Ethical issues arise when the HR manager is put to pressure to favour top executive interests over the interests of the other employees and the investors. 3. Employees Discriminations:
HR must cope with conflicting needs to keep labor costs as low as possible and to invite fair wages. Ethics come into action when HR must select between outsourcing labor to countries with lower wages and harsh living conditions and paying competitive wages.
Rather, human resources’ methods and policies relating to repetitive cycles of staffing, reward and compensation, and performance management enlightens how any individual or group of people is introduced into the organization, managed while there, and exited from the organization.
As conflict arises, the HR manager must be adept at resolving conflicts between the demands of company culture and those of ethical behavior. Some of the major issues an organization deals with is handling ethical challenges in workforce diversity. The following are some of the major ethical challenges an organization faces in ethical management −
This means monitoring company-managed benefits as well as insurance companies to make sure there are no financial problems that would shortchange employees.
HR must deal with conflicting needs to keep labor costs as low as possible and to offer fair wages. Ethics come into play when HR must choose between outsourcing labor to countries with lower wages and harsh living conditions and paying competitive wages in the United States. While there is nothing illegal about outsourcing labor, HR can create a public relations problem if consumers object to using underpaid workers to save money.
Because training is an opportunity for advancement and expanded opportunities, employees who are left out of training may argue that they are not being given equal opportunities in the workplace.
Prescriptively, all Aristotle says is that virtue and wisdom will certainly elude leaders who fail to engage in rigorous ethical analysis of their actions. The bottom line is that ethics depends on asking tough questions. Oct 6, 2015.
Although the moral choices we face in HR, thank God, are far less dramatic than these, Aristotle tells us that motivation is a powerful indicator of the degree to which virtue is present in all of our social acts.
Aristotle has much to say about the role of leaders in terms of the conditions of work they provide employees. He also raises useful questions about the distribution of rewards in organizations. Those of you in Silicon Valley will find it very interesting when you go back and read the Ethics, to find that he talks about the question of the just distribution of wealth created by a start-up organization: How much does the venture capitalist get? How much should go to entrepreneurs? How much to the managers and employees? It is fascinating that he would give thought to those questions in 400 b.c. He also tells us how to think about futures markets!
Aristotle was the most practical and business-oriented of all philosophers who asked ethical questions. Now you may scoff at the idea that a person who's been dead for nearly 2,400 years has anything practical to say about the modern organizations in which you all work.
Of course Aristotle never heard of a large business or corporation. Nonetheless he did raise a set of questions that corporate leaders who wish to behave ethically need to ask themselves:
It appears that an underlying subject in all HR-involved workplace issues is a management culture that promotes ethical ignorance – or at the very least knowingly welcomes an action to happen – even when the organization implements a Code of Ethics. Ethical and moral issues are complex.
Ethical dilemmas in HRM can be seen as complex issues, involving personal, professional, and organizational considerations. Ethics oftentimes fall by the wayside when organizations do not have a concrete value-based culture from the top and until its way down.
INTRODUCTION. Human resource management (HRM) is the study of managing people methodically in organizations. The unique individual member in the organization – a given executive, manager, line worker – is not the focus of HRM by itself.
Legal requirements in moral analysis weigh the rights that are exercised versus the rights denied. These legal requirements seek to determine that which is most equitable or evenhanded within the context of a Veil of Ignorance (i.e., determining fairness and the balance of rights vs. wrong if everyone considered the laws to adopt while ignorant of their own self-interests). Hosmer noted the challenge of focusing on the self-interest of all of society but argued that this Veil of Ignorance model is ideal for measuring the efficacy of laws. Nesteruk (1999:306) has noted that legal and moral issues are historically intertwined in the analysis of workplace issues.
To distinguish the moral impacts of a choice, four issues are to be addressed. Firstly, what individuals or groups are going to be aided by the implementation of the decision and what is the expectation in terms of financial or personal benefit? Second, who will be affected by the implementation of the decision and what is the financial or personal nature of those harms? Third, who will be able to effectively exercise their rights as a result of the proposed action? Fourth, whose rights will be denied as a result of the proposed action?
A recommended moral solution must specifically determine the stakeholders affected; the moral issues to be addressed; and the corresponding benefits, threats, and involved rights. Management practitioners (DePree, 2004) and scholars (Caldwell & Karri, 2005; Cameron, 2003) have noted that moral solutions must not only positively impact the welfare, growth, and universality of all stakeholders but must also support societal wealth creation.
It has been acknowledged that knowledge sharing in organizations is vitally important in human resource management systems as attempts made by other organizations to bridge between the policies and practices of a company (Dowling, et al., 2009). Kasper and colleagues (2008:64) noted that both formal and informal relationships need to be developed between individuals and groups to produce an integrated new partnership that balances differences in perspective while constructing a framework that successfully blends corporate objectives with local capabilities. Yaping and Song (2008) noted that quality performance management systems that incorporated information sharing saw increased extra role behavior among organizational employees.
An ethical design of management is essential to attract support and positive involvement of all participants in the success of the company: employees , customers , shareholders , creditors, suppliers and the community in which the firm operates.
Moral harassment at the workplace Harassment is a form of discrimination manifested through an unwanted conduct, which has affected the human dignity of the person in question and which creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive environment against a person based on any of the grounds for discrimination.
social responsibility for the future of mankind and society .
The Golden Rule in human resources management is the vision of a perfect organization, which, in an environment of good will, brings together employers and employees, seeking the same goals. Echoes of the old thinking coming from the past are still alive today, promoting tolerance and progress of humanity.
