A company urgently needed to train a whole set of its staff in a particular skill and approached a friend of mine about the assignment. My friend, by my definition (not her own), was an expert: she has a post-graduate degree in the field; she has been working in that particular field for over twenty years; she has been working as an advisor in the field for about ten years; she accumulates continuing education credits on the topic every year; and she recently earned a second high level certification on the topic.
The company spoke with my friend at length about their needs. Together, they defined a scope of work. My friend spent about two weeks putting together a detailed budget and workplan for the assignment. The company said that her proposal was accepted. They scheduled dates for the three weeks of training workshops.
My friend then began phase one of the project, spending ten working days conducting site visits and interviewing staff to learn more details about the training needs and to fully develop a training curriculum. She was now ready to begin training staff.
Unfortunately, my friend did not yet have a signed contract for the job.
When asked about the contract, the company said it was “coming soon”. Eventually, just two days before the training workshop, when repeatedly pushed and upon threat of not doing the training workshops, the company admitted that they could not pay her the full budget. They said it was because of her “low qualifications”.
My friend refused to conduct the training workshops. Sadly, the company refused to compensate my friend for her labour and efforts in planning the training. And with no written contract between them, they were under no obligation to pay her.
It is an extremely disheartening story. Do we have such a desire for profit that we cannot be fair? Have we become so self-centered that we have lost our ethics and humanity?
I would like to think that this is an extremely rare case – that stories of corporate humanitarianism abound. But I don’t know. What are your experiences with corporate ethics?
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