Employees’ Rights and Responsibilities vs Employer’s Ethical Responsibilities

A1.  Employees’ Rights and Responsibilities

 There are numerous rights and responsibilities of an employee in the workplace. Some are industry-specific, but most are common throughout all types of businesses. Responsibilities can be categorized as managerial and nonmanagerial, which determines the employee's role in the relationship with the principal. Such managerial and nonmanagerial responsibilities are as follows:

1. Managerial employees have a financial duty to the principal (employer).

· The employee's financial responsibility is the employee's obligation to the organization to act in its best financial interest regardless of the employee's personal views. This is significant to the principal as the employee may be the only safeguard to ensure the organization's financial status is in good standing.

2. Managerial employees have legal duties to the principal.

· There are various legal duties that employees have to the principal. One crucial duty for the continuation of organizational operations is law compliance. As with all legal duties, the employee's responsibility to comply with state and federal laws is necessary to continue business operations, further supporting the principal's interest.

3. Nonmanagerial employees must obey the directives of a principal.

· Nonmanagerial employees are contractually obligated to follow the principal’s orders with whom they have entered a contract. It is important to note that this contractual obligation is only considered when the principal's directives are job-related, reasonable, and do not violate legal or ethical duties. This employee responsibility is significant for the organization's operations as such employees ensure that the organization's workload is executed.

A2. Employers’ Ethical Responsibilities

Although employees have work-related responsibilities towards a principal, there is reciprocation in employer ethical responsibilities. Similarly, employers are required to provide their employees with a guarantee of fair and honest treatment within the workplace. Some examples of such obligations are fair pay, reasonable work expectations, safe conditions in the workplace, and having an overall concern for the employee’s well-being. Though some employer ethical responsibilities may be industry-specific, employee compensation has been a constant issue throughout various trades and businesses. Initially, wages and remuneration may seem straightforward. Although the employer should pay the employees what is owed to them, determined by workload and expertise, other details need to be considered. Wages directly impact the quality of life an employee may have, such that proper compensation may allow an employee to be the sole provider of their family or require their spouse to work to sustain their family. Wages also impact the financial viability of the organization. It may seem like an obvious choice to provide higher salaries to employees, allowing them a greater quality of life. However, suppose the pay rate of the employees within the organization is too high. In that case, the organization may find that they cannot sustain operations and have to dissolve, leaving many employees out of work, which would likely cause employees more issues in the long run.

Another ethical responsibility of the employer is reasonable work expectations. This ethical responsibility has been an issue within many sectors of the corporate world, particularly in competitive and fast-paced industries. It is easy for employers to blur the line between employee work expectations and excess. Unfortunately, employers may be oblivious to the mistreatment and likely direct the unreasonable work towards hardworking, top employees. Such is the case within the entertainment industry. The level of perfection, fast turnover rates, and bragging rights has created a marketing factory where employees are expected to make quality creative media and print content weekly for multiple clients. In developing and maintaining client relations, the employer may forget that there is also a duty to provide reasonable work expectations and neglect to check in on employee well-being. Establishing a clear job description and workload is the first step towards ethical treatment of employees; however, employers and managers should take further action to maintain such expectations and prevent excessive ones. Finding the synergistic balance between employee well-being and sustaining the organization is key to optimizing the employer’s ethical responsibilities.

A3.  Ethical Business Dilemma

As the organization’s moving parts have different goals and priorities, it is understandable that ethical dilemmas will come up sooner or later. Though there are some established legal protections for preventing some ethical dilemmas, for example, non-discrimination laws and OSHA compliance laws, such protections are not failproof. For example, an employee at a local grocery shop decides to lie about the delivery dates of certain baked goods. A few customers notice no “sell by” or “consume by” labels on any baked good packages and ask the employee when the products were delivered. The employee decides to relay the most recent delivery date even though some goods were from a batch before. This employee’s action results in the misappropriation of customer trust, lack of respect and responsibility for customer wellbeing, and can potentially besmirch the organization’s reputation.

