Human Resource Management deals mainly with manpower planning and development related activities in any organization. It is these branches where ethics really matter, since it concerns issues like compensation, development, industrial relations, etc.
Ethics in general, refers to a sense of right and wrong, and goodness and badness of actions. The same meaning applies to business ethics too. Business ethics stems from religion, cultural experience and legal system.
A famous Chinese curse reads: May you live in interesting times!
There is no more challenging and interesting time than the ones we live in today. In today’s business arena, ethics are both important and vital if one has to succeed over the long run. Morals, values, standards and ethics are interestingly complex in the postmodern society. This affects the managers in HR, where decisions will affect people’s jobs and their future employment.
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. Inevitably, this process may raise questions about what the respective responsibilities and rights of each party are in this relationship, and about what constitutes fair treatment. These questions are ethical in nature.
‘All HR practices have an ethical foundation. HR deals with the practical consequences of human behavior’. (Johnson, 2009)
HR management requires more than mere operational systems that satisfy the basic functions of HR management. HR management has to meet strategic business demands. It is necessary for the HR management teams to proactively address business realities, focus on future goals, develop workforce compensation initiative, and proper systems to monitor performance.
HR management teams must be able to objectively examine their hiring, diversity, and job discrimination practices to ensure they are operating ethically, while meeting the challenges of the dynamic business climate.
The most basic task of HR manager is hiring. HR managers strive to hire individuals who will enable or say benefit to organization to produce products or services it seeks. The normal hiring process includes screening, testing and interviewing. Each of these processes has its own moral aspects, and which the managers must take into consideration in order to shortlist down to its future employee. The main moral concern in screening is wrongful discrimination. Aspects such as age, race, national origin, religious and gender discrimination, of the screening process are what the managers must ensure to avoid unintentional discrimination against potential employees. Testing is an important and an integral part of hiring process. But during interviews, the interviewer is to avoid rudeness, coarseness, hostility and most importantly personal biases.
We can see ethics provide a set of principles that individuals and groups use to determine what is right or wrong. An ethical perspective is multi-dimensional. It takes into consideration fairness, social responsibility, truthfulness. Etc. For example, an employer may have right to terminate employee but the manner and method of termination must however be to the ethical standards and expectations of a workgroup.
In order to have a proper body behind organizations to aid them, the Society of Human Resource Management was formed and the codes of ethics that are placed under them are followed. These codes of ethics offer guidance in the areas of professional responsibility, professional development, ethical leadership, conflicts of interest, and use of information. These codes of ethics bring out expectations that an HR professional:
· Practice HR at high level of professional competence
· Serve as a role model for others to follow in ethical matters
· Encourage fairness and justice
· Add value by contributing to the ethical success of their organization
· Honor the rights of individuals with regard to use of information, and
· Protect the legitimate business interest of stakeholders
HOW TO ACHIEVE SUCH ETHICAL STANDARDS?
There are different ways by which such ethical standards can be achieved within the organization. At recent times interactive training methods that allow participants to approach ethical issues actively through case analysis or solving dilemmas produce the most positive perceptions and attitudes towards the organization.
· Perceived organizational support for ethics contributes much more to favorable ethical outcomes than does any type of training method
· Exposure to multiple training methods over the course of a year has a significantly greater impact on favorable outcomes
· Organizations that use online training programs as their ethics training efforts should consider adding regular discussions within the organization itself.
· We have seen how important is ethics in an organization and therefore such ethics focus model should flow down from top level managers to all organization levels.
From what we know that is happening globally to organizations steps are taken to improve the ethical issues, so that their outcome physically and mentally is at a much higher rate. Ethical models are constructed and implemented in various organizations around the world. We should understand that now survival fights amongst companies across the globe, and in order to have a very free flow and less negative outcome HR management should be of very high level. Ethics is a full time responsibility. As for HR managers they should invest time to learn more about the principles of ethics. Effective ethical policies in place are holistic approach to the business growth.
References:
· Book – Hindu Speaks on Management
AUTHOR - NITIN GANGADHARAN PANICKER
COLLEGE - AMRITA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, BANGALORE
EMAIL ID - nitingangu89@gmail.com
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