Midwest Family Mutual Goes Green

Knowledge Learning & Enterprise Systems – Week #7 Assignment

Midwest Family Mutual Goes Green

Read Case 12-2 “Midwest Family Mutual Goes Green” and then answer the following questions.

What are some possible disadvantages the employees of Midwest Family Mutual may be experiencing as a result of their new virtual “work from home” office environment? What recommendations would you make to resolve these issues? Please include a timeline.

Apply the normative theories of business ethics to this situation; please be specific.

Your answers should be in your own words, but should also incorporate (and cite) key terms and concepts from the reading and lectures for this week’s assignment. Your submission should be approximately be in APA format, two full pages, double spaced, running header, subheadings, in text citations and a reference list.

■ CASE STUDY 13‐2 Midwest Family Mutual Goes Green Midwest Family Mutual Insurance Co., an insurance company with $120 million worth of written premiums in 2014, con-siders itself to be “environmentally green.” Through a variety of initiatives, it has reduced its annual energy, natural gas, and paper consumption by 63%, 76%, and 65%, respectively. Ron Boyd, the carrier’ s CEO, attributes most of the improve-ments in energy usage to creating a virtual work‐from‐home environment as a result of implementing a series of electronic processes and applications. These include imaging and workflow technology, networking technology, and a Voice over IP (VoIP) network. In 2006, the year these savings were reported, all but two of Midwest Family Mutual’ s 65 employees worked from home. In addition to the energy savings that the company has directly experienced, Boyd estimated that in 2008, the company’ s telecommuting policy resulted in fuel savings of at least 25,000 gallons. 

Although green computing was a commendable goal in itself, Midwest Family Mutual’ s bottom line also has benefited from the company’ s socially responsible approach. Over a five‐year period, Midwest Family Mutual’ s was able to shave its expense ratio to 25.9% from 33.5%. Its Web site states, “Being green environmentally and operationally CAN [emphasis in original] equate to being green financially.” Green computing grew out of Midwest Family Mutual’ s IT successes, according to Boyd. As the company started realiz-ing savings from the electronic processes it implemented, management started thinking about telecommuting arrangements hat allowed its employees to work from home. Boyd adds, “It became obvious that many of our jobs could be done wherever a high‐speed connection existed. . . . VoIP completed the technology requirements for all [employees] to work from home.” Boyd summarizes that the company “became green as a side benefit of saving resources and cost.” The company continued its green policy with its decision to sell its 24,000‐square‐foot office building in Minnetonka, Minnesota. However, to pro-vide more centralized regional service to agents in the new states in which it was recently licensed (i.e., Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon), the company built a new home domicile in Chariton, Iowa, in 2012. 

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