A4.  Ethical Business Dilemma: Evaluation

For a deeper understanding of the reasoning behind the employee's actions, it is necessary to fully grasp the concept of the ethical theories of utilitarianism and relativism. Utilitarian ethics is the idea that choices are determined by the consequences of individuals/groups' decisions. This theory can be described further by the application of "maximizing overall good." (DesJardins, 2014) The utilitarian theory differs from the theory of relativism as relativism is based on the individual's experience (e.g., culture, society, religion, etc.) and creates the argument that ethical judgments are neither rational nor objective. (DesJardins, 2014) By referencing utilitarianism and relativism, management can begin to analyze the employee's action and evaluate based on those theories. Without proper documentation by the supplier, the employee is the sole provider of information that customers use to determine whether to purchase the goods. Understanding that the customer is more likely to buy fresher goods, the employee may decide that lying about the delivery dates is ethically acceptable to prevent food waste and increase sales. This possibility behind the employee's action is based on the utilitarian ethical theory. The employee's desire to avoid food waste aids in the push for a more sustainable future while increased sales may directly affect employee bonuses, compensation, and the organization's health, not to mention it is unlikely that the customer will know the difference. Additionally, the employee may have grown up in a culture that isn't accustomed to perishable foods and may believe that expiration/best by dates are arbitrary, especially with processed baked goods preserved with high amounts of sugar. Although the employee knows that such dates are required by state law, they have consumed food past its shelf life without a problem. Relative to their personal beliefs and experience, the employee may determine that lying to customers is an ethical decision.

A5.  Ethical Decisions Employer and Employee Perspective

1. Abusive behavior.

One ethical dilemma that can occur within the workplace is abusive behavior, typically associated with discrimination. For example, businesses that hire undocumented employees may initially desire to aid in the betterment of and provide a source of income for such persons. However, without the protections of state and federal laws, mistakes made by undocumented employees may result in improper employer retaliation, such as verbal abuse and discrimination. This tactic is extremely prevalent with older employers that use berating to humiliate an employee for desired performance.

2. Stealing from the company.

Another ethical dilemma that may happen within the workplace is company theft. Theft can be done in various ways, such as physically stealing (paper, pens, other materials, or resources) or more intangible forms such as stealing company time. This issue applies now more than ever to the workplace today as many companies have opted to allow employees to work from home as the economy opens post-COVID lockdown. Working from home essentially removes the possibility of physical stealing but increases the likelihood of employees using company time for personal matters.

A6.  Ethical Decisions: Explanation

1. Abusive behavior.

Abuse, particularly verbal, may be used by employers to correct the continuous mistakes of an employee. An employee's repeated mistakes may frustrate management or the employer. Driven by impatience and lack of understanding, an employer or management justifies the abuse when all other methods have failed. In some cases, what may seem like verbal abuse to some may be quite the norm in the originating countries of such employees. For example, the cultures in various Asian countries promote such abusive disciplines and are accepted forms of work correction. Regardless of the reasoning behind the abuse, the company or abuser risks potential legal action or retaliation, especially if the employee is abused frequently and repeatedly.

2. Stealing from the company.

Employees who steal from the company are likely to do so unintentionally. During work, especially in fast-paced environments, employees are likely to be on "auto-mode." In such cases, employees may habitually pocket a pen after writing down a note or improperly document hours on a timesheet. Some theft, however, is done intentionally. Employees who clock in early and clock out late working their minimum hours but are paid an additional 30 minutes every workday steal company time and money. Some employee rationalization is their feeling of being under-compensated. Similar rationalizations like low morale or disapproval of company culture may push employees to steal from the company through bagging snacks for home use, prolonging break time, or falsifying overtime. The aggregate loss of all theft may result in severe consequences such as downsizing or bankruptcy.

References

DesJardins, J. R. (2014). An introduction to business ethics. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.