Human Resource Ethics:

An Examination of Key Issues

Richard P. Deja

BS-410 HR Mgt.

2/09/16

Introduction:

Today Human Resource Managers play a very important role in shaping an

organizations culture. With that responsibility HR Managers face countless issues

related to business ethics. These ethical issues can range from privacy, conflict of

interest, safety violations, discrimination/harassment, and work place diversity (Scott,

2016). It is up HR Managers to build a corporate culture that stands by ethical and

moral values, to ensure a safe and positive work environment for employees to work in.

This paper will define HRM and its importance by functions and responsibilities, explain

and provided examples of ethical issues related to organizations, and conclude with

substantial evidence why it is beneficial to adopted moral and ethical cultural

framework.

Human Resource Management:

What is Human Resource Management (HRM), and why is it important?

According to our text book Human Resource Management 13th edition, HRM is defined

as “designing management systems to ensure that human talent is used effectively and

efficiently to accomplish organizational goals” (Mathis & Jackson, p. 4). Why is HRM

important? As previously stated above, human resource managers are responsible for

connecting human talent with organizational goals (p. 41). Human resource

management does this by providing organizations with talented workers to fill vacant

positions, and provides employees with training, compensation, and safety (pp. 4-6).

Human resource managers also provides an ethical frame work for both organizations

and employees to follow, to protect them from unethical behavior - employees - or

liabilities – organizations - (p. 4). To better understand how human resource

management accomplishes this we need to know the different roles HR takes on. Our

text states that there are three typical roles – administrative, operational actions, and

strategic HR - identified for HR, and the nature and the extent of these roles are

dictated by what upper management wants (p. 26), and what competencies the HR staff

has demonstrated (p. 25). The administrative role focuses on clerical administration and

recordkeeping, including essential legal paperwork and policy implementation (p. 25).

Operational actions focuses on HR activities in line with strategies and operations that

have been identified by management, and serve as an employee champion for issues

and concerns related to employees (p. 25). Lastly, strategic human resources focuses

on helping to define strategies relative to human capital and its contribution to

organizational results (p. 25). To bring it home even further, our text book states that

human resources importance comes from seven interlinked functions that take place

within an organization (p. 5). These functions include: Strategic Human Resource

Management, Equal Employment Opportunity, Staffing, Talent Management, Total

Rewards, Risk Management/Worker Protection, and Employee/Labor Relations (pp. 5-

7). In addition, “there are eight external forces – legal, economic, technological, global,

environmental, cultural/geographical, political, and social - that affect how HR functions

are designed, managed, and changed” (p. 5).

Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM):

As we stated before, strategic human resource managers are responsible for

providing input into an organizations strategic planning, and develop specific HR

initiatives to help achieve the organizations goals (p. 38). But as we discussed before,

strategic human resource managers focus on human capital to gain or maintain a

competitive advantage for the organization (p. 40). Even the Society of Human resource

Management states that strategic human resource managers are responsible for

covering concepts and practices that guide/align with HRM values and organizations

strategic long term goals, with a focus on human capital (Society for Human Resource

Management ). This means that strategic human resource managers are in charge of

creating strategies that meet employees needs while following the organizations long

term goals (Mathis & Jackson , pp. 38-40). And to accurately do so, HRMs must

possess a wide variety of skills and knowledge related to the organization (p. 41). It is

also important to note, for these strategies to work HR managers need to work with

other managers to depict an environmental analysis (p. 44). The purpose of an

environmental scan is to pinpoint strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that

an organization could face internally - HR programs/talent pipeline - and externally -

economic conditions, political influences, and demographic changes - (pp. 43-45).

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO):

It is important for us to understand discrimination. Our text book defines

discrimination as recognizing differences among people or items (p. 74). Factors that

play into discrimination include: race, gender, age, disabilities, military experience,

religion, marital status, and sexual orientation (p. 74). Thankfully equal employment

opportunity laws prohibit this type of discrimination in certain work places (United States

Department of Labor ). From a human resource management perspective discrimination

is a huge liability, so it is important for human resource managers know all the different

discriminations laws, and set up diversity training programs to remain competitive

(Mathis & Jackson ).

Staffing:

It is important to note that the staffing function is directly correlated with the

strategic human resource management function. Human resource managers are

responsible for providing sufficient supply of qualified individuals to fill job openings

within the organization. They are also responsible for analyzing and providing data to

managers so they can accurately anticipate the future supply and demand for

employees, and whether or not there will be retention of employees (pp. 6, 146, 163).

Strategic human resource management is also used in the recruiting and selection

process when filling jobs (pp. 6-7).

