Dennys Ethics Essay

Dennys is unmatched of the franchises owned by the Flagstar Corporation. The troubling finances of Flagstar caused their leaders to be so concerned on the numbers of their connection that they forgot about the anxiety of their employees and their actions. Even though corporate management rottert control all the actions of their employees they can help shape their actions through training and education in the workplace. Therefore the leadership of Flagstar failed and was unethical, as they did not properly address the riddles with racism that some of their employees had working for Dennys.They also didnt complete these tasks in a timely matter or even do enough to prevent them. These problems of racism, specifically with the employees relations with the customers act to keep piling up for Dennys management. This created even more than just financial problems for Dennys, but also a new public image that they were not fair to all races and were in the restaurant industry where cu stomer service plays a huge part in making money.Dennys had a problem with the way in which its employees dealt with serving its customers. They dealt with a federal lawsuit in California where they agreed to stop the alleged discriminatory treatment of black customers. (pg. 309) On the same day on the settlement another similar situation happened across the country in Maryland. However, these customers were secret service agents where fifteen white agents were served their nourishment in a timely manner and five black agents waited almost an hour before asking where their food was. The agents filed a lawsuit against Dennys, where it made issue headlines and caused uproar throughout the country. (pg. 309) Dennys now faced a huge problem as their public image was greatly declining and had a senior management that was completely unprepared to deal with the huge issue that the company faced.There is great competition in the fast food industry. Dennys tried to state themselves from others by putting emphasis on sit-down service and creating a welcoming atmosphere for its customers. (pg. 310) For a company to be accused of having employees that discriminate on customers based offof race does not help a company establish this type of atmosphere. Out of the whole Flagstar staff, thirty-six percent are minorities where twenty percent are black, which is twice the proportion of the U.S. population. (pg. 310) However, there are no senior black managers or nonage officers at Flagstar and there is only one minority-owned franchise. Flagstar doesnt have a problem employing minorities, but they do have a problem promoting them. This shows the failed leadership of Flagstar.There were some diversity experts that defended Flagstar such as Marilyn Loven, who said, Discrimination results from employees acting individually without the approval of management. (pg. 310) This might be true as leaders that have the right intention can be slash by low-level front line employees however it is the leaders that must spend a lot of time educating employees about discrimination. She also said that, No Company can eliminate racism. In the case of Dennys they had not one or two cases of discrimination but more than five in pretty short time period.Dennys would settle a case one-day and then the next day a new case of discrimination would start out up. Dennys and the Department of Justice worked out settlements where Dennys would reinforce polices of equal treatment to customers however it showed that those policies werent fully pushed by leadership. (Exhibit 1) This lack of leadership showed that the leadership was unethical in their handling of their employees and discrimination.The head of Flagstar, Jerome Richardson took some of the responsibility for the problems that Dennys faced. He said that dealing with finances blinded him to other aspects of running the corporation that he was in charge of. (pg. 311) However, a corporation needs to cover all aspects of the company besides its finances. Its unethical for a company to allow act discrimination and not push programs to educate employees on discrimination.The company was so focused on making money that they public image went in the drainage as the company did nothing to make sure their employees were educated and making a good name for the company. In the case of Dennys the lack of minority leadership showed corporate discrimination, which reflected on employees discriminating against the customers. This discrimination could happen anywhere but continued to happen at different locations all over the country for Dennys and reflects on the company itself. It also raises the question of the ethical practices of by the company and how the company responds to cases of discrimination in this case. The continued cases of discrimination by employees showed that the Dennys leadership was unethical as they did not cover all aspects of their corporation.