Moral obligations of the employees Like in the case of the employees’ rights, the employees’ duties to their employers are included in the work contracts, according to current legislation and internal regulations of the various companies.
3. Moral rights of employees The right to work As one of the fundamental human rights, the right to work is enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights and the European Charter of Human Rights.
Ethical ideals such as honesty, truth, fairness are standards for how people should treat each other.
Employees Discriminations: A framework of laws and regulations has been evolved to avoid the practices of treatment of employees on the basis of their caste, sex, religion, disability, age etc. No organisation can openly practice any discriminatory policies, with regard to selection, training, development, appraisal etc.
Performance Appraisal: Ethics should be the basis of performance evaluation. Highly ethical performance appraisal demands that there should be an honest assessment of the performance and steps should be taken to improve the effectiveness of employees.
(i) The first dilemma relates to information technology. A firm’s need for information particularly about employees while on job may be at odds with the employee’s privacy. Close circuit cameras, tapping the phones, reading the computer files of employees etc. breach the privacy of employees.
Industrial work is often hazardous to the safety and health of the employees. Legislations have been created making it mandatory on the organisations and managers to compensate the victims of occupational hazards. Ethical dilemmas of HR managers arise when the justice is denied to the victims by the organisation.
It remains to be said that ethics is about the relationships between people. Being comfortable in the ethical landscape is of immense practical importance. Given the conjunction of these two facts it is not surprising that there are so many issues confronting the HRD professional.
As noted above, the existence of complementary aims can be disguised when the terms of debate are dominated by one particular point of view. It may be that the professional has a particular responsibility to develop a critical faculty that can be applied in the assessment of the relationship between means and ends.
One reason for the blurring of distinctions between education and training has been the realisation that modern industrial practice requires a workforce possessing many of the attributes developed under the principles of liberal education. These include a healthy respect for the autonomy of individuals.
Immanuel Kant is credited with the formal articulation of the idea that human society is a “kingdom of ends”. Kant was, of course, building on older traditions such as that in which all men are seen as being equal in the sight of God.
Professionals working in the field of human resources are unlikely ever to have a deciding vote when considering such matters. However, this is not to diminish responsibility when it comes to preparing policy advice for consideration by those who govern.
The first thing to note is that these aims are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, you could argue that they are complementary. Much debate takes place as if the pursuit of one goal must always be at the expense of another. Naturally enough, interest groups tend to focus attention on their bit of the agenda.
In a sense, professional status may provide an opportunity to affect the agenda about aims. However, it is even more likely that the professional’s knowledge and skill will be drawn upon when it comes to determining the means to secure the desired end. So let us return to Plato.
The right to humane working conditions, in which the psychosomatic health and integrity of employees is not endangered, is one of the ethical issues concerning the status of employees. In the case of occupations involving considerable risk taking, the ethical principle of fully aware consent must be respected. This involves informing the employees about the dangers they run by accepting the job.
Harassment is a form of discrimination manifested through an unwanted conduct, which has affected the human dignity of the person in question and which creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive environment against a person based on any of the grounds for discrimination.
By workplace discrimination we understand any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference made based on race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, belief, sexual orientation, age, disability, non-contagious chronic disease, HIV infection or belonging to a disadvantaged category, which has as purpose or effect the restriction or removal of recognition, use or exercise on an equal footing of any human rights and fundamental freedoms recognized by law in the politic, economic, social and cultural fields of or in any other areas of public life2.
The right to work derives on one hand from the right to life, because work provides the foundation necessary for subsistence and on the other hand, from the right to respect as the ability to create goods and means through labor is a major source of self-respect for each individual. In the context of modern economy heated debates are held around the question whether the right to work is by itself definable as the right of each individual to be offered employment. While governments have a responsibility to create economic conditions to protect the right of every citizen to work, this task can not be met without the contribution
From the word "ethos" used in the sense of character, Aristotle created the adjective "ethical" to elucidate a specific class of human qualities that he called the ethical virtues. These virtues are, according to Aristotle, some character faculties which are also called spiritual qualities. In order to highlight all the ethical virtues within a separate area of epistemology and to include this field in a separate area of science, Aristotle introduces the notion “ethics” 1.
Like in the case of the employees’ rights, the employees’ duties to their employers are included in the work contracts, according to current legislation and internal regulations of the various companies . However, beyond the legal framework, certain moral duties of employees to the firms where they work are being shaped, duties that are sometimes controversial.
The contingent workforce includes part-time, temporary contract and work-at-home employees. Maintaining such employees in the company is a challenge because they are less attached to the company.
In such case, it should thoroughly analyze the situation and make a proper conclusion i.e. whether it is the result of inefficient employee or inadequate resources.
It is one of the essential functions of HRM to collect its staff’s complete information , including health information. It is necessary for employee’s personal safety. Keeping health information about employees help the company in knowing what kind of tasks or activities are safe for their employees to participate in.
Companies sometimes need to recruit new talent for various reasons such as an increase in project scope, operations. While recruiting, HRM faces major challenges i.e. selecting the best candidate and making the hired candidate familiar with the environment and culture.
For an instance, when discipline is not maintained, employees neglect their responsibilities and duties. They may procrastinate their tasks and may misbehave with co-workers, leading to a conflict that consumes time as well as energy to resolve.
Internationalization of firms is obviously a Sign of Success but it is a challenge at the same time because globalization invites issues related to unknown language, laws, work ethics, attitudes, management approach, culture and tradition.
In this process, HR manager might forget to pay its employees, if not then he can forget the amount to be paid to the individual employee. With proper maintenance of payroll, HR manager will be able to pay right amount to right employee at right time, which is essential for extracting satisfactory output from employees.