The role of the ethics officer will be to ensure employees understand the corporate ethical policy, ensure new employees attend ethics training programs and also, ensure employees understand their rights and responsibilities as well as employers’ ethical responsibilities towards their employees. Equally, the ethical officer will also develop ethical scenarios to evaluate employees’ understanding of ethics, ethical decision making and finally, the course of action.
There are some rights extended to employees by their employer as well as responsibilities employees have to their employer. The three employees’ rights and responsibilities include the right to a safe working environment, right to fair and equal treatment employees’ responsibility to be loyal (Pearson, Seyfang, & Jenkins, 2013). A safe working environment should be the employer’s duty, ensuring employees are not exposed to hazards, dangerous conditions or any toxic substances. The employer has a responsibility to put in place relevant safety training sessions and depending on the occupation, ensure employees have protective clothing and equipment. The employer must ensure employees are equally treated and are not discriminated against either by race, gender, religion or tribe in the workplace. This also includes a right to fair wages for work performed by employees. This also includes all employees receiving equal opportunities to grow in their areas of specialisation and the ability to attain promotions. It is the employees’ responsibility, however, to be loyal to the company’s policies including complying with standards, rules and regulations issued by the ethics officer. The employee ought to be loyal by keeping the company’s secrets and not revealing them to competitors and diligently cooperate with the management to achieve its goals.
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The ethical duties/responsibilities an employer has towards an employee include familiarising/acknowledging employees ethical obligations, fostering ethical decision-making practices/culture among the employees and know how to handle issues raised in ensuring employees satisfy codes of ethics/conduct by simple virtue licensing or setting employment obligations.
Employers need to familiarise themselves with the code of ethics of their employees. Employers can do this by reviewing workplace practices about employees’ ethical responsibilities that must be fulfilled. Employers have an ethical obligation to create an ethics-friendly working environment for their employees by promoting ethical discussions, training and analysing ethical issues handled by the ethical officer. The employer can set employee welfare committee where ethical grievances and conflict resolution can be made to that may arise where an ethics complaint is filed. Finally, employers have an ethical obligation of setting ethical standards as leaders thereby being role models in their conduct to their subordinates and this will help improve good ethical behaviour.
Reflecting on my work experiences, one ethical dilemma that I have witnessed and can be used to measure employee understanding of the company’s ethical standards would be one where I was working in a consultation agency. A case where employer A in the consulting business was in need of a personal assistant due to the workload. After doing several interviews, he finally employs person X for the job in which she was to start a week later. That very week, employer A receives a call from a friend recommending person Y as an extremely qualified and competent person for the job. On the phone, employer A hesitates to give a firm decision, and on receiving person Y’s resume after much coercion, he is stunned by the perfection of Y. The dilemma then lies in selecting one who is qualified for the job or one who ethically has the first say (a first come first serve situation). This situation is not ethical because the employer in choosing candidate Y would be bias and partial. In all manner of operation, it would be unfair, wrong and illegal. This is so because if candidate X had resigned from her job for this consulting job, the agency would have a binding legal obligation to hire her and would be unethical not to do so. This decision violated the company’s policies and standards by accepting biasness and conflict of interest/commitment overrule an already made decision.
Ethical theories, utilitarianism and relativistic perspectives apply to the above dilemma. According to Tännsjö, (2013), Utilitarianism theory determines that an action can be justifiable if it increases utility. In simpler terms, it’s a form of consequentialism that judges actions primarily based on their consequences. Thus an action that will be beneficial is thus considered ethical in that society. The relativistic theory, however, states that there is no objective standard applied in judging one’s society better than another, meaning there are no moral truths for all. Thus any form of action is considered ethical depending on your perspective.
Looking at the witnessed dilemma in part A3, from a utilitarian perspective, there is enough information to judge that the employer acted unethically (Tännsjö,2013). This situation applying exclusively to a sacrificial dilemma the utilitarian perspective would be that the decision made would only be beneficial to candidate Y and at the same time disadvantage candidate X. Therefore the result was still unethical as it presented the aspect of a sacrificial lamb. Looking at relativism theory, no right or wrong is depending on society or culture. Being in a culture/society where such bias behaviour, corruption and nepotism is accepted in various workplaces, then it was ethically right to act in the manner employer A acted. Culturally being adopted, it would be up to society and what it believes to dictate ethical values.
Reflecting on my work/experience as an employee, I have faced situations where I had to make critical ethical decisions. Working as a cashier in a sports shop, I would always take advantage of client’s who overpaid for services or products and aimlessly forgot to collect their change. I saw it as a minute act that slowly became a habit for the first six months. However, I never realised the impact it would make until I received a warning letter from my sales manager one morning. The manager had been receiving complaints from customers on our company’s website of staff not returning change after sales. In the letter, he stated that I would have been relieved of my duties if the habit continues. It was until then that I made an ethical decision to always run out after a customer who would forget his/her change and if I could not reach them, I would directly call the customer to inform him or hand over to the manager.
Another ethical issue I have faced is lying on the true price of products/services in the sales department. Due to daily targets set up by the sales manager, I hiked up prices to ensure I met the daily and weekly sales target. At some point, I would even promise the clients more than what the product/service could do/deliver. Before I knew it, I was summoned to the sales manager over client complaints on the prices, and some even returned products owing not to perform as stated. It was then that I made an ethical decision always to be truthful to clients and offered to learn new selling tips to stop the vice of increasing product prices.
Ethical decisions in part A5 presents ethical dilemma and justification to support the act. Because any decision made by an employee may have two outcomes, either ethical or unethical. According to Ferrell, & Fraedrich, (2015), ‘business ethics and decision making in the global economy include best practices, ethics audits and developing disaster recovery skills in the workplace.’On The first instance, taking advantage of the customer by keeping his change is unethical of the employee. It is theft, lowers the company’s dignity and loyalty of the customer towards the company’s products. The employee can, in this case, just this behaviour by saying that the customers ‘simply were awarding him tips’ for the good customer service he offered them. He might also give an excuse of not knowing the exact prices of some of the products or services offered.
The employee who hiked product/service prices and lied potential of products offered acted unethically. This was another form of theft as it was done without consent from the management. The employee may attempt to justify his actions by saying that he only did so with one customer and the rest were genuine tips from the clients. He might also state that clients who returned products did not follow instructions stated on the product or rather he was a new staff and was not aware of the product/service pricing.
References
Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson Education.
Pearson, R., Seyfang, G., & Jenkins, R. (2013). Corporate responsibility and labour rights: Codes of conduct in the global economy. Routledge.
Tännsjö, T. (2013). Understanding ethics. Edinburgh University Press.
