2. Ethics & Human Resource Management
Definition of ethics
Ethics in an organization
Ethics in HRM
Ethical behavior at work place
Some solution for ethical problems in an organization
Case study
Conclusion and recommendation
3. Definition
• Ethics involves systematizing, defending, and recommending
concepts of right and wrong conducts
• The term ethics derives from the ancient Greek word ethos (habit)
concerned with values
• Ethics is branch of philosophy which investigates the questions
What is the best way for people to live?
• What actions are right or wrong in particular circumstances?
• Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining
concepts such as good and evil, right
and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime
4. Ethics has to do with what one feels right or wrong
Ethics has to do with religious beliefs
Being ethical is doing what the law requires
Ethics consists of the standards of behavior the society accepts
5. Ethics in an organization
• The way an organization should respond to external and internal
environment
• includes various guidelines and principles which decide the way
individuals should behave at the workplace.
• It is the conduct of the individuals working in a particular
organization.
• In a highly competitive, global and ever-changing business
environment, business leaders and boards are striving to enhance
governance, risk mitigation and business ethics in order to protect
organizational reputation and assets, comply with legislation and
regulations, ensure trust of employees, customers, shareholders and
the community, and provide an ethical work environment
(R.Wiliams an ombudsman )
6. • Organizations run to earn profits but how it makes money is more
important.
»money is not the only important thing; pride and honour are
probably more important»
• Children below fourteen years must not be employed to work in any
organization since childhood is the best phase of one’s life and no
child should be deprived of his childhood
• Employees should not indulge in destruction, manipulation or share
information to other bodies
7. • Employees should not pass on company’s information to any of the external parties. Do not share any of your
organization’s policies and guidelines with others. It is better not to discuss official matters with friends and
relatives. Confidential data or information must not be leaked under any circumstances.
• There must be absolute fairness in monetary transactions and all kinds of trading. Never ever cheat your
clients.
• Organizations must not discriminate any employee on the grounds of sex, physical appearance, age or family
background. Female employees must be treated with respect. Don’t ask your female employees to stay back
late at work. It is unethical to discriminate employees just because they do not belong to an affluent
background. Employees should be judged by their work and nothing else.
• Organization must not exploit any of the employees. The employees must be paid according to their hard
work and efforts. If individuals are working late at night, make sure overtimes are paid. The management must
ensure employees get their arrears, bonus, incentives and other reimbursements on time.
• Stealing office property is strictly unethical
• An organization is formed when individuals from different backgrounds and varied interests come together on a
common platform and work towards predefined goals and objectives.
• Employees are the assets of an organization and it is essential for them to maintain the decorum and ambience
of the workplace.
8.
9. Ethics and Human resource management
• Ethics play a very great role in the Human resource and the human
resource manegement
• HRM concerns human issues, especially those related with
compensation
Development
industrial relations
health and safety issues
race and disability
employment issues
performance appraisal
10. • Cash and Compensation Plans
There are some general ethical issues pertaining to the employee salaries, executive
perquisites and compensations and the annual incentive plans, etc.
• Race, Gender, and Disability
There are several examples of organizations where, until recently, the employees were
treated differently based on the race, gender, origin, and their disability
• Employment Issues
Human resource managers face many dilemmas in hiring employees. One particular
dilemma stems from the pressure of hiring one, who has been recommended by a
friend or someone from the family of a top executive.
• Privacy Issues
All human beings working with any organization have their personal life. An employee
needs the organization to directly or indirectly protect his/her personal life. This
personal life includes things like the religious, political and social beliefs etc.
11. • Abuse of Official Position Using the official position for private or
personal gains is often considered as an abuse of power. Such abuse
can result from disloyalty.
• Proprietary Data -Companies can often have “trade secrets” which
they don’t want to share with other organizations, and few
employees may divulge such information to the benefit of competing
organizations which is unethical
• Bribes and Kickbacks
Bribery is aimed to letting someone to act against their duties. Bribes can be
very serious when it can injure people. Kickbacks are also a form of bribery that
involves a person to uses his/her position to benefit a party or someone
12. A survey in USA shows
• Lies to employees, customers, vendors and the public – 19%
• Withholding of needed information from employees, customers,
vendors or the public – 18%
• Discrimination – 13%
• Stealing, fraud, theft – 12%
• Sexual harassment – 11%
• Falsification of financial records or reports – 5%
• Giving or accepting bribes, kickbacks or inappropriate gifts – 4%
13. Ethical Behavior at the Workplace
• It includes taking personal phone calls during office time; asserting
that the "check is in the mail," when it is still in the making; and even
stealing office supplies for personal use
• Dedication: is one of the most important attributes of an ethical
worker. Companies seek results, but most employers look for an
honest effort from employees who can be considered a “natural” at
the job. When an employee joins the workforce, he/she is agreeing to
offer the best for helping the company to flourish.
