Employee rights and responsibilities in the workplace

Employee rights are the freedom that employee has to pursue their professional as well as personal goals without hindrance from their employer, the government, or the general public. The following are rights that apply to employees: Appointment of a committee or representative for health and safety. Employees can ask their employers to provide such if it isn’t already done. Second, the right to be informed of any conclusions reached after looking into accidents or injuries that employees have reported. Lastly, the freedom to decline reporting to work when they have reasonable grounds as to deem risk of imminent or serious injuries to their health (Joyner & Payne, 2002).

A responsibility is an obligation to perform a certain duty or task. The following are some of the responsibilities of employees: Ensure that one’s actions harm or cause no injury to others, guarantee one’s own safe and healthy working environment and report any hazards to the employer or the supervisor (Joyner & Payne, 2002).

Employer ethical responsibilities within the context of the employer employee relationship as dressed in the above scenario

Employers have ethical responsibility of ensuring that the employees’ welfare is addressed. It’s not only the question of fair working conditions or pay but rather there ought to be a real and enduring concern for the employees. An ethical employer should be willing to make policies and process implementations of policies in a manner that shows a genuine concern. Companies should not only be loyal to their employees but also the shareholders (Joyner & Payne, 2002). Employees have a right to be treated fairly and respectfully, it is therefore the responsibility of the company managers to ensure that employee rights are not abused. The employees should always feel free to raise issues that are ethical or any issues to their supervisors without fear of retaliation. Employees who mistreat their employers fail to meet their moral obligations (Trevino& Brown, 2004).

Develop one ethical business dilemma that can be used to demonstrate employee understanding of the company’s ethical standards.

A classic ethical dilemma would involve would be incase where there are policies which govern procurement and purchase of company supplies. For instance, employees are not suppose to enter into procurement relationship with external supplies or creditors for their tender. In this cases, the ethic conducts do not allow workers to engage into external parties who are being involved in direct business with the company (Joyner & Payne, 2002).

Consequently, is staffs engage with external suppliers, then they will be violating personal interests with the company. In this case, an employee is not allowed to politicized tenders on behalf of the suppliers as this will not be recommended. Any attempt to engage with them will be a breach of company loyalty and a conflict of interest between the frim and the suppliers. It is ethical that employees to not engage in matters with outsiders which can negatively influence their loyalty and commitment to the firm. Frequently, internal workers are likely to be bribed by supplier to ensure that they win the tender and this will likely to undermine their ethical conduct (Trevino & Brown, 2004).

4. Evaluate the dilemma from part a3 from a utilitarian and relativistic perspective.

The dissimilarity between relativistic and utilitarian perspective can summarized as follows, utilitarian perspective is an ethics system whereby the determination of an action as right or wrong is measured by its consequences while in relativistic perspective, an action is determined by what an individual think is right or wrong for them. Looking at the dilemma in part A3 above, from the utilitarian perspective, I feel that one does not really need study rocket science to identify the activities of the employees as not only non-ethical but wrong. A deeper look into the dilemma above, one really does not benefit as a result of the employees’ actions as the credit card can be taken but the elder might not use it and eventually it gets cut up. From the relativistic perspective, I feel the employee was left with the option as to secure a better position in the month’s sales target, anyone would have been in that situation would have done the same (Joyner & Payne, 2002).

Describe two common ethical decisions that reflect corporate ethics and responsibilities that employees can face while working in a corporate setting.

The first ethical decision that employees face is loyalty to the firm. An employee who is loyal to the firm works to meet the company goals and targets; he/she is ready to accept any changes that the company might bring such as transfers and even working overtime. Employees who express their loyalty to the firm are always rewarded, they also defend the firms’ image to the outside and portray a good one and when maligned they defend their organization. In any corporate setting, employee’s loyalty to the firm is ethical (Scholtens & Dam, 2007).

The second and common ethical decision facing employees is when it comes to the conflict of interest. Sometimes an employee’s interest conflict with that of the company. Some conflicts are major and can even tempt the employee to be disloyal to the company. An example of this would be an employee borrows loan and starts his own business which picks up and needs good time management and attention, the employee is in a conflict with working fulltime for his job or for the firm. An employee who puts the firm’s interest as key is considered to be ethical (Trevino& Brown, 2004).

Explain why each ethical decision in part 5a presents an ethical dilemma and how an individual might justify unethical behavior (e.g common excuses)

Loyalty represents an ethical dilemma to an employee as in one way a situation is presented to an employee where his integrity and loyalty is at a stake, employees with weak will may at times compromise with the situation and act disloyally to the firm, at the employees back of the mind they are aware that this is unethical. The common excuse that employees give to being disloyal is that I am a human being; no one is perfect or nobody was hurt (Joyner & Payne, 2002).

The reason as to why conflict of interest is an ethical dilemma is when situations arise whereby the employee’s individual and that of the employer’s interest seem to conflict. An employee may compromise with the employer’s interest which becomes unethical or he/she addresses the issue in a manner that both the employers and the employee interests are met. A common excuse that employees give for this unethical behavior is its too important or necessary (Trevino& Brown, 2004).

Reference

Joyner, B. E., & Payne, D. (2002). Evolution and implementation: A study of values, business ethics and corporate social responsibility. journal of Business Ethics, 41(4), 297-311.

Scholtens, B., & Dam, L. (2007). Cultural values and international differences in business ethics. Journal of Business ethics, 75(3), 273-284.

Trevino, L. K., & Brown, M. E. (2004). Managing to be ethical: Debunking five business ethics myths. The Academy of Management Executive, 18(2), 69-81.