British Gas Firing and Rehiring: An Ethical Analysis

British Gas Firing and
Rehiring

Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
PART 1............................................................................................................................................1
A......................................................................................................................................................1
Introduction..................................................................................................................................1
A good background......................................................................................................................1
Issues from perspective of ethics.................................................................................................1
Issues impacted public image of company..................................................................................2
Business role in society...............................................................................................................2
Stakeholder impacted by decisions..............................................................................................3
Good and Bad example................................................................................................................3
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5
B.......................................................................................................................................................6
Introduction..................................................................................................................................6
Theories of business ethics related to case study.........................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
PART 2............................................................................................................................................9
Discussion on what makes an ethical leader and how you would, as an ethical manager,
manage your business and/or others to a high ethical standard...................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

PART 1
A.
Introduction
In present era, business ethics along with responsible management are essential for
devising rational decisions to attain determined goals. This report highlights the ethical issues at
British Gas which resulting in affecting its image. It covers business role in society and impact of
any changes in organisation on its stakeholders.
A good background
The case study studied the controversy created due to changing structure of British Gas as
they adopt fire and re hire. This means to fire employees to change structure of company and re
hire them on new terms and conditions. Full time engineers are also asked to work extra three
hours a week but on same pay roll and did not provided with any higher rate to work on public
holidays. The said decisions were not accepted by employees of British Gas and they refused to
sign the contacts. But due to fear of losing jobs, many signed the contacts and accepted new
rules. The company was also criticised by unite and GMB unions as well as by politicians. Even
the prime minister finds it unacceptable and people all around country found it unethical.
1

Issues from perspective of ethics
Business ethics is termed as adopting appropriate policies and principles with reference to
controversial subjects. It is set of morals that should be adopted by organisation to have a proper
guideline about how to treat employees, consumers, stakeholders and all other variables
associated with firm. In context to British Gas, company' new structure “fire and re hire” arises
several ethical issues, resulted in big controversies for company. Ethical issue comprises not
paying engineers for the extra work they do on weekends or public holidays as well as making
them sign contracts regarding new rules as they fear they might lose job otherwise. Also the
engineers who refused to accept new terms were dismissed from their employment by British
Gas (Conley, 2018). Many politicians believed that new policy fire and re hire is against rights of
employees and was equivalent to picking pockets of staff. A survey showed that majority of
people thinks it is against law and they would not engage with any company who adopts these
kind of policies. British Gas has neglected its impact on integrity of employees and interest of
stakeholders in organisation and for that reason it faces serious controversies.
Issues impacted public image of company
This issue of practising unethical activities within firm has highly impacted public image
of British Gas. Public of UK believed that fire and rehire is a brutal measure to rebuild a
company as it takes place on cost of employee’s security. Majority of people thinks it must be
banned to safeguard employees interest. Many engineers at British Gas with years of service in
company have been dismissed due to aggressive restructuring and these brings heavy shame for
company. When public found out about company's policy of fire and re hire, thousands of
consumes of British Gas have threaten to switch over. Many even vouches to transfer to another
supplier of energy if British Gas failed to scrap plans of forcing engineers to work extra hours
without increment in pay. Over 50,000 people signed petition against company policy which
resulted in months of negotiations between trade unions British Gas executives (King, 2021)
Before implementing policies by British Gas, the company believed that new structuring
will result in more skilled and qualified workforce. Executives of organisation suggested that it
was required to implement fire and rehire to safeguard company and capture more energy market
to earn more profits (Devereux and Wadsworth, 2022). British Gas owners believed that it will
save much time and cost of company as well as assists them to make employees agree with new
rules and policies without any resistance.
2