Session 10: The Individual in the Organization

What conflicts of interest exist in your workplace? How can they be resolved?

Observation and Experience

Conflict of interest in the workplace refers to a situation where an employee engages in a specific activity on behalf of the company and this employee has private interest and benefit on the outcome of this activity. In a company, it is the procurement team who coordinates with different supplier to provide raw materials and goods for the company. They follow a bidding process in order to compare which supplier is the best. However, in our company, there are times wherein we are the one who is with directly contacting supplies because the procurement team cannot accommodate all our request. What we do is to look for suppliers and forward it to the procurement team to check. There are also instances where suppliers directly contact us to market their products.

It is usual that some of us receive random gifts from the suppliers so that we would avail their services. Last year, one supplier actually sent two dogs for my colleague. The company wants us to avail their services offered. Aside from that, other suppliers also give LED TV, gifts certificates, and other products in order to build relationship with us. This scenario is a form of commercial bribe. Commercial bribe is a form of bribery which involves corrupt dealing between an employee and potential supplier with an understanding that the potential supplier will have an advantage over the competitor. To avoid this activity, as much as possible we do not accept any gift from the suppliers and inform them regarding the correct bidding process.

Analysis and Reflection

It is the responsibility of the company to educate its employees regarding the correct and ethical practices in doing business. In our business unit, we do not tolerate this unethical activity. We are guided by the company’s code of conduct which states that:

“1.5.1 Loyalty, impartiality and conflict of interest

We have the right to lead a private life but when at work, we’ll be open and loyal to the company. We won’t do anything that conflicts with or appears to conflict with the company’s interests, or be directly or indirectly involved in any activity which may interfere with our objectivity in carrying out our duties.

Conflict of interest could involve any parties that have a relationship with the company or could have such a relationship (such as guests, suppliers, contractors, present or prospective employees, competitors or outside business interest). We won’t be influenced by personal and family interests at all.

We’ll use our judgement to decide on what is, or could be, a conflict of interest. We are smart enough and wise enough to do that. In our course of work, we frequently have to exercise judgement on even more difficult matters.

Basic rules – prompt and full disclosures of everything, AND ASK FOR HELP IF NOT SURE!”

This code of conduct addresses conflict of interest and impartiality that an employee might come across during his work. This would guide them to respond to issues relating to loyalty, bribery, and conflict of interest. It gives us the freedom to choose what is right and beneficial for the company and not for ourselves.

Commitment and Action

Not all employees recognize that their behavior is an illustration of conflict of interest within the workplace. However, as an employee, it is our responsibility to evaluate our work and see if there’s anything that we do which is against the code of conduct of the company. If I come across commercial bribery in the future, it is my obligation to say no to them. Also, I will never get suppliers who practices this unethical conduct. And in doubt, I will fully disclose this with my manager and seek for his guidance and help.

Session 12: Human Rights

Article 24: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Observation and Experience

We, millennials, are very goal-driven and we do whatever it takes in order to achieve our desires. What’s important to us it to bring home the bacon even if it means we need to work longer hours and sacrifice weekends and day-offs. However, there’s always a trade-off in every activity or situation. In economics, we were taught of the concept of opportunity cost. According to business dictionary, opportunity cost is the value of something that we gave up in order to achieve something else. Opportunity cost is also applicable in the workplace. When finishing deadlines, we have the option to choose whether to extend our working time or to rest and do it the next day during the normal working hours. Based on experience and observations on my current workplace, we opt to choose option one which is to work overtime in order to finish the task. There are even employees who are working on a weekend just to finish all their tasks. As a result, employees are stressed and some are experiencing health problems.

Last 2017, there was a big news about an advertising agency employee who died because of working overtime. In the events, advertising, and production business environment, working overtime is a norm. I asked a friend who worked before as a creative designer in one advertising agency about their working condition and she mentioned that it’s worse. They go to work at 10AM and the earliest time that they could leave their desk is 11PM which means that they are working for more than 12 hours every day. She also mentioned that the fast-faced work environment and competition are the reasons why it is stressful to work in an advertising agency. She said that it’s fulfilling when you finish your task and you see how successful it went but when I asked her if she wants to go back there, her answer is “Never Again”.

My company is very lenient when it comes to work schedule. We are enjoying the flexi-time working schedule wherein we can go to the office at our anytime before 10 AM then leave our desk 8 hours later. Despite of this flexible working schedule, I'm still guilty of working overtime because I need to finish a lot of tasks. 

