The other day we approached the idea of ethics in the workplace, breaking the concept down into three main categories. Today I’d like to take a look at how you, or your organisation, treat your employees.

When you consider whether or not you are treating employees in an ethical manner, you have to take a look at your main managerial roles. They are to hire and/or fire employees, make sure they are given fair wages and safe working conditions, to protect their rights to privacy, and to treat them with respect.

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

What happens when you hire an employee with a bad attitude or with a different set of religious values that make you or other employees uncomfortable? Can you fire him? Most people might agree that if an employee doesn’t “fit in” with the work group, he or she will not be successful. The problem is in the fact that whether or not you all get along with each other has nothing to do with whether or not your employee is doing his job effectively. What if that same employee was the best research assistant in the entire department, working at twice the rate of your other employees? Is it fair to discriminate against him just because he has follows a different religious path or has a surly attitude?

Another example of poor ethics is displayed when one demographic group is paid less for the same job as another. Women and immigrants, for example, may find they are making much less than men in the exact same roles with the exact same job duties. In some countries, the difference in pay ranges from anywhere from an astounding 25 to 50 percent.

What if, as a manager, your employee discloses some information about his medical history or personal life? He may need to give you this information so that you can work with him on a schedule or work load change, but should the information go any further than your office? In most cases it should not, but in many instances that information makes it to the water cooler, where mangers swap stories about their employees. One person vows the next person to secrecy, and so on – until the entire office knows someone else’s personal information. Not only was the sharing of information unethical, but it was a blatant breach of privacy.

Neither of these situations is fair to the employees who are being judged. If your employees feel as though they can’t trust their manager or company, they’ll begin to develop an attitude of discontent. No one wants to work in an unethical environment.

Make sure that proper ethics courses are included in your new hire and management training programs. Acting properly will save you and your company a lot of time and aggravation.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

We’re going to spend a bit of time this week discussing ethics in the workplace. As a manager, the ethics you portray, or the way you behave, has a direct impact on the reputation of your company and your ability to build a team.

There are three main things you need to keep in mind when it comes to ethics and the way they impact the workplace:

1. How does the company treat its employees?
2. How do the employees treat the company?
3. How do the company and its employees treat the rest of the world?

As a manager, you represent the company. The actions and displays of morality you personally make are going to play a significant role in the way the company is perceived by both other employees and the outside world.

Over then coming days we’ll take a closer look at different facets of managerial ethics. Hopefully you’ll be able to identify changes you need to make in your workplace before they ruin your business or team.

Let me know if you have any current ethics concerns within your workplace. Leave a note in the comments or click the box on your right to ask me a question. We’ll do our best to help.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”