Ethical Issues and Management: Hiring Management, Essay Example

Managers are required to fulfill numerous tasks and responsibilities in order to run a successful business. Hiring new employees is a responsibility that managers must have complete control over. The hiring process involves several procedures and strategies that must be followed strictly when hiring a new employee. Despite the various duties that managers must fulfill on a daily basis, the hiring process is a relatively important task that must satisfy all of the company’s needs and requirements. Therefore, managers must consider all negatives and positives when hiring a new employee.

First and foremost, ethical actions are a significant part of the hiring process. When a manager is hiring a new employee, he/she must not exemplify any prejudice and/or discrimination against any group or race. The hiring manager should always hire the individual who they feel is most qualified, regardless to their race, gender, religion and/or beliefs of an individual. The manager must find individuals that convey all the required qualifications for that specific job that he/she may be applying for. “It may seem basic, but often in small companies, employees have a wide breadth of responsibilities. If they don’t know exactly what their jobs entail and what you need from them, they can’t perform up to standard, and morale can begin to dip(The Wall Street Journal 2011).”A significant part of the hiring process is finding individuals that support the company’s visualization, values and ultimate goals, without discriminating against a specific kind of person. Therefore, the manager who hires new employees must be exceptionally cautious when hiring, especially avoiding comments, practical jokes, actions, decisions and personal opinions that can offend an individual.

An example of how particular actions and/or decisions can be misleading into a negative aspect is when an employee is fired. For example, an employee was hired within the company because she met the requirements for the company and demonstrated a great amount of experiences that the company needed. The first two weeks of working, she demonstrated excellent working skills and thrive that al employees should exemplify.  However, after the second week of her working, she began to demonstrate mediocre performance, which soon decreased to unacceptable performance for the company.  Sadly, she had to be fired from the position because she started to demonstrate intolerable behavior for the company. For example, she would frequently clock in late and would even end her shift earlier than expected, completely misrepresented herself within her application, constantly texted and/or answer her cell phone during her shift hours and wasn’t capable of doing the tasks she claimed she could do when she was hired. Therefore, her behaviors lead to her termination from the company. However, since 85% of employees within the company were males, she claimed the company was being sexist and favoring the male genders. The unhappy former employee tried to file a lawsuit, however the company gave the courts evidence of the former employees time sheets, behavior sheets and videos of the women sneaking off in the company to use her cellular device. Nevertheless, the company’s mistake in this example was not clarifying clearly why the employee was being terminated.  If the company had clarified clearly, than she wouldn’t have made any assumptions that lead to legal actions and possible negative light for the public.

Also, another ethical issue a manager may face when considering a potential employee for the company is nepotism. Nepotism is favoritism that is exhibited on an individual because he/she displays a family relationship to another individual of a higher position within the company.  Generally, if nepotism is discovered within the company, the company will be disciplined and viewed very negatively. ‘Nepotism isn’t an ethical judgment for the company for several reasons, mainly because it affects other individuals negatively. For example, employees that are working extremely hard at their job aren’t viewed positively from the managers, because the managers are constantly favoring the individual who may not be working as hard as others. “Hold regular meetings in which employees can offer ideas and ask questions. Have an open-door policy that encourages employees to speak frankly with their managers without fear of repercussion (The Wall Street Journal 2011).” Therefore, all employees will feel they are being treated equal and managers aren’t displaying any nepotism towards employees.

References

The Wall Street Journal. (2011). “Hiring and Managing Employees.”  The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 4 November 2011. <http://guides.wsj.com/small-business/hiring-and-managing-employees/how-to-hire-a-health-insurance-broker-or-agent/>.