Analysis and Reflection

Article 24 of the International Human Rights declaration caught my attention when we were asked to choose an article to write about. I didn’t expect that there’s a provision that it related to rest and leisure. Article 24 states that “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay”. With the current working schedule that some of us are going through, I now see its importance. Under Republic Act No. 1880, working hours for the Philippines is eight hours a day, exclusive of lunch break, or a total of 40 hours per week. However, a lot of employees are working beyond the required eight hours. According to Philippine Statistical Authority, more than 8.1 million Filipinos worked for more than eight hours in 2018. This is alarming because studies showed that excessive work hours could cause serious health problems that may lead to death.

I think the government and companies should work hand in hand to address this extended working hours’ problem. They could impose a strict rule that employees must leave their desk after eight hours of work. Aside from that, the companies could provide recreational programs for the employees to lessen their level of stress such as yoga class, Zumba, or art sessions. Managers should allow employees to take leaves even if work schedule is tight. They must understand how important it is to have healthy employees in order to achieve the organizations goal.

Commitment and Action

Work hard but know when to stop. We only have one body and it’s our obligation to take good care of it. We must learn to manage our time properly and understand that rest is as important as work. In my organization, I commit to promote work life balance to my colleagues. I will tell them to leave the office at 6PM and do not bring our laptops at home so that we could really rest. Since we are working in an airline, I will encourage my colleagues to use our free airline tickets for recreation and rest and not just for work related trips. 

Session 11: Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility Continuum

Observation and Experience

Investopedia defined Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as the corporation’s initiatives to assess and take responsibility for the company's effects on environmental and social wellbeing. The term generally applies to efforts that go beyond what may be required by regulators or environmental protection groups. Currently, companies have been including CSR campaigns on their business strategy. Companies are also engaging their employees to different CSR activities such as tree planting, feeding programs, etc. One good example of a company that has a successful and popular CSR campaign is Lamoiyan Corporation. They educate the hearing impaired and hire some of them as their employees.  

As an airline company, we also have a couple of CSR campaigns that aims to mitigate or lessen the negative impact of our operations to the environment, support and help people, and gain reasonable amount of profit. Since our main business is to bring the passengers in different destinations, the commercial department which is my department, had launched the #WhyIFly and #HowIFly campaigns which promotes responsible tourism. A series of videos and photographs that shows the beauty of the Philippines, its diverse culture, and how to take good care of it were posted on our social media websites to promote this campaign. Aside from that, we also have a campaign whose objective is to partner with different social enterprises around the Philippines and help them sell their products by offering it on our inflight merchandise. We also helped them market their products by holding an event where we invited media from Manila, Cebu, and Davao to feature their items on their columns and websites.  We also have the biggest CSR campaign of the company which is #Green24 that aims to educate the people regarding climate change.

Using the Corporate Social Responsibility Continuum, I can say that we already passed the philanthropic stage and are working to incorporate the value of CSR in order to live by our company’s vision and mission. In the Philanthropic stage, the company is doing philanthropic giving which is more than what is required from them. With the projects and activities that I mentioned earlier, our company clearly promotes different CSR advocacies that are gearing towards the welfare of its employees, our passengers, and the environment. We are also incorporating technology in our operations to reduce cost and enhance passenger experience like what we are doing in #Green24 campaign.

Analysis and Reflection

One of our department’s responsibility is to provide food and beverage to our passengers during their flight. The inflight food that we serve is perishable and placed inside an aluminum packaging. Once the meal has been loaded on the aircraft, it must be consumed otherwise it will be considered as waste. The process for the inflight meal service is as follows: a) warehouse personnel loads the meals inside the service trolley and put it inside the aircraft; b) the cabin crew will heat all the meals inside the service trolley; c) the cabin crew will sell the meals inside the service trolley; d) the cabin crew will later collect the rubbish; e) unsold meals and rubbish will be returned to the warehouse.  When I joined the company last 2016, the total inflight meals that we sold in 300,000. In 2017, we were able to double the quantity of meals sold to 650,000 and we are expecting to sell 900,000 meals this 2018. Aside from the sold meals, we also have unsold meals that are automatically considered as waste. For 2017, the total meal waste was 100,000 pieces. The growing number of passengers brought a positive impact on the demand for inflight meals. With this, the waste that we produce form the packaging and amenities such as tissues, utensils, and cups used to consume the food also increases.

According to the International Air Transport Association as reported by CNN (2017), airlines produced 5.2 million tons of waste last 2016 and they are expected to produce 10 million tons annually by 2030. In our case, for inflight meal alone, we produced a lot of waste coming from the unfinished food, aluminum packaging, utensils, tissues, and cups. Most of these wastes are not biodegradable and just end up on the landfill. With the increasing number of passengers, it is expected that the waste that we produce will also grow.

