Ethical Issues in the Work Place, Research Paper Example

Use of work time for personal issues

The ethical issue in conflict, in the work place, is the use of work time to do personal business. There is a tendency for employees to use the time designated for working to run personal errands due to spending a lot of time in the workplace. The issue is that individuals indulge in personal matters when supposed to be doing business related things.

The most common of the use of work time to do personal things is the use of the internet. Employees waste most of their time in browsing irrelevant sites instead of working productively. There is an increased tendency for employees to stray from internet sites that are work related to others that are more personal. Also, related to using work time for personal matters seen in unwarranted phone conversations (Devine et al, 2011). These consume a lot of productive work time. Personal conversations in the work place should be kept short to avoid wasting time that ought to be spent productively.  Also, employees waste some of their time playing computer games at the office and compromise their productivity at work.

Fox (2008) discussed that in order to overcome this vice, it becomes necessary to distinguish work space and personal space and set a line between the two. Personal issues should be kept personal, and individuals should avoid engaging in personal stuff at the work place. It becomes necessary also to leave professional issues at the workplace and avoid mixing the business issues to the employee’s personal life. The line between personal and workplace time and issues should be observed in order to avoid ethical conflicts in the work place.

References

Devine, T., Maassarani, T. F. & Wingand, J. (2011). The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide: A Handbook for Committing the Truth. Berrett-Koehler Publishers,

Fox, S. (2008). Business etiquette for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.