The United States is a great example of a country that has become a melting pot of cultures and people. This diverse group of people is also evident in the workplace and proper practice of diversity and inclusion therefore becomes necessary. However many employers still have problems with recognising how diversity and inclusion could make for a better workplace environment. For a country like this that will always be filled with a myriad of races and cultures, how then can employers ensure that they not make unethical decisions regarding employees that do not fit in to their own little box of personal standards. While many issues come into bear when dealing with business ethics and diversity, affirmative action seems to be the most relevant. By the existing law an organization cannot discriminate by religion, race, gender or ethnicity when hiring an individual. To do this would be both unlawful and unethical. Business management has to ensure that their dealings are transparent and fair with regards raises, promotions, extracurricular activities and terminations amongst others. Such choices have to be seen to be free from discrimination or then they become unethical.
As individuals we go into the workforce with high hopes and colourful dreams but we get brought down to earth when we see and experience how badly diversity is handled in the workplace. People are different and that is a statement of fact – whether it is as a result of religion, race, gender or sexual orientation. There will always be things that separates us but it is always how these things are handled that will eventually determine what binds us together. Offices today are known to participate in the occasional happy hour and like any other human, people tend to be loose lipped when they do drink and the same happens during office happy hours. Such discussions as innocent as they may seem at the time may involve middle or top management discussing ways to move the company forward and provide pointers to the junior staff present at the gathering and some may actually take these pointers to heart and make something of themselves with it. However if this company has some Muslim staffers whose religions frowns at alcohol consumption, they will tend not to attend such gatherings and they may in turn miss out on future available opportunities. Examples like this shows that unethical behaviour with regards to diversity does not always have to be done knowingly as it may happen without much knowledge. It is however the duty of those in management to ensure that such opportunities do not arise and that they rather try to practice events that promote inclusion.
How Values and Culture Affect Ethical Decision Making
Ethical standards are usually accepted as good by the majority and they are defined by location. While there are some ethical standards that are seen as good behaviour worldwide, there are some ethical standards that may work in America where their standards are based off Judeo-Christian principles but will not work in a country like Iran where their standards are based off the Sharia law. Regardless of where one is, society has been structured in a way that failure to abide by these ethical standards usually leads to imposed sanctions. Making decisions that are considered ethical involve choice and balance and one usually finds themselves asking the question – what would someone considered reasonable do in such a situation. While the question above could help direct one in the right path with regards such decisions, there are other questions that could be answered that would help one ensure that their actions are indeed ethical. Such questions are –
- Do I make my gain at the expense of someone else?
- If everyone did what I am doing how would the world be?
- Do the benefits outweigh the burden?
Values on the other hand manifest themselves as perceptions in our grown up selves but are basically acquired in our childhood. They involve emotion, thoughts and choice of response and they colour the way we view the world we live in. We therefore need to realise in our dealings with others that their values may very well be different from ours and the fact that we share different values does not in any way mean that one of us has to be wrong. In cases like these ethical standards need to be addressed in a way that both parties understand what is expected of the society they are in. Using education as an example, our schools in North America frown at plagiarism but there are some countries where rote learning and memorization are the norm. Such students will come to our campuses and not understand why they are graded as wrong for giving an answer that was correct when the original author wrote it. This is where ethical behaviour comes into play and that student needs to be told that reciting someone else’s work as yours is not considered right in this society as people own the rights to their works. They have to acknowledge that even though they have chosen that answer to be correct, they did so by agreeing with the works of the person they have cited.
Conclusions
Ethics and diversity will always be related as they affect the choices we make in life. In ethics and diversity we are not so much as looking for the right and the wrong way of doing things, but we are instead trying to understand that differences exist as we try to accept them. Ethics ensures that we bide by such principles as fairness, compassion and respect for others. Proper practice of diversity helps us honour the differences that people possess and how proper appropriations of those differences do make us stronger. This therefore means that while two people in exactly the same situation may want different things, one is no more right than the other. Hence while the white man may have voted for President Obama because he seems as intelligent as his other white friends, the African American woman may have voted for him because he is black and she wanted to have to tell her children that she participated in history in America. The right ethical decisions therefore come into play in the way the President deals with not only the diverse people that may have voted for him for different reasons that they all considered right but rather how he deals with a country that is multiculturally diverse at best.
We value diversity when we accept the fact that people are different from us and ensure that no one is shut down as a result. People need to realise that they can speak up without feeling segregated or maligned. This is very important in the workplace as only then can diversity have an opportunity to be an advantage in the workplace. It therefore is not just the duty of management to ensure that the workplace practices acceptable ethical behaviour but rather the duty of everyone to ensure that while they are free to express and celebrate their differences and diversity, they also understand that they act in a manner that makes it possible for their colleagues to express their own differences without feeling singled out.
