Zenefits Company - Research Paper

Introduction

Zenefits Company is cloud-based software for offering human resource management services especially intended to offer more of insurance coverage of employees. The company was started in the year 2013, by Parker Conrad, based in the United States of America. Zenefits Company is an online Human Resource (HR) platform which was specifically designed to assist small and mindset businesses (SMBs) especially when it comes to services such as payroll, benefits administration, and all other employee related workforce procedures. Additionally, Zenefits Company has the capacity to handle such services as managing the employee's directories, benefits and insurance, onboarding and recruitment, and also acting in compliance with ACA, together with other functions such as mobile support.

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Theranos

Theranos Company was founded in the year 2003 by a 19-year old Elizabeth Holmes. The company which was by then referred to as the Real-Time Cures was formed to give medical solutions based on technological blood sample test, by using old technology to do the analysis of the blood for the identification of all the possible diseases patients would seem to suffer from. Theranos had made a major step in outshining its competitors, via the ability to get blood tested without the use of big scary needle, whereby blood is drawn from a fingerprick. Theoretically, the blood was collected in a proprietary technological piece referred to as a 'nanotainer', which is a tiny container approximating half an inch in terms of height, big enough to have the capacity of holding a couple of blood drops. The technology was able to perform a hundreds of test from a pinprick and a very tiny blood sample.

Ethical and Legal Issues Related to Zenefits Company

Between the years 2012 to 2015, Zenefits Company grew at a first rate with an impressive shift of 20 employees, to 500. By then, the company was evaluated at a value of $4.5 billion. The company was considered one of the fastest growing company in the Silicon Valley from outside. The controversy came in when the CEO found it time wasting to have the employees trained for 52 hours, for them to become fit for selling insurance, an activity which was evaluated by Parker Conrad a waste of money and precious time. As a compensatory move, the CEO created a google chrome extension purposely to make his employees appear like they were fully working on the course, while the reality was the opposite. It was then discovered that approximately 83% of the total Zenefits sales were illegal, hence resulting to a fine of $20,000 per single violation.

Zenefits was found to be unethical in several distinct ways in which the boundaries of the law was violated. It was noticed that, it was a people could smoke cigarettes and take drinks while in the course of duty even when within the working premises, as long as the bosses authorized it. Regular fines and sanctions that were imposed on Zenefits created a certain unpleasing image form the clients who had to pull back due to the fear of collapsing of the company.

It was however, quite unethical for the Zenefits to practice utilitarianism within the work frames. Making attempts to maximize happiness of the stakeholders while struggling to remain within the required brackets of the law defines wat utilitarianism is. The company was then making great mistakes in increasing the investors' wealth, and also creating a new product which was intended to make the future quite easier for the consumers. The time when this got exposed, the company lost huge sums of money due to acting outside the law brackets.

The case of Kantianism was quite evident in Zenefits Company in so many viral ways. The growth of the company was not motivated under the foundation of good will, but through illegal and irrational acts. It is termed to be quite unethical to have the company practice insurance fraud, and hence allow people to consume alcohol and engage into sexual immoralities during the normal working hours, within the working environment. Moreover, the company had completely failed to have the inclusion of the employees' take during decision-making, since it believed that such a condition of acting in accordance to the law was a waste of money and time.

Finally, Zenefits failed to comply with the ethical expectations of the so called virtue theory whose components are; courage, honesty, self-control and fairness. Zenefits was hence unable to be fair to the its employees through denying them the required standards of training and hence install them to work while not trained. Moreover, fairness, honesty and self-control were virtues that the company had completely ignored by allowing malpractices to take place within the company. The state of unfairness displayed when investors were being favored through the process of utilitarianism, by favoring the investors to make them happy.

Ethical and Legal Issues Related to Zenefits Company

Theranos Company had in it that it entirely relied upon that its own machines were far much better that any other when it comes to the blood tasting job they were endowed with. Unfortunately it was discovered that most of the tests the company carried out were doe using third-party machines. It was Holmes, its founder who instructed the staff members to place Theranos testing machines at the exact location whereby the testing was done a head tours via such areas. Theranos was part of the burn study, and hence was paid $300,000 for the same. The whole contract to last for a period of three years, which was entailed with the US department of defense. Thus, Theranos machines had never been deployed to the battlefield, or even on medivac helicopters. The information deemed so important to the potential investors since Theranos had the advantage of securing good public image due to the company's relationship with the US military, and hence, it was necessary to let people stay warned.

According to a SEC, Holmes claims that Theranos grew from the cash from its won contracts, while the reality reveals that it grew by the fact that it obtained cash from investors. Moreover, Holmes had not yet obtained a legal approval to run out pharmaceutical practices by the US pharmaceutical regulators, and other vital departments. Theranos had so many financial hiccups and hence gave fake reports on its financial status in order to fake on its current financial situation for tax evasion. Theranos machines did not have the capability to operate and perform according to what they had been perceived for. These machines were only able to attain a fraction of tests relatively equal to the old lab machine tests. Hence, most of the tests involved third-party machines.

Recommendations

For legal and ethical fulfilment in business transactions and environment, several factors which cuts across human safety measures and legal fulfilment has to be followed. Any company should be in a position to observe that it acts in line with the levels Kantianism. The four levels of Kantianism would hence see it that the company involved in any business transaction observes ultimately four key critical factors of human value. These factors may include; honesty, courage, fairness, which are centered within the acts good will motivation. Therefore, companies involved are expected to have met rational thresholds which take care of people interests and are also in accordance to the law.