Commitment and Action

To solve the waste problem, we have been controlling the perishable meals loaded on the carts in order to minimize the waste from unsold meals. There is still waste but it somehow decreased. However, because of this controlled meal uplift activity, there were instances where the quantity supplied are not enough to meet the demand for meals from the passengers. Another activity that we have been pushing is waste segregation but due to limited galley space and service time, some flights cannot accommodate this activity.

Aside from that, I have a proposal to improving our current meal uplift formula in order to meet the demand of the passengers and at the same time minimize the waste. I already presented this to my manager and we are positive that this will be successful. I, together with my colleague, are still finalizing some items and we are looking to do a dry run by May and fully implement it on all our flights afterwards.

Aside from that, I also looked for other opportunities that we could explore and found out that some airlines from Europe and United States are already serving their inflight meals placed on a biodegradable and recyclable packaging. Unfortunately, it’s still costly to shift from aluminum packaging to biodegradable and recyclable packaging due to the limited availability of this product. What we can do now is to change the utensils and cups that we are currently using into a recyclable and biodegradable one. Hopefully, in the future our airline would be the first low cost airline in Asia to use sustainable packaging to lessen the wastage coming from the inflight meals.

Session 14: Service Learning Implementation

FINANCIAL EMPOWERMENT SEMINAR

Observation and Experience

On my previous blog, I mentioned that we are planning to have a seminar about financial literacy to the youth under the care of the sisters in Asilo de San Vicente de Paul. Last March 17, 2018, we held a financial empowerment seminar at Asilo de San Vicente de Paul conference room. It was attended by around 40 students whose age bracket is 18 to 22 years old. All of them are currently studying in different universities around Metro Manila.

We started the seminar with an opening prayer followed by a group activity. Each group were asked to write their expectations on the seminar. Most of them wrote that they are expecting to know more about the value of money, saving, and investing. With the topics that we prepared, I am positive that their expectations will be met. Our discussion started with goal setting. We explained the importance of goal setting and how it could guide you with life. We also taught them set goals through the S.M.A.R.T acronym which means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. After that, we taught them the value of budgeting. That they must identify set their budget goals based on their money, develop a budget plan and track their expenses. Identifying their needs and wants could assist in developing the budget plan. Since all of them are studying, we told them that they should budget their allowance in order meet all their expenses and also to save money. We also taught them that NOW is the best time to save money and explain the formula “Income – Savings = Expense”. Aside from that, we also educated them regarding the efforts of the central bank to encourage people to save especially the youth. The last topic is about investing. We understand that as students, they may not have the resources to invest but this topic aims to equip them so that they would invest in the future.

Analysis and Reflection

The objective of this financial empowerment seminar is to produce financially literate students, to improve their financial knowledge and practices, to increase their desire to open a bank account and start saving, and to motivate the attendees to attain a successful and financially independent lives in the future. With the activities and topics that we discussed, I can say that we achieved our objectives for this activity.

During the seminar, I saw the eagerness of the attendees to really know how to be financially stable as early as now. You can really see how interested they are especially on the savings and investment topics. They are really asking questions like how could they open a back account and how to raise and save money now in order to have something to invest in the future.

Through this seminar, I was able to see life in a different way. The experiences and stories of our participants taught me that it is important to work hard and strive in order to achieve your goals. Most of them are scholars and at the same time working as part time to different establishments. I’m actually proud of what they are now and looking forward to what they will be in the future. We gave them tips and ways on how to be financially stable and in return they taught me to appreciate and value the things that we have.   

Commitment and Action

I find it fulfilling that we were able to instill to the youth the significance of being financial literate as early as now. In order to sustain this activity, we can share our materials to the management of Asilo and tell them that if they want to hold the same seminar we can assist as the speakers. If given the opportunity, I would like to hold other seminars that aims to empower the youth not just financially but also in other areas in the future. I really enjoyed this activity and hopefully more activities like this will come in the future.

Session 13: Business and Environmental Sustainability

THE NATURAL STEP FUNNEL

Observation and Experience

The natural step funnel is a representation that as population or demand grows, the available resources for consumption decreases. Resources are on a downward slope while the demand for these resources is on an upward slope. The funnel narrows with the continuous use of resources to support daily activities. The goal of the natural step is to open up the funnel through innovation, creativity, and unlimited potential for change in order to be sustainable. Sustainability is the study of how natural system functions, remain diverse, and produce everything it needs for the ecology to remain in balance. Being sustainable means that we impose activities to protect the environment while promoting innovation.

