Ethical Dilemma in The Workplace, Essay Example

The current labor force is characterized by talent diversity in terms of culture, socioeconomic status, nationality, education background age and religion among others. The diverse people in the work force exhibit diverse values, background as well as goals which cerates a wide range of perceptions of behaviors that are generally acceptable in the work place. Consequently, there arises a complexity in the ethical dilemmas that forces the management to come up with codes of ethics (Gray & Herr, 1998). Ethical dilemmas involve a wide range of dealings coupled with corresponding consequences of the actions. An ethical dilemma in the workplace of importance in this paper is conducting of personal business in the workplace.

Conducting Personal Business in the workplace

Majority of workers are deeply engrossed in their places of work for the greater part of their time during the weekdays. Their weekends are equally demanding as they are expected to participate in their family obligations. In most cases therefore, the employees can not escape some ethical dilemmas. Due to the extended time span that they are expected to be at their places of work, the temptation of performing personal business during the working hours becomes inevitable. The use of office computers and the company’s internet connection for freelance business is a common occurrence with most workers. This is an ethical dilemma with practically clear conscience about the abuse of company assets. It also equates to violating the public trust and a theft of time as well as money from the work place. This is a workplace problem that is common among most employees and it costs the employer huge sums of money in terms of wasted time and salary (McCabe & Pavela, 2004).

This ethical dilemma intersects with personal values of the employees. According to the opinion of some employees, the behavior is harmless and has least implications on the level of productivity as well as job performance. Other employees would perceive the wasted time as creative down time and it translates to innovative ideas in business and the industry (Gray & Herr, 1998). However, the truth of the matter is that the employer incurs losses out of this wasted time which is extremely destructive to the economy. There is also the possibility of damaging the potent work ethic which is a requirement of the working population (McCabe & Pavela, 2004).

It is important to consider solving the ethical dilemma for the benefit of the smooth running of the company activities. Employees need to learn to apply employability skills which include honesty, working cooperatively, avoiding pride in the work place, respecting other people, learning to be dependable people, taking responsibility for individual actions, loyalty and integrity at work (Gray & Herr, 1998). Business managers should train their employees skills of critical thinking to facilitate for making of decisions in an ethical manner. The skills are beneficial towards resolution of ethical dilemmas that are evident in the work place

Moral philosophy in the work place

To most workers, application of moral philosophy is problematic based on the fact that the discussion is done in a logical and coherent detail aiming at proving the truth associated with a moral action. Most ethical dilemma requires application of moral philosophy so as to determine the difference between right and wrong (McCabe & Pavela, 2004). Through moral philosophy, it is possible to systematize, recommend or defend an ethical dilemma as a right behavior or a wrong one.

References

Gray, K., & Herr, E., (1998). “The mission of Workforce Education”. Workforce education the basics. MA: Allyn & Bacon.

McCabe, D., & Pavela, G. (2004). “Ten updated principles of academic integrity”. Change, 36(3), 10-21.