Moral Compass
Damon Horowitz, in his Ted talk calls it a moral operating system, which requires actual thought and reflection when making decisions about right and wrong actions . The Ethics and Compliance Institute, Ethics.org shares their version of an Ethical Decision-Making process based on filters and values. Their filters, PLUS (Policies, Legal, Universal, Self) provide four questions to guide decisions, suggesting a thoughtful and consistent process of analysis to guide leaders and organizations. Their values, EPIC (Empathy, Patience, Integrity, Courage) add another level of guidance based on the “universal” perceptions of right and wrong. Gensler proposes the Golden Rule as the universal moral compass, “Treat others as you want to be …show more content…
One specific change, not identified by the audit, was especially challenging because it impacted the daycare staff financially, impacted the church financially and it was a violation of several state and federal employment laws. The daycare staff was receiving a 50% discount on childcare services for their own children. Sadly, no-one knew that all service discounts over 20% must be considered a taxable benefit, which is subject to state and federal payroll tax deductions, plus FICA payments for both the employee and employer. Unlike many of the audit changes, this one could not be debated for months, every day of delay increased the remediation costs and the risk of fines. More than one person suggested that we pretend it was not an issue because it was not in the audit. My response, from my OHSA compliance training, reported how fines associated with knowingly and willingly ignoring violations are customarily double or triple the standard rate. Then I asked them to consider “if this violation and the suggested coverup was on the front page of the local paper, would you be proud or embarrassed?” There were three options to consider: first, leaving the discount at 50%, withholding the taxes from the staff and the daycare paying the employer portion of …show more content…
What was our moral compass? Our team considered the impact for each stakeholder, the financial impact to all parties, the potential risk of compliance and non-compliance and we ultimately made the best BAD decision. There was no win-win option, we did our best to minimize the loss for everyone involved. A worst-case scenario was presented, to explain how we settled on the option chosen. If we (daycare advisory team/church) did nothing, the staff would still know about the issue and a disgruntled employee could potentially use it as leverage, or worse report the error as an intentional tax avoidance, which would result in closure of the daycare, fines from everywhere, possible prosecution and a huge scandal in local and state media. This exercise helped guide unwilling stakeholders to the most logical solution. The exercise also forced the church leadership and the daycare director into formal and regular reviews of all policies, reports, budgets, financials and regulations. The advisory team spent hundreds of volunteer hours debating fiduciary responsibilities, service guidelines, protecting children, community support and providing a safe and rewarding working environment. Ultimately all stakeholders accepted the decision to close the daycare center, as a purely financial consideration, the center would not have survived the first audit, however there were families, children, staff and the community to consider. Rather than focus on the