Unit 1 (P 8) HRM in Context: Ethical issues in HRM

Ethical issues in Human Resource Management

• Ethics refers to a system of moral principles - a sense of right and wrong, and goodness and badness of actions and the motives and consequences of these actions. In the business, manager must draw their ideas about what is desirable behavior from the same sources as anybody else would draw.
• Ethics means making decisions that represent what you stand for, not just what the laws are (a behavior might not be defined as illegal, yet be unethical).
• Ethics is an individual personal belief about a behavior, action or decision is right or wrong.
• Ethical values channelize the individual energies into pursuits that are benign(compassionate) to others and beneficial to the society. Ethical issues abound(flourishing) in HR activities, such as remuneration, labor relations, health and safety, training and development etc. This article offers insight into a detailed discussion of how ethical issues related to HR situations.

1. Cash and Compensation Plans: There are ethical issues pertaining to the salaries, executive perquisites and the annual incentive plans etc. The HR manager is often under pressure to raise the band of base salaries. There is increased pressure upon the HR function to pay out more incentives to the top management and the justification for the same is put as the need to retain the latter. Further ethical issues crop in HR when long term compensation and incentive plans are designed in consultation with the CEO or an external consultant. While deciding upon the payout there is pressure on favouring the interests of the top management in comparison to that of other employees and stakeholders.
2. Race, gender, age and Disability: In many organisations till recently the employees were differentiated on the basis of their race, gender, origin and their disability. Not anymore ever since the evolution of laws and a regulatory framework that has standardized employee behaviours towards each other. In good organisations the only differentiating factor is performance! In addition the power of filing litigation has made put organisations on the back foot. Managers are trained for aligning behaviour and avoiding discriminatory practices.
3. Employment Issues: Human resource practitioners face bigger dilemmas in employee hiring. One dilemma stems from the pressure of hiring someone who has been recommended by a friend, someone from your family or a top executive.Yet another dilemma arises when you have already hired someone and he/she is later found to have presented fake documents. Two cases may arise and both are critical. In the first case the person has been trained and the position is critical. In the second case the person has been highly appreciated for his work during his short stint or he/she has a unique blend of skills with the right kind of attitude. Both the situations are sufficiently dilemmatic to leave even a seasoned HR campaigner in a fix.
4. Privacy Issues: Any person working with any organisation is an individual and has a personal side to his existence which he demands should be respected and not intruded. The employee wants the organisation to protect his/her personal life. This personal life may encompass things like his religious, political and social beliefs etc. However certain situations may arise that mandate snooping behaviours on the part of the employer. For example, mail scanning is one of the activities used to track the activities of an employee who is believed to be engaged in activities that are not in the larger benefit of the organisation.Four aspects of privacy that an individual may want to protect from any indiscretion:
• Physical inviolability, or the right to a personal space;
• Social inviolability, or the individual’s freedom to interact with anyone he pleases in his private life;
• Informational inviolability or the individual's right to decide how, when and to what extent their personal data may be made available to others;
• Psychological inviolability, the individual's right not to be compelled to disclose private thoughts and feelings.
5. Employee Responsibility: 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. However, beyond the legal framework, certain moral duties of employees to the firms where they work are being shaped, duties that are sometimes controversial.
6. One of these duties is loyalty to the firm. A company that offers job security, support and understanding at difficult times for employees has every right to expect from them a certain degree of fidelity and loyalty. The problem in question here is: How far should this corporate loyalty go? What happens when the conduct required at the workplace is contrary to widely accepted moral standards in society or the individual's ethical standards? For example, what happens if the company violated laws on toxic emissions and this comes to the attention of employees? Is it morally allowable for the employees to denounce this felony or would this be an unacceptable deviation from standard corporate loyality?
7. Safety and health: 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. From a survey made by the Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions we can see that most employees work in unfavorable environmental conditions (too hot, too cold or too polluted) and in positions that involve either added fatigue or strenuous physical effort. Work generates over 42% of the cases of back pain and excessive fatigue of Romanian respondents.
8. Layoffs or Redundancy: Layoffs, are no more considered as unethical as they were thought of in the past.Legal Considerations Breaches of ethics in human resources can lead companies into a world of legal trouble, in both the civil and criminal arenas. Breaches of ethics in the HR department are more likely to be reported by victims to the Better Business Bureau, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or other regulatory agencies than those committed in other areas, such as product development or accounting. Companies with comprehensive ethics programs in place can avoid costly trouble regarding discrimination and hostile-work environment issues, resulting in lower costs for litigation and out-of-court settlements. 

Long Question:

1. " Today manager is believed to be more ethical, than before". Do you agree or disagree. Give reasons to justify.

Short Question: 

1. Point out any other ethical issues occurring at work place other than mentioned above. 
2. Give nine different example to clarify each of the above ethical issues.