Management of Human

Relations in Organizations
 Ethics and fair treatment at work

 Ethics refers to the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group; specifically,

the standards you use to decide what your conduct should be.
 Ethical decisions always requires normative judgments. A normative
judgment means that something is good or bad, right or wrong, better or worse.
 Ethics means making decisions that represent what you stand for, not
just what the laws are.
Ethics and Law

 Firing a 59-year-old employee with 40 years tenure without cause may be

legal, but some would view it as unethical.
 Something may be legal but unethical or even illegal but ethical.
 Ethics means making decisions that represent what you stand for, not just
what the laws are.
Ethics, Justice, and Fair Treatment

 Companies that employees view as fair and just also tend to score higher
on ethics.
 Violating moral standards often makes one feel ashamed or remorseful. If
the decision makes the person feel ashamed or remorseful, or requires
doing something with serious consequence such as murder, then, chances
are, it s unethical.
 With respect to the workplace, experts generally define organizational
justice in terms of distributive justice and procedural justice.
Ethical behavior at work

 Individual characteristics: Some people are just more

inclined to make unethical choices. The most principled people, with the highest
level of cognitive moral development, think through the implications of their
decisions and apply ethical principles.
 People at the lowest level make their ethical choices solely based on obeying
what they re told and on avoiding punishment.
 factors in making decisions include the total harm that can befall victims of
an unethical choice,
 people bring to their jobs their own ideas of what is morally right and wrong,
each person must shoulder much of the credit (or blame) for his or her ethical choices.
Cont..

 Older workers generally had stricter interpretations of ethical standards

and made more ethical decisions than did younger ones.
 Honesty testing can help pinpoint those people who are inclined to make
bad ethical choices.
Organizational factors
 The scary thing about unethical behaviour at work is that it s often not
driven by personal interests.
 For most of these employees, meeting schedule pressures, meeting overly
aggressive financial or business objectives, and helping the company
survive were the three top causes. Advancing my own career or financial
interests ranked about last
Boss’s influence

 According to one report, the level of misconduct at work dropped

dramatically when employees said their supervisors exhibited ethical
behaviour.
 Tell staffers to do whatever is necessary to achieve results.
 Overload top performers to ensure that work gets done.
 Look the other way when wrongdoing occurs.
 Take credit for others work or shift blame.
 Be dishonest
Ethics policies and codes

 An ethics policy and code is a good way to signal that the firm is serious about
ethics. For example, IBMs code of ethics has this to say about tips, gifts, and
entertainment
 codifying the rules without enforcing them is futile.
 strong statements by managers may reduce the risk of legal and ethical
violations by their work forces, but enforcement of standards has the greatest
impact.
 Ethics audits typically address topics like conflicts of interest, giving and
receiving gifts, employee discrimination, and access to company information
Organization’s culture

 company's organizational culture: the characteristic values, traditions, and

behaviours a company s employees share.
 Managing people and shaping their behaviour therefore depends on
shaping the values they use as behavioural guides.
 Clarifying expectations. First, managers should make clear their
expectations with respect to the values they want subordinates to follow.
 Using signs and symbols. Symbolism what the manager actually does and
thus the signals he or she sends is crucial.
 Providing physical support. The physical manifestations of the manager
values the firms incentive plan, appraisal system, and disciplinary
procedures.
Summarisation
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT METHODS TO PROMOTE
ETHICS AND FAIR TREATMENT

 Selection : The simplest way to tune up an organization, ethically speaking, is to

hire more ethical people. Employers can start by creating recruitment materials
that emphasize ethics
 Use honesty tests and background checks to screen out undesirables. Ask
behavioural questions.
 Fairness: Applicants tend to view the formal procedure (such as the interview) as
fair to the extent that it tests job-related criteria and provides an opportunity to
demonstrate competence.
 Applicants expect respect
 Applicants see a selection system as fair to the extent that the employer provides
useful feedback about the employee s or candidate s own performance
Disciplining an employee

 The purpose of discipline is to encourage employees to behave sensibly at work (where

sensible means adhering to rules and regulations). Discipline is necessary when an
employee violates a rule
Discipline without punishment
Employee privacy