In modern management, ethics has assumed a central and integral position. It has become essential for employees to conform to ethical standards and norms. This has been facilitated partially by the aggressive and informed character of the market. In that context, it has become apparent on the management to ensure compliance to ethics. This paper examines some of the managerial practises in relation to the realization of ethical goals.
In the modern management, it is the position of this paper that an ethics test would be essential during the recruitment and consequential deployment of employees and partners. This arises from the difference in viewpoints on what exactly ethics entails and the core values and principles attendant to ethics. It would be prudent as a manager to issue tests so as to determine the viewpoint of the potential recruit and relate to your own personal or organizational viewpoints. This would be essential in the realization of the overriding objectives as far as ethics is concerned. In the long run, management and organizational operations would be effective if the entire lot of personnel agree in terms of what ethics entails and the core values and requisites.
In addition, it would be equally important to audit employee performance and conduct in the face of an ethical dilemma. Ordinarily, employees find it difficult to implement their own opinions and beliefs when confronted with dilemmas. In many cases, employees would succumb to the pressures of the system and the short term rewards that accompany non-ethical decisions. With that in mind, it would be prudent and effective for the management to carry out an analysis to examine the performance, behaviour and conduct of an employee in the midst of an ethical dilemma. Equally important would be the need to provide a facilitating environment that would encourage good conduct and adherence to ethical values and principles. The employee would in most cases act in accordance to the likely facilitation by the ensuing environment. It would be important, therefore, for the employer or manager to find out the prevailing circumstances and offer a helping hand in the implementation of ethical norms and principles especially in cases of ethical dilemmas.
The place of employer-employee trust and employee loyalty is equally important and relevant in modern management. It is a bonus on the management to have employees who conform to negotiated terms and the attendant rules of engagement. Every employer should purpose to earn the loyalty and respect of the employee so as to facilitate compliance and respect to negotiation terms. However, it is the responsibility and duty of the employer or the manager to ensure that the negotiated terms are respected and fully conformed to by the employees. In that line, the employer is at liberty to undertake any regulatory and supervisory activities that are intended to ensure the negotiated terms are respected. As an employer, it would be essential to verify that the employee respects the negotiated terms. It amounts to managerial fallacies to assume that the employees would fully respect the negotiated terms and thereby fail to undertake action that seeks to verify compliance and respect. In addition, given the nature of managerial tasks, verification falls within the province of management. Managers are expected to approach employee evaluation and appraisal with professional skepticism. The consequence of professional skepticism is that an employer and or manager must not approach employee evaluation from a point of trust. He must give the necessary lassitude that the employee being the human he is, is able to corrupt the systems and assume an unethical character. In that regard, the role and place of verification of respect and compliance to the negotiated terms cannot be overlooked. It must be fully incorporated within the systems and framework of managerial operations.
As suggested previously, ethics vary as they are diverse in nature. In that context, it is possible as a manager and or employer to encounter situations in which the employees believe that they should be held to different standards as opposed to the common holding. In that regard, it would be prudent for the one to examine the relevance and essence of the employees’ viewpoint. One needs to assume an objective approach to make sense of the employees’ believes. In modern management, success of organizations depends of how accommodative and inclusive managers are in relation to employee relations. One consequently needs to be alive to employee needs, desires and believes. However, this must be exercised with a professional discretion that creates and maintains a balance between the employees’ believes and organizational objectives. The best approach entails the position that strikes a compromise between the employees’ viewpoints and believes and the overall organizational objectives. It is advisable that a manager takes into consideration reasonable and realistic demands and believes of the employees. In overall, it is the position of this paper that employees’ believes on different ethical standards needs to be entertained to the extent of consistency with the overriding organizational objectives.
References
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Lewicki, R. J., Barry, B., & Saunders, D. (2010). Negotiation. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Moe, T. M. (2009). Organization Theory : From Chester Barnard to the Present and Beyond: From Chester Barnard to the Present and Beyond. In O. E. Williamson. Cambridge: Oxford University Press.
