Eliminating Toxic Corporate Cultures

Introduction 

Often than not, people are very eager and happy to have a job, but today, many of them no longer feel that the workplace is their second home, even though they spend much of their time at the office. An organization's culture is a vital determinant of the quality work of an employee and their level of productivity (Metwally et al., 2019) . Over the past decade, organizations have been primarily focused on "profits" and ignored the other side of the spectrum known as "employees" regardless of their established value as the most critical assets of a firm. According to research, 85% of the issues and concerns with respect to the productivity of employees is related to the type of work environment in which they perform their tasks (Metwally et al., 2019) . A toxic work environment and culture can have far-reaching impacts such as absenteeism, inability to recruit talent, high turnover rates, and lost productivity to an organization. 

The employees at Franklin Climate Systems are experiencing a toxic corporate culture that is being promoted by the firm's CEO, Cameron Koren (Gino, 2018) . Due to this, the organization is experiencing high employee turnover, lack of motivation, job stress, lack of communication and collaboration, and minimal job performance (Gino, 2018) . This can be attributed to toxic leadership from the firm's executive, which is impacting employee and organizational performance. Through an ethical decision-making model, Franklin Climate Systems can promote a nontoxic and transformational leadership that could lead to increased employee satisfaction, reduced levels of leadership, and employee stress, which will result in a more successful organization. 

Ethical Decision-Making Model – PLUS Filters 

To fix the organization's toxic workplace culture, Noelle Freeman – the CFO and Dough Lee – HR must convince Cameron Koren to set up an internal committee that will be responsible for analyzing and understanding the root causes for the erosion of the company culture. This step involves defining and understanding the problem, establishing the outcomes, and what solutions should be derived to alleviate the problem. Franklin Climate Systems does not value its employees, and this is the main reason why they are not committed and feel less satisfied with their in their jobs, thus showing increased signs of stress and burnout (Gino, 2018) . Secondly, to retain the organization's profitability, the CEO is promoting additional layoffs. From a legal standpoint, this is not justified. It can be assumed that based on organizational policies and procedures and universal principles adopted by the organization, downsizing by the CEO is not based on justice and human dignity. The objectives for downsizing have not been identified, and alternative means are yet to be considered. The problem the firm is experiencing can be defined as "Eliminating a toxic workplace culture at Franklin Climate Systems to promote employee satisfaction and collaboration in addition to increasing organizational performance." 

The second step involves Freeman and Lee seeking guidance and support and support. Freeman has already been advised by her colleague Joss that encouraging layoffs will not result in increasing organization performance at the firm (Gino, 2018) . Instead, she is advocating for Freeman to promote a healthy and conducive work culture as the company had already laid off toxic people. Freeman and Lee could seek guidance and support from legal practitioners, co-workers who still believe in the company's vision, culture and strategic objectives, organizational policies and codes, and the organizations that have excelled from such an initiative (Metwally et al., 2019) . 

Although the CEO may be right in downsizing the company, Freeman and Lee must focus the layoffs on employees who do not believe in the future of the company or embracing their values. However, before deciding to lay off people, the leadership team has failed in promoting a positive culture, and that is where the change management initiative should start (Gino, 2018) . The CEO must be in sync and aware of what is happening at the firm as he seems disconnected from the employees running his business (Metwally et al., 2019) . The executive leadership needs to set a vision for the firm and what they will have achieved in a year or five years, and the role that employees will play in this vision. Freeman and Lee should then look for employees who are ready to help in changing the status quo and empower them to serve as role models. 

The next step involves evaluating the alternatives. Based on the challenges that the firm is experiencing downsizing the company is not an option. First, the executive leadership needs to re-evaluate its mission, vision, objectives, and core values, which will define the firm's culture (Metwally et al., 2019) . Thereafter, they should engage the employees, be honest about the firm's financial status, and communicate to them about the vision. This will create a sense of how they can foster the organization's performance and success. It will not be an easy task convincing disgruntled employees', but eventually, they will be part of the change. To implement these changes, the CEO must be at the lead (Metwally et al., 2019) . The executive leadership must also recognize that a positive culture leads to the success of a business and not the other way round, and its employees are the business. The last step of the decision-making model is evaluating if the decisions fixed the problem or it made it worse. This will be done biannually based on the firm's financial performance. 

Evaluating the Ethical Decision-Making Model 

Franklin Climate Systems failed because of a weak and non-existent corporate culture that can be attributed to the failure of oversight by the executive management. By using the above model, the organization could have eliminated the ethical dilemma by wholesomely committing to remediation. From the top management to middle management and then finally, trickle down to every employee by committing to a holistic and consistent strategy that should have been implemented with discipline. This initiative should have begun by analyzing the organization's corporate culture, understanding cultural weaknesses, and the root causes of problems, accepting the current deficiencies, and finally taking the appropriate measure to begin the improvement process. 

References 

Gino, F. (2018). Case Study: Can You Fix a Toxic Culture Without Firing People? Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 25 August 2020, from https://hbr.org/2018/08/case-study-can-you-fix-a-toxic-culture-without-firing- 

Metwally, D., Ruiz-Palomino, P., Metwally, M., & Gartzia, L. (2019). How Ethical Leadership Shapes Employees’ Readiness to Change: The Mediating Role of an Organizational Culture of Effectiveness. Frontiers in Psychology , 10 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02493