Human Resource Management is a business function that is concerned with managing relations between groups of people in their capacity as employees, employers and managers. Human resource management deals with manpower planning and development related activities in an organization. It ensures the recruitment of value driven people to ethically critical positions.
# HR ETHICAL ISSUES
Cash and incentives plans. Performance Appraisal Race, Gender, Age, and Disability Employment Issue Privacy issues Safety and health Restructuring and Layoffs
# ETHICAL DILEMMAS
FACE TO FACE ETHICS
CORPORATE POLICY ETHICS
FUNCTIONAL AREA ETHICS
# DEFINITION-ETHICS According to Compton (2007), ethics means a system of moral principles; the rules of conduct recognized; the rightness and wrongness of certain actions. Wikipedia defines ethics as "elements of professional practice that are part of dispute resolution or which have some great potential for: bodily harm, urban planning, medicine, law, politics and theories of civics. # CONTD Business Ethics can be defined as written and unwritten codes of principles and values that govern decisions and actions within a company. Business Ethics can also be used to describe the actions of individuals within an organization, as well as the organization as a whole. # ETHICS IN RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION RECRUITMENT: refers to the processes followed by organisations when they wish to attract applicants for vacant or new positions. SELECTION: follows the recruiting process with the appointment of the most suited applicant to the position.
Ethics in the field of hiring, staffing and recruitment is based on a combination of things and depends on who is actually involved in the hiring process. Certainly the job searcher, hiring manager and recruiter are just three possible people involved in a hiring decision.
# RECRUITMENT Recruitment refers to the process of finding possible candidates for a job or function, undertaken by recruiters. It may be undertaken by an employment agency or a member of staff at the business or organization looking for recruits. Advertising is commonly part of the recruiting process, and can occur through several means: through newspapers, using newspaper dedicated to job advertisement, through professional publication, using advertisements placed in windows, through a job centre, through campus interviews etc.
# CONTD. Recruitment is the process of locating & attracting qualified candidates for Job vacancies within an organization. It is the two way process- It satisfies the organization strategic requirement . It helps candidates to assess the job, the organization and whether they meet the position requirement.
# SELECTION The process of carefully screening the candidates to choose the most suitable persons for the job vacancies to be filled. It is the process of dividing the candidates into two categories, namely (a) those who are to be employed, and (b) those who are to be rejected. # It is called a negative process because unsuitable candidates are eliminated or rejected in order to identify the suitable candidates. The basic purpose of selection is to choose the right type of candidates to fill various positions in the organisation. # IMPORTANCE OF SELECTION- Selection of the right person for each job helps to improve the quantity and quality of performance. Proper selection and placement of personnel are essential for building up a suitable work-force. It helps to improve the efficiency of operations and the morale of employees. The rates of labour turnover and absenteeism can be kept low through proper selection of employees. It also assists in minimising wastage and cost of resources. Proper selection helps in building up a competent and satisfied work force.
# ETHICAL ISSUES IN RECRUITING
Organisations comprise employees who need respect as people. Streamlining has lead to downsizing or right-sizing of organisations. Those employees who are left behind often mistrust management and feel insecure about their own jobs. Job insecurity can result in stress for the employee which increases the likelihood of mistakes being made or accidents occurring. # CONTD. As organisations become more complex with fewer employees, legislative requirements become crucial to maintain the psychological well-being of employees. Legislative requirements include: EEO legislation, Affirmative Action legislation, Workers Compensation Acts and Regulations and so on. Discriminatory recruitment practices may inhibit the success of women or people from minority backgrounds, but also older applicants.
# CODE OF ETHICS FOR EMPLOYERS Treat all jobseekers equally. No discrimination based on race, origin, religious or political views, gender, age. Do not request Jobseekers to include their photos in the resume Rely only on relevant and job-related information when making hiring decisions.
# CODE OF ETHICS FOR JOBSEEKERS Ensure Resume accuracy Accept and expect employment history verification Assume personal responsibility for publishing resume, pictures and other.
# DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES RECRUITMENT PRACTICES SCREENING PRACTICE PROMOTION PRACTICES CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT DISCHARGE
# Human is the most important resource to an organization. Issues associated with human resources occur as a result of employees working together. These issues are by far the largest category of ethical dilemmas in business. Recruitment or hiring process is the first step in selecting human resource into an organization, and will significantly influence the successful performance of the organization.
# Ethics plays a very important role during the recruitment of new employees. Law and regulations dictate that we have to be ethical in hiring. However, ethical hiring practice goes beyond them as well.