Our company’s response to climate change is the #Green24 campaign. #Green24 is a climate change awareness campaign that hopes to educate the people regarding the effects of climate change and how we can make big changes by carrying out small actions in our daily lives. Aside from educating the community, this initiative also aims to minimize cost by incorporating new technology. The airline industry contributes 12% of carbon emission to the planet and it is our task to promote awareness on climate issues and take responsible actions to make a lifestyle change for a greener future. As part of this campaign, the pilots are doing the following Green Operating Procedures during the flight to lessen the impact of air travel to climate change which includes: delayed start procedure, packs off take off, direct routings, optimum altitudes, Constant Descent Angle Approach, Flaps 3 landing, Idle reverse, one engine taxi on arrival, and one pack only when parked which aims to lessen the fuel and energy consumption used in every flight.  

Analysis and Reflection

Using the natural step fun

nel, we must impose strategies in order to have a sustainable business. Our company has been doing its part to have a sustainable environment in the future through the #Green24 campaign. I believe it is important that companies engage in this kind of activity since all of the business activities depends on the available resources. They should be aware of the effects of their daily business transaction and must think of ways in order to lessen the waste that they produce. Companies must invest into new technology in order to have a business strategy that does not negatively affect the environment but help it recover instead.

According to the natural step funnel, implementing sustainability is done through the A-B-C-D process. I will use this process to assess the #Green24 campaign of our company.

A – Awareness building and understanding. Most employees are aware of the efforts that the company is doing in order to be sustainable. Our company use our internal resources in order to inform the people about the #Green24 campaign. However, we must implement additional internal events to further explain and make all the employees understand the importance of sustainability and how our company take action in order to achieve it.

B- Baseline mapping. This means that the organization knows the impact of its operation to the society. Our company clearly understands the effect of our daily operation to the society and the #Green24 campaign is our response to somehow lessen the negative effect of our operation to the environment.

C- Create a vision and strategic plan. Our strategy to improve the operating procedure in order to minimize the carbon emission from our daily operation is in line with our vision to promote sustainable environment.

D- Down to action. The main action that the company is doing is the Green Operating Procedure which the pilots follow during their flight. Aside from that, we should have other activities to support and promote this campaign.

Commitment and Action

We, employees must also take part in the campaign of the company to promote a sustainable life. We can take part in the #Green24 campaign through small steps like lessening the use of bond papers and utilizing the purpose of emails. In our department alone, we consume 2 to 3 reams of bond paper every month to print reports, payment requests, and other documents. We can save a lot of paper if we don’t print unnecessary documents and just sent this through emails. I think it’s not essential to print reports since we use projectors to present it and if a person needs a copy, we can a soft copy of the report through email before the start of the meeting. For instances where we really need to print documents, we can use the back part of a used bond paper especially for documents that is for internal use only.

I together with my friends are fond of drinking coffee every morning. We usually buy 3-in-1 coffee on the store outside our office and aside from the coffee we also buy plastic stirrer and Styrofoam cups. Starting today, I will no longer buy plastic stirrer and styrofoam cup, instead I will bring my own mug which I could use every day to drink my coffee.  

Session 9: Ethics and Marketing

How compliant is your company with the Advertising Code of Ethics of the Philippines?

Observation and Experience

Technology has played a very important role on marketing and advertising environment. Before, you can only see product advertisements on televisions, billboards, and print ads but now it is present everywhere. Social media has made it easy and accessible to market and advertise different goods and services. Marketers and small business owners are now utilizing Facebook and Instagram in order to sell their products. Once you open your social media, you will be bombarded with different advertisement about beauty products, restaurants, hotels, clothes, etc.

Our company saw consumers react to advertisements on social media and used this platform to easily reach our target market. Currently, airlines are operating in a very competitive market and we must exert extra effort in order to market our company. Aside from our website, we also have social media accounts that informs the people about our new routes, promos, and campaigns. One of the most popular and biggest promo that we have is the “Red Hot Sale”. All of our customers are waiting for this campaign that’s why we are exerting extra effort to market it. We start with the teaser two days before the sale then followed by the reveal then other materials to sustain the campaign.