• Accountability: refers to be responsible towards the time and duty
during working hours
14. • Collaboration-Teamwork and collaboration are valuable attributes. As
most companies believe that if morale is high and everyone co-works,
success will follow.
• Conduct -Employee conduct is a very important value in ethics.
Employees must treat others with respect, and show appropriate
behavior. Wearing proper attire, using fine language and conducting
them with professionalism are part of the job.
• Trusting Relationships- is important to build trust in workplace
relationships. By allowing people to open up, share information and
feel comfortable in communicating are signs of a trustworthy
employee.
• Value to Employers
15. • Trust in their employees is a very important quality of companies. An unethical employee
can drive entire company in legal trouble, or it can destroy the hard-earned reputation
• Self-Control
• It is important to have the ability to avoid unethical temptations
• Justice and Fair Guidance
• Fair treatment of people is important. Justice is served when a fair return is gained in
return for the energy and effort expended.
• Love and Kindness
• The expression of love and kindness is always productive. Research shows that there are
different types of “love.” In an organizational context, love means intense positive reaction
to co-workers, groups and/or situations
• Courage and Integrity
• It is important to have the courage to act ethically and with integrity
16. Some solutions
An American HRM consultant The T. Watcher cites,
HR professionals must help ensure that ethics is a top organizational priority.
HRM must ensure that the leadership selection and development processes
include an ethics component.
HRM must be the heart of emerging ethics issues.
HRM must ensure “that the right programs and policies are in place
• Documenting the Issues
Develop a workplace policy depending on your company’s philosophy,
mission statement and conduct guidance.
Incorporate the policy into your performance management program to hold
employees accountable for their actions.
Alert the employees to their responsibilities to follow professional standards
in their job performance and interaction with peers and supervisors
17. Training and Guidance for Up-Keeping Values
➢Provide ethics training to employees.
➢Provide instructions in learning how to address and resolve ethical dilemmas.
➢Experiential learning, or role-play, may be used as an effective way to
facilitate workplace ethics training.
➢Provide examples of workplace ethics simulations, such as misappropriation
of company funds, improper workplace relationship
18. Taking Effective Measures
• Designate an executive in-charge of handling employees’ concerns pertaining
to workplace ethics.
• Consider whether your organization also needs an ethics hotline, a
confidential benefit service for employees to contact whenever they need.
• Confidential hotlines assure employees’ anonymity, which is a concern for
“whistle blowing” actions.
19. • Your Honourable Commissioner (HC) sends you a list of people to hire. What do you do?
• You are asked by your Director to hire someone into the service at a certain grade level for which they are not
qualified. What do you do?
• You work in the Service Matters Department in the Public Service Office and have been asked by your
Permanent Secretary to deploy named officers to certain 'juicy' MDAs. What do you do?
• You are required to redeploy an officer to another MDA but the officer refuses to leave as he/she is protected
by a political godfather. What do you do?
• You are asked to rewrite an appraisal form by your Director to ensure the named officer is given a higher
appraisal score and more favourable review. What do you do?
• You are told to fake appraisal documents to help someone get promoted. What do you do?
• You have been asked to promote someone without putting them through due process. What do you do?
• You are asked by your Permanent Secretary to block the promotion of a junior officer. What do you do?
• You have been asked not to discipline an officer who is suspected of stealing money. What do you do?
20. Case study
Company name :ABG global company
Country: India
Trend: from traditional to modern management system
The metodology of the case study: indepth interview
Income: more than 35billion dollars
21. • The Global HR Head of the company believes that the ‘organisation’s
culture is characterized by empowerment, trust, accountability,
respect for people, excellence in execution and innovation’. According
to the Head of Corporate Strategy
• The company’s core value is binding the work force across the entire
group
22. The result of the case study:
A firm’s orientation to ethics is influenced largely by its national and
organizational culture. Research shows that a growing number of Indian
firms place a distinct emphasis on long-term orientation to business strategy
with a social mission, underpinned by firm commitment to core
organizational values, employee development and welfare.
This article provides preliminary evidence of how some emerging economy
firms are successfully mixing and matching indigenous business and people
management strategies with the Western emphasis on meritocracy and
professionalism to compete in the contemporary global economy.
It further shows how the human resource development (HRD) discipline can
play a pro-active role in embedding ethics and values throughout the
organizational and HR architecture. The HRD professionals in the case study
firm also face several structural and cultural challenges in discharging their
ethics driven HR mandate, such as management’s ethnocentric attitude to
global staffing and clash of work cultures.
23. Conclusion
Ethics is the way of life individually or socially in an organization or in
the society
Ethics plays a great role in an organization and directly related HRM
Companies such as ABG perform well in local and global business
environmnet since they could build their entire human resource
ethically.