It has been widely reported by many researchers that ethical hiring practices actually result in better employees being recruited.
It is therefore important that sound ethical rules are followed when hiring a new employee.
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ETHICAL RULES TO BE FOLLOWED BY AN ORGANISATION WHILE RECRUITING It is of vital importance that candidates are to be selected based on merits. Applicants are to be hired based purely on merits such as knowledge, skills, and ability in accordance to the needs of the organization. If a company provides any special considerations, for example affirmative action, where certain groups are given special considerations, these considerations should be well stated in the company's policy statement. In any case, any preferential treatment should be one that is legally allowed. # While preferential treatments to certain specific group may be allowed, there should be no discrimination to people from any other group due to race, religion, gender or even marital status. Consistency and objectivity during the recruitment process are very important. Criteria, including any changes in the criteria, used for evaluating candidates should be stated and explained to order to avoid unnecessary claim of biasness in the recruitment process. Objective evaluation results in the best employees being recruited while consistency ensures high moraleamongemployees.
# When we recruit new employees, we should tell the applicants about the true state of the organization. We should not mislead the applicants. In particular, the applicants should be told all pertinent information, including those information that are not publicly known but that will materially affect the new employee's future employment prospect with the organization. We can learn from the case involving Phil McConkey. Phil McConkey was recruited but he was not aware that the company was in the process of being taken over by another entity. One year after joining the company he lost his job with the new company. He sued the company for with-holding important information from him during the recruitment process. He won the case and was awarded cash prize.
# ETHICAL RULES CONTINUED. We should never place misleading job advertisement in order to get applications if we are offering a job contract different from what we advertised for. For instance, if we want to engage independent contractors instead of normal salaried employment. The reason why we choose to engage independent contractors is that we do not have to be burdened with high salary cost for employees that are not competent, but we are willing to compensate employees according to performance. We should always state clearly our terms of employment.In any case, we do not want to be accused of any job scam. # We have to be extra careful when we are recruiting employees from organizations that have material dealing with us include our suppliers, customers and competitors. When we employ somebody from our suppliers, the suppliers may feel that we have unethically poached their good employee. After all, it is through the working relationship we have with the suppliers that we come to know the quality of this employee. When we employ somebody from our customers we can be accused of returning favor to that person. This rule applies especially when we employ a former senior government employee that has an influence on the awards of contracts to an organization.
# ETHICAL RULES CONTINUED. Also, be careful not to employ former government employees for the purpose of lobbying for contracts from their previous government departments. At least, do not do so within the first two years of the employee leaving the government service. It is also not very wise to employ somebody from our competitors because we can be accused of stealing trade secrets from our competitors. If that employee can pass on his previous employer's secrets unethically, what is there to stop him from passing your trade secrets to others?
# CASE STUDIES
CASE STUDY 1: MAXIMISING THE FIELD- Joe has been acting as the IT manager for 18 months when it was decided to advertise the job. His Director prepared the advertisement without specifying any recruitment for qualifications or extensive experience in information technology, which had previously been part of the selection criteria. The Director decided to advertise the job internally. Joe was the sole applicant and was appointed to the position permanently without an interview.
# REMARKS
Receiving one application does not mean that is necessarily the best person for the job but could indicate that the job has not been advertised widely enough to maximise the potential field of applicants. Perceptions of favouritism may result if the job that requires technical skill, tertiary qualifications or industry knowledge is advertised without requiring such competencies. It may appear that the Director deliberately removed such selection criteria that appeared previously, but may have precluded Joe from getting the job.
# WHAT CAN BE DONE INSTEAD?
Acknowledge the importance of maximising the pool of applicants. Specifying the qualities sought from applicants, in addition to specific knowledge required, may broaden the field e.g. instead of having knowledge of a specific act, the candidate can show he/she has the ability to interpret legislation. Ensure that potential candidates are not discouraged from applying for a job for reasons other than the content of the job advertisement; for example: advertisements placed in journals to which few people have access or managers making statements regarding the competitiveness or lack of competitiveness of applicants.
# KEY SET OF VALUES
Impartiality Accountability Competition Openness Integrity # C
Recruitment and selection form a vital function any business organization, since human resource is treated as an asset of an organization, ethical issues governing recruitment and selection has to be taken into cognizance while recruiting and selecting an employee for a proposed job.
Fostering the perception of fairness in the processes of recruitment and hiring of people Formal procedures Interpersonal treatment Providing explanation # ANY QUERIES????? # THANK YOU.