Analysis and Reflection

The reach of this “Red Hot Sale” advertisement is very wide and it’s our responsibility to ensure that the information on all the materials are correct. According to the Advertising Code of Ethics of the Philippines, “Claims of product and service properties or characteristics should be clearly presented and should not, in the guise of creativity, be confusingly or misleadingly distorted or exaggerated in the light of the product’s or service’s market.” With this, we must ensure that the fare prices are really correct and passengers could really book flights with the amount presented. On our previous seat sale campaigns and materials, we only say “Piso fare” however a lot of passengers were confused by this because they end up paying more than one peso. The reason behind this is that there are additional taxes that passengers should pay and this add up to this piso fare. As a response, we changed this to PHP 16 ALL IN FARE which now includes the additional fees that passengers must pay when booking their flights. This is also in accordance with the provisions of the Philippines advertising code of ethics which states that “Price and purchase terms, when used, should be clear and complete. When parts or accessories that the consumer might reasonably supposed to be part of the original sale are available only at an extra cost or for further consideration, such should be clearly indicated”. The sample advertisement also shows what is the booking date, the travel period, and the destinations in order to properly inform the customers when are these fares available. Aside from that, the material also says “All in fare FROM PHP 16” which means that the range of fare prices starts from PHP 16. All our advertising materials including traditional advertisements such as billboards, print ads, and radio ads, are in compliant with the rules of Ad Standard Council of the Philippines (ASC).

Commitment and Action

Despite of this effort to include all the necessary information for the “Red Hot Sale”, a lot of customers are still complaining that they cannot book the promo fares. The group has been answering their questions through the Facebook comment box, private messages, and emails but it is still not enough. In the next “Red Hot Sale” campaigns, what I suggest is to inform the passengers on how the “Piso” fare works. We can use a video that will educate the customers how we do the fare pricing so that they would understand that during “Red Hot Sale” not all fares on the said travel dates are “Piso” fare. We can also put materials that updates the customers if all the “Piso” fares were already booked. With this, the expectations of the customers will be managed and hopefully we could build good customer relationship and brand loyalty.

Session 8: The Ethics of Job Discrimination

Job discrimination in the workplace.

Observation and Experience

According to Cambridge Dictionary, employee discrimination is a situation wherein employees are treated unfairly because of their age, gender, race, religion, physical or health problems, etc. According to a study, 35.5% of the employment discrimination problems were related to race and 22% were related to age.

I work in an international company whose main operation is based in Malaysia. Our company have subsidiaries in other Asian countries such as Indonesia, India, Philippines, Japan, and Thailand. Being employed in this kind of company, it is normal for us to work with other employees from different race and I am very lucky that I did not experience any discrimination even if I’m a girl from a different country and I’m only 23 years old. I can say that we are truly a diverse company. When you roam around our head office in Malaysia and even here in the Philippines, you will see a lot of people from difference race, age bracket, gender, and religion. Aside from that, our leaders are not all Malaysians but the top management is very diversified. The regional head for our business unit is actually a female and she is very young compared to other heads.

Every month, all the representatives of each subsidiary country gather together to discuss the merchandise and duty free business of our company. Managers or executives from different countries attend this meeting and I am the youngest among all the attendees. Despite of this, I didn’t experience any unfair treatment from them. They allow me to speak up my mind and also listen to my suggestions. Last month, they actually recognized my idea and told me that we should further review this concept and implement it by the end of 2018. This experience boosted my morale and inspired me to work harder.

Analysis and Reflection

It is important that the company promotes a culture to its employee where discrimination is not permitted. The company can do that by imposing laws that prohibits discrimination. Aside from that, equality and proper treatment should be seen from the top management so that employees could follow this good example.  In our company, the code of conduct clearly states that the company aims to create an environment free from discrimination.

1.2.1 Creating a positive working environment

We create a, diverse, positive, respectful and fun working environment for people of all backgrounds. We promote and recognise our people based on talent and performance. We work hard and create a common vision and sense of purpose amongst all fellow employees of (organization).

We commit to giving equal employment opportunities by creating an environment free from any discrimination, whether due to colour, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, marital status, ancestry, socio-economic status or physical disabilities. We won’t accept bullying, harassment or any other behaviour that can be seen as degrading and threatening. We’ll focus on what brings people together rather than on what keeps them apart.

I truly believe that my company has been doing well in creating a positive working environment for all its employees. This campaign is successful because we are taught that communication is important for the success of the company. We actually have a workplace wherein employees could easily communicate with other employees from different countries. Through this, we understand the situation and culture of every employee and respect it. A good working environment is essential to stimulate great and productive employees.

Commitment and Action

Equality at work means that each individual is provided with equal opportunity to fully develop his knowledge, skills, and competencies that are needed in order to perform his job properly and improve his total well-being. I am very lucky that I did not experience any discrimination and unfair treatment from other employees in my two years stay in the company. In return, I will do my best to be fair with every employee that I will come across regardless of their position in the company. I was recently promoted and I will use this promotion to show to others how much I value every employee. Like what happened to me, I will also welcome all the suggestions and insights that will be given to me and use it for the benefit of the company. I will continuously promote open communication just like what the company is doing now. If I see any instance of bullying and harassment, I will not be afraid to speak up in order to address it.