Human Resource Knowledge

Ethics in practice at workplace

While working in a corporate set up, we all tend to bend the rules a bit like rushing in late to work and giving lame excuses, quickly packing off home when the boss goes out for a meeting or even taking printout for personal use secretly. When asked about this, many employees feel that these are acceptable norms. We work at least 9 to 12 hours in a day at the workplace. So we are entitled to use office resources.

TS who works with an advertising agency usually takes home pencils from work because her little son is so excited when she gets him something from office she beams. Meanwhile MS the accountant used to use the office printer for her personal use, till she got caught. The company didn’t take drastic steps about it but she definitely was mocked at, for the deed. It was very embarrassing. After that incident she never felt like using the printer again even for official purposes, as people used to look at her and sneer.

While at work, we all have access to a lot of resources stationary utilities, items for gifting purposes and more. But how much can we take them for granted and what principles should we follow? Well, most organizations today have set pointers for their employees to follow work ethics, and also offer training to help them fall in place with it.

Workplace ethics affirms an organization’s commitment to the highest standards of integrity in working relationships with one another customers, suppliers, and shareholders. Work Ethics include the ability to work well with others, sociability, integrity, honesty, self-management and responsibility. While it is difficult to put a definition to workplace ethics, we can understand them better through a certain expected behavior and performance of people within their work environment it should be based on a person’s unswerving belief in moral benefit and its ability to strengthen his character.

Ethics are definitely yours to control, which means that you decide what your principles are and stick to them. For an individual, workplace ethics includes some generally accepted indicators. Reporting to work on time, giving advance notice while taking leave from work, respecting supervisors and other employees, looking to improve the company and one’s role in the company, not stealing from the company, going beyond what is minimally required for one’s job, following rules and policies laid down by the company, and having a positive attitude. There are also some key traits of positive ethics.

Apart from the given points of reporting on time, dependability and reliability on a broader scale integrity and honesty are the traits in question. Its important to be aligned towards the value systems laid down by the organization.

Everything from faking credentials in a resume or submitting fake reimbursement claims and proofs, to making false commitments at work, constitutes a breach of workplace ethics. The spread of technology into the workplace has given rise to several new ethical issues, which involve everything from the use of company email and equipment for personal reasons and compromising the business interests of the customer, the employer, to blaming individual errors on technological glitches.

Business pressures of the modern world stain the fabric a bit. However, strong individuals still follow their ethical codes. Hence, you will find sufficient examples of unethical as well as ethical conduct.

Many companies have work ethic codes but these are more of a framework which the employee decides what is in the best interest of individual and organizational development. Workplace ethics go beyond merely enunciating a code of ethics or policing people’s behavior. It’s about listening to one’s conscience and making conscious choices in the interest of fairness and transparency.

Youngsters entering the corporate world may not have the professional maturity to understand and abide by a laid down code of conduct. And in today’s cosmopolitan workplace people come from diverse backgrounds and their social ethics vary.

It is important to follow ethics in your workplace. It ensures that a healthy environment is maintained amongst co-workers and a basic level of discipline is instated.

On a broad scale, ethics define the culture of an organization and determine how employees interact with each other or view situations.

Individually, it helps build a certain quality of unsupervised behavior.

Workplace ethics are the cornerstone of integrity, and determine the level of trust. This trust when established sustained and nurtured, becomes the basis on which you can work together effectively, By the same token, when trust is squandered or lost, effective working relationships are destroyed.

Labels: HRM

posted by Paresh @ 9:30 PM