Risk Management / Worker Protection:

According to our text book, risk management involves responsibilities to consider

physical, human, and financial factors to protect an organization and its individual

interests (p. 468). From that definition human resource managers focus the health,

safety, and security of their workers (p. 468). When it comes to health, human resource

managers are focused on physical and mental/emotional factors that can have an effect

on their employees (p. 486). In a working environment, it is up to human resource

managers to be able to provide their employees with the tools and techniques for

employees to use to secure their safety. Training programs would be a great example of

how human resource managers prepare their employees with proper work safety.

Outside of the working environment, human resource managers need to place incentive

programs to ensure that employees are keeping themselves physically healthy. A good

example would be having an on campus fitness center. By creating a well-structured

risk management program, the bottom line can be affected through direct savings in

workers compensation costs, civil liability damages, and litigation expenses, as well as

by increasing the likelihood of winning bids and government contracts (p. 468).

Employee and Labor Relations:

When it comes to employees rights, everything that has been discussed until

now gets tied together. But as a reminder, human resource managers are responsible

for both the organization and its employees, so when looking at the rights of employees

we have to remember that organizations have rights as well. But for this paper I will just

focus on the employees’ rights.

Within an organization, all employees have the right to privacy, fair

compensation, safety, and freedom from discrimination (FindLaw). When it comes to

privacy right, employees are protected when it comes to personal possessions,

telephone conversations, voice mail messages, and voicing complaints (FindLaw,

2016). Emails and use of the internet however can be tricky. Employees have limited

rights when it comes to email messages and internet history when using a company’s

computer systems (FindLaw, 2016). Under the U.S Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission (EEOC) Equal Pay Act (EPA), employees’ rights to fair compensation are

protected (U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ). Under the equal pay act

all forms of pay are covered including: salary, overtime, bonuses, stock options, profit

sharing, life insurance, vacation and holiday pay, cleaning or gasoline allowances, hotel

accommodations, reimbursement for travel expenses, and benefits (U.S Equal

Employment Opportunity Commission ). Under OSHA laws organizations are

responsible for providing safe working conditions for their employees (Occupational

Safety & Health Administration , 2016). It is up to human resource managers to provide

safety training and safety equipment for their employees, to ensure that the employees

themselves do not get hurt, and that the organization does not face any legal liabilities.

As we discussed before, Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws protect not just the

employees within an organization, but also those that wish to be join an organizations

work force. It is up to human resources to provide diversity training to employees, and

create a culture that welcomes diversity.

Ethical issues:

In all seven function of human resource management key ethical issues can be

seen. When it comes to strategic human resources, ethical issues such as workforce

downsizing, outsourcing, and offshoring can be very harmful to those workers that

depended on those companies for work. In the year 2000, the United States lost 5.7

million manufacturing jobs due to offshoring (Atkinson, 2013). While some could argue

that is not necessarily a bad thing, in some ways I would agree. By having less

manufacturing jobs in the United States, products can made and sold at cheaper price,

which is beneficial for both the organizations and the consumers. However for those

less educated and unskilled workers, they are now forced work two to three jobs that

only pay minimum wage. Speaking of which, another ethical issue discussed heavily

today is raising minimum wage. The United States Department of Labor calculated that

89% of minimum wage workers are in the age group of 20 and over, and out of that

56% of those worker are women (U.S Department of Labor, 2016). Since there has

been such a drastic change in our labor force due to loss of manufacturing jobs, and

ethical question would be whether or not to raise minimum wage. When it comes to

staffing and employee relations functions of human resources, discrimination is

population ethical issue. While EEO laws have been beneficial when it comes

companies not discriminating against applicants and employees, employee on

employee discrimination is another story. Employee on employee discrimination is huge

problem in today’s workforce. Examples of employee on employee discrimination could

vary from bullying to harassment. In a study done by LaVan and Martin, bullying within

the workforce is important ethical issue that human resource managers have a hard

time dealing with (LaVan & Martin, 2007). Employee on employee discrimination is also

a huge liability for organizations. It is up to human resource managers identify these

issues before they happen by creating training program that inforce employees to

respectful to others. Lastly we have the ethical issue of employee safety. Ethical issues

involving safety can range depending on the work environment. For example, a

company not providing the safety equipment or training, forcing employees to work long

hours making it impossible to sleep, and lack of video cameras or security guards to

ensure employee safety.

Reasons Why to Have an Ethical Frame Work:

The main reason for human resources to provide an ethical framework goes back

to the idea strategic human resource management. The key is aligning both the

employee’s needs and the organizations goals. Providing an ethical framework makes a

corporation more competitive and attractive, and this idea can be seen in a study done

by Faleye and Trahan (Faleye & Trahan, 2010). The study asked the question whether

or not labor-friendly corporate practices were beneficial to both the employees and the

corporation (Faleye & Trahan, 2010). The data collected suggested that labor-friendly

corporate practices were beneficial to both parties. They stated that labor-friendly

corporate practices stimulated work force loyalty, reduce turnover, increase productivity,

and improve profitability (Faleye & Trahan, 2010).

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