Employees and Business ethics

1

• Employees and Business ethics
• Employees as stakeholder
• -Employees are affected by the profit and loss of
  the organisation.
• -Working for a company for a longer period
  results in a considerable amount of dependency
  upon the corporation.
• -Contract between the corporation and the
  employee that stipulates rights and duties of the
  two parties.
• -Employee invest time and effort in developing
  assets specific to a particular employer.
• Management of human resources an ethical
  problem between rights and duties
• The term human resource management and its
  implications have been a subject
• of intense debate in business ethics.
• Humans are an important and costly resource
  other resources-new technology or cheaper
  resources from overseas.
• Employees are subject to a strict managerial
  rationale of minimising costs and maximising the
  efficiency of the resource
• The management of human resources implies more
  than just the application of economic
  criteria-they should not be treated as a means
  only.

2

• Rhetoric Reality in HRM
• New working patterns Part-time instead of
  full-time jobs
• Flexibility Management can do what it wants
• Empowerment Making someone else take the
  risk and responsibility
• Training and development Manipulation
• Recognizing the contribution of the individual
  -Undermining the trade union and collective
  bargaining
• Teamworking Reducing the individuals
  discretion
• Discrimination
• Discrimination in the business context occurs
  when employees receive preferential (or less
• preferential) treatment on grounds that are not
  directly related to their qualifications and
• performance in the job-race, gender, age,
  religion, disability and nationality.
• Employees come from a range of different
  religious, racial, national and cultural groups
  making the whole issue of managing diversity a
  prominent feature of contemporary business
• Institutional discrimination discrimination
  deeply embedded in business regardless how good
  the legislation.

3

• Sexual and racial harassment-In the areas of
  promotion, pay and job opportunities issues of
  diversity might be exploited to inflict physical,
  verbal, or emotional harassment.
• -Sexual harassment, sexual favours are requested
  for promotion or other rewards.
• -Jokes or comments about a persons gender, race,
  sexual orientation, etc.-Regulation is still
  reluctant to take up these issues.-Blurred line
  between harassment on one hand and joking on
  the other-Influenced by contextual factors such
  as character, personality, and national
  culture-Companies increasingly introduced codes
  of practice and diversity programmes
• Equal opportunities and affirmative action-How
  should organizations respond to problems of
  discrimination?-legislation to tackle the
  problem.
• -Most legal approaches do not specify how
  discrimination should be avoided.-Equal
  opportunity or affirmative action
  programmes-Generally targeted at ensuring
  procedural justice is promoted, like employees
  are dealt fairly and equally.

4

• Affirmative action (AA) programmes deliberately
  attempt to target those who might be currently
  under-represented in the workforce?? Recruitment
  policies recruiting the proportion of under
  represented groups.?? Fair job criteria job
  criteria might not be crucial to the achievement
  of the job role.?? Training programmes for
  discriminated minorities?? Promotion to senior
  positions
• Reverse discrimination
• If you are a man applying for a job in a German
  university, the employment ad might inform you
  that in the case of equal qualification, a female
  applicant will be preferred. The situation is
  taken a step further if minorities are preferred
  to mainstream candidates.
• Employee privacy
• Four different types of privacy we may want to
  protect.
• ? Physical privacy cameras in employees private
  rest areas compromise physical privacy.
• ? Social privacy employees should not bring
  their firm into disrepute by behaving in an
  unacceptable way.
• ? Informational privacy To what extent private
  data about employee is released to others.
• ? Psychological privacy Psychological privacy is
  threatened when employees forced to smile and
  appear happy in front of customers.

5

• Health and drug testing
• ? Highly contested issue-Highlight three main
  issues
• ? Potential to do harm
• ? Causes of employees performance
• ? Level of performance
• ? Despite these criticisms, such tests have
  increasingly come common in the USA
• Due process and lay-offs
• -Many employees are constantly at risk of
  arbitrarily losing their jobs for relatively
  minor indiscretions, personality clashes, etc.
• -Right to know well ahead of the actual point of
  the redundancy that their job is on the line.
• -Compensation packages employees receive when
  laid off.
• Employee participation and association
• ? Recognition that employees might be more than
  just human resources but should also
• have a certain degree of influence on their
  tasks, job environments, and company goals
• right to participation

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• ? Financial participation allows employee share
  in the ownership or income of the corporation
• ? Operational participation- Participation in
  decision making and strategy formation.
• Delegation-Information-Consultation-Codeterminatio
  n
• Working conditions
• ? Right to healthy and safe working conditions
  one of the very first ethical concerns for
  employees
• ? Ethical issues in the context of
• ? Excessive working hours and presenteeism
  Average working hours fifty-sixty hours.
• ? Flexible working patterns standard and
  non-standard work relationships part-time work,
  temporary work and self-employment.
• ? Less secure legal status for periphery workers
• Potential for Poorer working conditions-Increased
  insecurity-Lower pay- Exclusion from training
  and other employment benefits

7

• Fair wages
• ? The basis for determining fair wages is
  commonly the expectations placed on
• the employees and their performance towards
  goals, measured by hours worked, prior training,
  etc.
• ? Problems of performance-related pay (PRP) One
  thing rewarding those at the top for good
  performance, but when such procedures are
  introduced for those at lower levels, further
  ethical problems can arise.
• ? Risk PRP introduces greater risk into
  remuneration.
• ? Representation PRP tends to individualize
  employee pay bargaining
• Freedom of conscience and freedom of speech in
  the workplace
• ? Normally guaranteed by governments
• ? Situations in business where freedom of speech
  might face certain restrictions
• ? Speaking about confidential matters related
  to the firms RD, marketing or accounting plans
  that might be of interest for competitors,
  shareholders, or other stakeholders-this
  restriction is unproblematic, since most rational
  employees would find it in their own best
  interests to comply with company policy.
• ? Some cases where those restrictions could be
  regarded as a restriction of employees rights
• ? Whistle-blowing

8

• The right to work
• ? Fundamental Human Rights
• ? The right to work in a business context cannot
  mean that every individual has a
• right to be employed
• ? The right to work should result in every
  individual facing the same equal conditions
• in exerting this right
• Employing people worldwide The ethical
  challenges of Globalisation
• National culture and moral values
• ? Different cultures will view employee rights
  and responsibilities differently
• ? This means that managers dealing with employees
  overseas need to first understand the cultural
  basis of morality in that country
• ? Raises the question of whether it is fair to
  treat people differently on the basis of where
  they live
• Cultural values individualism/ collectivism

9

• ? Relativism vs. absolutism
• ? Absolutism ethical principle must be
  applicable everywhere
• ? Relativism view of ethics must always be
  relative to the historical, social and cultural
• Context
• Some yardsticks for ethical decision-making
• ? -Start with human rights as a basic compass for
  providing direction-if a certain practice
  violates human rightacceptanceis ethically
  wrong and unacceptable.
• ? -Differences in the treatment of employees on a
  global scale are not ethically wrong but depend
  on the relative economic development of the
  country.
• The race to the bottom
• ?-Many critics argue that MNCs play a role in
  changing standards in countries
• ? -Globalisation allows corporations to have
  broad range of choice of location
• ? -Developing countries compete to attract
  foreign investment
• ? -Large investors tend to choose country with
  most preferable conditions
• ? -Lowest level of regulation and social
  provision for employee
• ? -Leads to race to the bottom in environmental
  and social standards