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Ethics in Human Resource Management

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Of all the organizational issues or problems, ethical issues are the most difficult ones to handle or deal with. Issues arise in employment, remuneration, and benefits, industrial relations and health and safety. Cash and Compensation Plans There are ethical issues pertaining to the salaries, executive perquisites, and the annual incentive plans, etc. The HR manager is often under pressure to raise the band of base salaries. There is increased pressure upon the HR function to pay out more incentives to the top management and the justification for the same is put as the need to retain the latter. Further ethical issues crop in HR when long term compensation and incentive plans are designed in consultation with the CEO or an external consultant. While deciding upon the payout there is pressure on favoring the interests of the top management in comparison to that of other employees and stakeholders. Race, gender and Disability In many organizations, until recently the employees were dif

How Much Do a Company's Ethics Matter in The Modern Professional Climate?

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Attracting the best talents to the organizations plays a major role in the success of that company more than ever in the history. The best talent doesn’t accessible with the best salary or even with other benefits. But they also look at aspects such as does the work environment feels like at home (culture) and how does the corporate ethics stand out compared to the completion in the market. What Qualifies as “Ethics”? •    Fraud and manipulation: This is obvious, but companies follow ethical guidelines that don’t involve or encourage its employees to involve in financial malpractices such as fraud, bribery or insider trading. Though the organization doesn’t follow or encourage such activities, individuals, however, could involve in such activities and the entire organizations' reputation could be on the line. Thus it is mandatory to set up strict zero-tolerance policies and take immediate disciplinary actions in such events. •    Sustainability: This refers to the practices of a

Misbehavior in Organizations

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Individuals misbehaving in organizations cause a great deal of money as well as it is pervasive. There is ample evidence that employees of organizations sabotage processes, steal from the companies, physical and psychological harassment to other employees, cheat to the government or mislead the customers etc…, which could cost a lot for the companies as well as the public. Researches have identified and categorized these misbehavior types into three main categories. 1.    Type S ‘S’ standards for “Self”; misbehavior that intends to benefit the self are falling under this category 2.    Type O ‘O’ stands for Organization; misbehavior that intends to benefit the organization falls under this category. When an employee is cheating the government or misleading a customer when handling service issues, the organization will benefit in the short-term but this is treated as misbehavior. 3.    Type D ‘D’ stands for Damage; misbehavior that intends to inflict damage is considered as type D

Justice Theory

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Rawls developed a theory of justice based on the Enlightenment ideas of thinkers like John Locke (1632–1704) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), who advocated social contract theory. Social contract theory held that the natural state of human beings was freedom, but that human beings will rationally submit to some restrictions on their freedom to secure their mutual safety and benefit, not subjugation to a monarch, no matter how benign or well-intentioned. This idea parallels that of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), who interpreted human nature to be selfish and brutish to the degree that, absent the strong hand of a ruler, chaos would result. So people willingly consent to transfer their autonomy to the control of a sovereign so their very lives and property will be secured. Rousseau rejected that view, as did Rawls, who expanded social contract theory to include justice as fairness. In A Theory of Justice (1971), Rawls introduced a universal system of fairness and a set of procedures fo

Ethics as per Society of Human Resource Management

Commonly ethics is defined as principles that govern a persons’ behavior. I believe that the path to sound organizational ethics begins with a professional who leads the human resource function of that organization. That means HR professionals bear the responsibility of building and maintaining a foundation of ethics. The worlds largest and most predominant HR professional association ‘Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) code of ethics states; “As HR professionals, we are responsible for adding value to the organizations we serve by contributing to the ethical success of those organizations”. You can find more about SHRM code of ethics in https://www.shrm.org/pages/default.aspx We accept professional responsibility for our individual decisions and actions. We are also advocating for the profession by engaging in activating that enhances its credibility and value. From my perspective, there are three principles that frame human resource ethics.