Handling ethical dilemmas
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Ethics at Work
• Are you are a person of integrity and do you bring your
highest standards of ethics to your workplace each day?
• Reassess yourself
• Despite hundreds of pages of policies, codes of ethics,
code of conduct, organizational values, and carefully
defined work environments, company cultures, lapses in
workplace ethics occur every day.
Ethics at Work
• The lapses are from: inappropriate officer behaviors,
insider stock tradings, expense account frauds, sexual
harassments, and conflict of interests.
• Lapses in workplace ethics do not need to rise to that level
to impact the workplace environment to employees.
Surprisingly, ethics can occur because of simple issues
such as use of toilet, copy machines, and lunch place.
• Here are some examples of employees failing to practice
fundamental workplace ethics:
Ethics at Work - Examples
• The Compnay’s washroom is dirty. Without thought for the needs
of the next employee, you go back to work rather than
addressing the issue.
• You call in sick to your supervisor because you are in the mood
to go to picnic or shopping.
• You engage in an affair with a married co-worker, thinking that
no one at work will ever know. You are in love! and you think
you can get away with it as its your personal matter. The affair
will not impact other employees or the workplace.
• You place your dirty cup in the lunchroom sink. With a guilty
glance around the room, you find no one watching and quickly
leave the lunchroom / pantry.
Ethics at Work - Examples
• Your company sponsors events, activities, or lunches and you
give consent but fail to show up. Conversely, you fail to sign up
and show up anyway.
• You tell potential customers that you are the Vice President in
charge of something. When they seek out the company VP at a
trade show, you tell your boss that the customers must have
made a mistake.
• You work in a restaurant in which wait staff tips are shared
equally, and you withhold a portion of your tips from the
common pot before the tips are divided.
• You have sex with a reporting staff member and then provide
special treatment to her / him.
Ethics at Work - Examples
• You take office supplies from work to use at home because you
justify, you often engage in company work at home, or you
worked extra hours this week, and so on.
• You spend several hours a day using your work computer to
shop, check out sports scores, pay bills, do online banking, and
surf the news headlines for the latest celebrity news and political
opinions.
• You use up the last paper in the printer, and you fail to replace
paper leaving the task to the next employee.
• You hoard supplies in your desk drawer, so you won’t run out
while other employees go without supplies they need to do their
work.
Ethics at Work - Examples
• You overhear a piece of juicy gossip about another
employee and then repeat it to other co-workers. Whether
the gossip is true or false is not the issue.
• You tell a customer or potential customer that your product
will perform a particular action when you don’t know if it
will, and you didn’t check with an employee who does.
• You allow a equipment part that you know does not meet
quality standards leave your workstation and hope your
supervisor or the quality inspector won’t notice.
• You claim credit for the work of another employee, or you
fail to give public credit to a co-worker's contribution, when
you share results, make a presentation, turn in a report or
in any other way appear to be the sole owner of a work
product or results.
Basic Workplace ethics
1. Rules and regulations ought to be same for everyone.
Everyone needs to attend office on time irrespective of
their designation, distance of their home from the
workplace, salary or status even if he is the boss. (Salary
cut?).
2. Company’s policies need to be communicated clearly to
each and every one.
Transparency throughout hierarchy.
Basic Workplace ethics
3. An organization ought to respect its employees to
expect the same in return. Rules and regulations should not
be too rigid. Don’t expect an employee to attend office two
days before his/her marriage date or he/she unwell.
4. Money is a strong motivator for employees. Do not
unnecessary hold their salaries for a long time unless there is
really shortage of funds. Clear conveyance and mobile bills
at the earliest.
Basic Workplace ethics
5. Organization should not expect employees to attend
office 365 days a year. Prepare the holiday calendar at the
beginning of the year and circulate the same among all
employees. Let employees enjoy their respective festivals and
come back to work with positive energy. Ask them to
organize pre-festival bashes at the workplace. Let them dress
in colourful attires and have fun. Work never suffers this way.
Rather, employees feel attached to the organization and
strive hard to deliver their level best.
6. Give employees the space they require. Organizations
need to give at least six months time to the new employees
to adjust in the new environment.
Basic Workplace ethics
7. Salaries: Employees crib when they are underpaid.
Salaries should be decided: in presence of the employee
individual’s role in the organization gross salary in the
previous organization responsibilities within the current
system his/her years of experience.
8. Major reasons to quit their jobs after a year or so is: Poor
appraisal system. Increments ought to be directly
proportional to the amount of work an employee puts in
through out the year and also his/her performance.
9. Another reason is: Unnecessary favours are against the
workplace ethics.
Basic Workplace ethics
10. Do not be too strict with your employees. Do not block
all social networking sites. Blocking facebook etc. is not the
ideal way to ensure employees are working and not wasting
their time.
Even a 24 * 7 check would not prevent employees from
wasting their time unless and until they realize it
themselves. The moment, you are strict with something,
people would tend to do the same more.
Resolving an Ethical Dilemma
• Problem with ethical decision making is that a decision in
itself cannot be taken in a vacuum; one single decision
affects lots of other decisions and the key is to strike a
balance to ensure a win-win situation is arrived upon.
• Though there are no golden rules to resolve ethical issues
but managers can take a number of initiatives to resolve
ethical issues.
• Brief description of the steps to resolve issues:
Six Steps To Resolve Ethical Dilemmas
1. Identify the Problem
A. Gather as much relevant information as possible.
B. Talk to the parties involved.
C. Clarify if the problem is legal, moral, ethical or a
combination.
2. Identify the Potential Issues Involved
A. List and describe the critical issues.
B. Evaluate the rights, responsibilities and welfare of
those affected by the decision.
C. Consider basic moral principles of autonomy,
beneficence, non-maleficence and justice.
D. Ascertain the potential dangers to the individuals,
department or college.
Six Steps To Resolve Ethical Dilemmas
3. Review Your Organization’s Code of Ethics, Policies and
Relevant Laws
4. Evaluate Potential Courses of Action
A. Brainstorm ideas.
B. Enumerate the outcomes of various decisions.
C. Consider the consequences of inaction.
5. Obtain Consultation
A. Colleagues or a supervisor can add an outside
perspective. It’s a serious warning sign if you don’t
want to talk to another person about actions.
B. You must be able to justify a course of action based
on sound reasoning.
Six Steps To Resolve Ethical Dilemmas
6. Determine the Best Course of Action
A. Map out the best way to resolve the problem (e.g.,
who should be contacted first if multiple parties
are involved? Do you need outside support? Do
you need to talk to a supervisor?).
B. Then consider who should know about
the problem (such as a work supervisor, friend,
administrator or colleague).
