Tahana Barcuch
Professor Marsha Porter
Bus100064VA016-1144-001 (Intro to Business)
Strayer University
June 15, 2014
Abstract
Ruby Tuesday is a socially responsible company that has a well worded code of business conduct in place that is easy to understand and sets clear expectations for these codes. They expect all of their employees to abide by the code of business conduct that they have set forth and clearly state that there will be consequences for not following these policies. Ruby Tuesday is taking steps to lessen their environmental footprint and to be more socially responsible. Ruby Tuesday has a good strategy in place but as with any company there are always options for improvements that will insure they become better stewards to the environment and more socially responsible.
Ethical and Social Responsibility of Ruby Tuesday
Ruby Tuesday has a very well formatted code of business conduct in place. All businesses should have a code of business conduct in place to ensure that all employees of that company are aware of the companies expectation and do not act in an unethical fashion. Employees should remember at all times that their actions reflect not only on their personal conduct but on that of their employer. After reviewing the code of business conduct for Ruby Tuesday it is very straight forward with its expectations and easy to understand.
There are many key areas mentioned in Ruby Tuesday’s code of business conduct. They start off with preventing harassment and discrimination. No person whether it is an employee, vendor, or customer should ever be discriminated against because of race, color, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, national orientation, disabilities, marital status, political beliefs, or whether or not they have children. Ruby Tuesday then focuses on insider trading and improper payments. There should be no preferential treatment towards any customer or vendor just because they could give you something for free or provide money under the table. Everyone should have an equal opportunity on being awarded a contract to provide a serviced to Ruby Tuesday as long as they can provide the service they are contracting to provide in an efficient, timely, and cost effective manner. Customers should be provided and equal opportunity to participate in special offers and not be seated or provided better service just because they can tip better or appear that they can provide some additional monetary boost to the employee or because they are a certain religion, color, age, gender, or disabled.
Ruby Tuesday also has stipulations in their business code of conduct pertaining to conflicts of interest such as loans, business courtesies, outside investments, proper use of assets, corporate opportunities, fair dealings, accounting and financial integrity, and confidentiality. When an employee is offered a business courtesy such as a gift or favor that could look like they were taking a bribe to ensure that the person providing the gift or favor is provided preferential treatment or services. Regardless of how the employee sees the gift it could be misconstrued by observers who could be offended or think that the person providing the gift or favor is being provided an unfair advantage. The same could be said for loans that employees have from third parties or outside investments. An observer could think that that employee was approved for a loan or offered a better deal on an outside investment because they are providing special services to the loan or investment provider above and beyond what is provided to other customers just to insure that they receive the loan or a better deal on the outside investment.
Employees of Ruby Tuesday are also expected to deal fairly with all customers, suppliers, and competitors as well as use all of Ruby Tuesday’s assets in an appropriate manner. Employees should only use assets for company related