be specified in the contract the situations that can cause the termination and the length of the contract relationship. Given either party attempts to end the employment relationship by violating the contractual terms, this situation will lead to the emergence of a breach of contract.

Actions I will take to limit liability and impact on operations

I have learnt that public policy limitation can be a source of problems to the operations of the business. Therefore, I will be obliged to deal in good faith and fairly with the employee. For instance, in this case, I will call for dismissal of the employee on the ground that he engaged in illegal activities without informing relevant authorities. However, this must be done with much caution as the employee can add emotional and mental stress claims for punitive damages to their emotional or physical tolls he suffered after being fired. I would modify the employment-at-will doctrine according to the contract of the employee. For instance, the employee's contract allows dismissal for cause only (Miller & Cross, 2010). Typically, the company negotiates individual employment agreements with top executives. According to collective bargaining, the employee can be terminated for cause. The causes may include reasons like employee misconduct and poor employee performance. In this case, the employment contract has outlined the employee actions or situations, which would lead to termination for cause.

Over the years, the Supreme Court has carved employment-at-will exceptions to mitigate harsh consequences. The major exceptions include the implied contract, public policy and implied agreement of good faith. The employment-at-will doctrine is powerful. It will be impossible for this employee to prove that his circumstances fall under one of these exceptions. In this case, it will be inappropriate to fire the employee, as he did not know that the terms of contract existed. Later, the employee is likely to sue the company for violating the terms of the contract, which the employer never knew existed. This is referred to as implied employment. The court will side with the fired employee on the ground that the employer broke a promise by terminating the employment (Cross, Miller & Cross, 2009). Even though the company did not intend to enter into a contract with the employee, an implied contract will be held. Since the employee will shift this burden to the organization to show the termination as for cause, the court has constricted the unlimited freedom to dismiss an employee at any time. Someone can take a position on whether or not would recommend to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) that the company adopt a whistleblower policy

A whistleblower policy covers situations where a person raises alarm about a malpractice, risk of wrongdoings, which can affect the entire organization in terms of public interest, suppliers, employees, or customers. I would recommend to the CEO to consider a whistleblower due to legal and ethical imperatives, which compel this organization to develop the policy. The discussion below explains why the whistle blowing policy is advisable.

Legal perspective: the legal patterns in the country make a whistleblower policy a vital aspect of the organization's overall code of ethics. The increase in statutory protection of the state and federal levels, the court's decision to safeguard whistleblowers within the public policy exception to employment-at-will leads to the legal imperative of a whistleblower policy (Miller & Cross, 2010).

The employment-at-will doctrine is being eroded. Besides the legal patterns towards the protection of whistleblowers at the state and federal level, the Supreme Court has acknowledged the doctrine, which governs employer-employee relationships in the private sector. For instance, companies have created an implied contract in employee statements or handbooks when hiring people. This limits the freedom to terminate a just foundation. It has been established that some employers terminate contracts because of bad faith or malice in discharging employees. In some states, it has been established that certain human resource decision by employers tend to violate public policy and thus such actions must be exceptions to the original employment-at-will doctrine. In some jurisdictions, all these exceptions have been found to protect whistleblowers from discharge. The exception of public policy provides the widest potential security for whistleblowers. Therefore, I would recommend the CEO to adopt a whistleblower policy.

Ethical perspective: in addition to the legal imperative, for the CEO to adopt a whistleblower policy, I also believe it is ethically important. It will solve the issue of fairness. The company has developed a range of policies related to issues like performance appraisal, employee selection, compensation, and promotion. The main reason for adopting such policies was the need to give equal employee treatment. This means that the goal of most human resource policies is to ensure employees are given fair treatment (Cross, Miller & Cross, 2009).

A whistleblower policy has been motivated by the desire to treat employees fairly. In this case, persons concerned with potential wrongdoings in the company, who express their concerns in an honest manner, must be treated fairly. People who are found to be the targets of accusations of a whistleblower must be treated fairly. A whistleblower policy will help guarantee that all employees receive equal treatment through standardizing how such situations are handled. A whistleblower policy will help ensure employees' freedom of speech is not violated (Miller & Cross, 2010). An employee does not have the right to make irresponsible or malicious charges of wrong deeds, which are not justified by facts. Employees should disrupt the harmony in the workplace even when they disagree with company policy or think organizational actions are unwise. However, employees will not go silently when they know the possible wrongdoing or when they engage in actions that violate the accepted moral standards.