Ethical Issues Faced by Human Resource

         Ethical Issues Faced by Human                                        Resource 

 There are some ethical issues in human resources 

1. Employment Issues
2. Cash and Incentive Plans
3. Privacy
4. Employees Discrimination
5. Performance Appraisal
6. Safety and Health
7. Restructuring and layoffs                                            

1. Employment Issues:

HR professionals are likely to face maximum ethical dilemmas in the areas of hiring of employees.

Major challenges in this area are:

a. Pressure to hire a friend or relative of a highly placed executive.

b. Faked credentials submitted by a job applicant.

c. Discovery that an employee who has been with the organisation for some time, is skilled and has established a successful record, had lied about his educational credentials.

2. Cash and Incentive Plans:

Cash and incentive plans include issues like basic salaries, annual increments or incentives, executive perquisites and long term incentive plans:

Basic Salaries:

HR managers have to justify a higher level of basic salaries or higher level of percentage increase than the competitors to retain some employees. In some situations, where the increase is larger than normal they have to elevate some positions to higher grades. Annual increment/incentive Plans. This situation is particularly true in case of top management executives. The fear of losing some outstanding executives, the HR managers is forced to give higher incentives to them than what the individuals actually deserve.

Executive Perquisites:

In the name of executive perquisites, sometimes excesses are often committed, the ethical burden of which falls on the HR managers. Sometimes the costs of these perquisites are out of proportion to the value added. For example, the CEO of a loss making company buys a Mercedes for his personal use or wants a swimming pool built at his residence.one out of every 40 employees in 2012 was caught stealing from their employer. Even more startling is that these employees steal 

CEO and an external consultant. Ethical issues arise when the HR manager is put to pressure to favour top executive interests over the interests of the other employees and the investors.

3. Employees Discrimination:

A framework of laws and regulations has been evolved to avoid the practices of treatment of employees on the basis of their caste, sex, religion, disability, age etc. No organisation can openly practice any discriminatory policies, with regard to selection, training, development, appraisal etc. A demanding ethical challenge arises when there is pressure on the HR manager to protect the firm or an individual at the expense of someone belonging to the group which is being discriminated against.

4. Performance Appraisal:

Ethics should be the basis of performance evaluation. Highly ethical performance appraisal demands that there should be an honest assessment of the performance and steps should be taken to , if it is conducted in an atmosphere of fairness and equity and with the interests of the affected employees in mind. the practices of treatment of employees on the basis of their caste, sex, religion, disability, age etc.  the effectiveness of employees. However, HR managers, sometimes, face the dilemma of assigning higher rates to employees who are not deserving them; based on some unrelated factors eg. closeness to the top management. Some employees are, however, given low rates, despite their excellent performance on the basis of factor like caste, religion or not being loyal to the appraiser.

5. Privacy:

The private life of an employee which is not affecting his professional life should be free from intrusive and unwarranted actions.

HR managers face three dilemmas in this aspect:

1. 
   

   The first dilemma relates to information technology. A firm’s need for information particularly about employees while on job may be at odds with the employee’s privacy. Close circuit cameras, tapping the phones, reading the computer files of employees etc. breach the privacy of employees.
2. 
   

   The second ethical dilemma relates to the AIDS testing. AIDS has become a public health problem. Whether all the new employees should be subject to AIDS test and what treatment should be melted out to an employee who is affected with the disease.The good news from the ERC study is that most American workers and employers do the right thing. The survey reveals that most of us follow our company's ethical standards of behavior, and we are willing to report wrongdoing when we see itEthical dilemmas of HR managers arise when the justice is denied to the victims by the organisation. In every organization there must be contract with hospital for there employees safety and there health.

7. Restructuring and layoffs:

Restructuring of the organisations often result in layoffs and retrenchments. This is not unethicalNo organisation can openly practice any discriminatory policies, with regard to selection, training, development, appraisal etc. A demanding ethical challenge arises when there is pressure on the HR manager to protect the  the restructuring company requires closing of the plant, the process by which the plant is chosen, how the news is to be communicated and the time frame for completing the layoffs is ethically important.