Do Great Places to Work Do Great Things?
The first part of the question is easier to answer. Simply put, employees want to be in a positive and supportive work environment while maximizing their salary and benefits. Employees also want to have meaningful work, but that is difficult to apply as people can have very different perspectives on what is “meaningful”. Fortune List of Best Companies to Work for is determined by two surveys which are sent to a random sample of employees. The first survey asks about management’s credibility, job satisfaction, and camaraderie. This accounts for two-thirds of the score. The remaining third is based on responses to the second survey, which includes questions about pay and benefit programs as well as training, hiring practices, internal communication, etc.
The second question is hard to answer. What quantifies makes a company do great things? There is an endless range of “great things” that a company can do, depending on their line of work. A company can also do “great things” outside its line of work through charities and other community programs. Looking at Marriott, one could say that what they are doing the hospitality line of work and outside of it, is truly great. What do you think? Are hotels really great things?
Norman E. Bowie uses Marriott as an example in “A Kantian approach to business ethics”. In J.W. Marriot Jr.’s words, Marriott Corporation hired welfare recipients to get “good employees for the long term but also to help these communities” while also helping the bottom line. Strict Kantian ethics would not call this act a good act because it is being done in conformity with duty but not out of duty. The motive of this good act is not pure as it is dealing with the bottom line. You could argue that Marriot is simply doing this to make money, and not to actually help the community. It is hard to get to the real motive in such cases. Marriott is a publicly held corporation, it has an obligation to make a profit to shareholders. Therefore, Marriott’s hiring of welfare recipients can be moral even to a strict Kantian because it is honoring its obligation to realize profits as well as its obligation of beneficence. Whichever the original motive was, it is meeting both obligations.
Marriott is an easy example to relate job satisfaction to performance because it is in the hospitality industry. According to their Website, one of their main values is to ‘Put People First” – “Take care of associates and they will take care of the customers”. This is an obvious strategy in this industry. Marriott really cares about their employees and goes the extra mile to please them. The one that was most eye opening to me was free hotel rooms for the rest of your life if you have worked there for 25 years – even if you change jobs. Marriott claims to be committed to not only taking care of their employees, but also to developing their careers. Working at Marriott is a life-changing journey that allows “increasing levels of responsibility, accountability and leadership”.They encourage long-term growth and development by providing training and professional development to their associates. Other benefits from Fortune can be found here.
To a Kantian, Marriott is a great example. Is Marriott a bad example to other business ethics theories?
