OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and site from the textbook and other
course material per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this
and format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

The most challenging situation I have experienced was when I was laid off and forced out of my position
of ten years as an administrative coordinator at Humana. A fortune 500 insurance provider that offers a
variety of medical, pharmacy, dental and vision options for its members and employees (Humana, n.d.).
It is what we consider a pharmacy benefit manager also known as a PBM for short. It serves commercial
accounts as well as Medicare members. As an administrative coordinator I was the face of Humana,
conducted new hire orientations, I was a benefit coordinator, created all the new hire folders and badges
and assisted where needed in any given department.

We were under new management, and the new manager advised me that I had two weeks to look for a
job outside of Humana. I was not offered a severance package and was not told of 3 administration
coordinators, why I was the one they were forcing out. When the manager advised me of this, she
brought in one of the other coordinators and a supervisor to advise of my future at Humana. It was a
challenging situation for me because I take pride in the work I do, I could not understand why they
wanted to force me out of my role of 10 years. I was confused, I felt under valued, blind sided and worse,
I felt I had wasted 10 years of my life that I would not get back.

I advised them I was not going to leave until I was ready, and I was not ready yet. I felt I deserved better
since the way they treated me was unjustified. I applied to a different department and have been there
for the past 5 years, I have been with the company 15 in total. I am a data analyst in our business partner
operations department.

2) Describe how the ethics of the organization influenced the situation. .

I would like to describe how the ethics of Humana influenced the situation. Within the ethical framework
there are four criteria that fall under the ethical umbrella: Authorship, love, justice and significance. Our
text indicates that employees withdraw when power is removed from them, they will fight back,
retaliate, sometimes sabotage themselves or others, at times there will be a passive resistance,
withdrawal, anger or militancy (Bolman & Deal, 2021).

In this situation, because there was a lack of authorship, love, and justice, I retaliated in a sense and
moved in a passive resistance way. The fact that I told them I wasn’t going to leave until I was ready and
deep down I felt I deserved more, I took a stance, I wasn’t rude, however, I chose not to leave.

3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case

Ethics is at the core of organizations, in this situation, they should have applied love. When people feel
valued, a loving, thoughoul message can go a long way. Instead of forcing me to leave and leave the
company, they could have applied the message with a little tenderness. They could have indicated that
“there aren’t any other opportunities within the company, and we aren’t offering severance packages at
this time and your position is not the only position we are eliminating. While we hate to see you go, we
can offer to be personal references and allow you to be rehireable in the event your job requisition
opens back up”. Large corporations offer a breeding ground for conflicts and self interests, in this case,
it felt as though the leadership was focused more on self interest instead of their thoughts, actions or
the effects of their actions on their employee.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned about ethics.

As I reflect back, instead of being passively resistant, and deciding to stay, I should have contacted our
ethics line. We have an ethics hotline where we can get guidance and support on any topic. It is strictly
confidential and is there to support ethical issues or lack thereof. The ethics hotline is available to us 24
hours a day, seven days a week. Instead of taking what I felt like was abuse in a hostile environment, I
could have seeked assistance and had the incident documented. I truly should have went to Human
Resources and asked for options about severance packages, I found out that others got them. Ethics
offers justice, by going to the Ethics department and Human Resources, it would have allowed me to
have a sense of justice.
 References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. Wiley

Humana: Number of Employees 2010-2023 | HUM | MacroTrends. (n.d.). Macrotrends. Retrieved

September 12, 2023, from

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/HUM/humana/number-of-employees

● Description of how the ethics of the organization influenced the

situation.
● Description of the four ethical communities.
● Recommendation of how you would apply one of the ethical
communities for an alternative course of action regarding your case.
● Reflection on what you would do or not do differently given what you
have learned about ethics in Module 6.
● Attached is a worksheet
● to normalize your submissions for more focus on content.
● No feedback is provided by your peers for this assignment. At this
point in your development of this project you should have an
understanding of what needs to be completed.
● Five (5) points will be earned for turning in a substantive assignment.
If main aspects are missing when reviewed grade adjustment may
occur with explanation.