Ethical Issues in Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management-

                    HRM is Planning, organizing, directing, and controlling of the Procurement, Development, Compensation, Integration, Maintenance and Separation of Human Resources to the end that individual, organizational and social objectives are accomplished. HR is also the department that stays on top of new legislation guiding how workers need to be treated during the hiring, working, and firing process.

Ethical Issues in Human Resource

1. Employment Issues:

                    HR Professionals are likely to face maximum ethical dilemmas in the areas of the hiring of employees.

Major Challenges in this area are:

• Pressure to hire a friend or relative of a highly placed executive.
• Fake credentials submitted by a job applicant.
• Discovery that an employee who has been with the organisation for some time is skilled and has established a successful record, had lied about his/her educational credentials.

2. Employees Discrimination:

                  A framework of laws and regulations has been evolved to avoid the practices of treatment of employees on the basis of their caste, sex, religion, disability, age etc., A demanding ethical challenge arises when there is pressure on the HR manager to protect the firm or an individual at the expense of someone belonging to the group which is being discriminated against.

3. Performance Appraisal:

                      Ethics should be the basis of performance evaluation. Highly ethical performance appraisal demands that there should be an honest assessment of the performance and steps should be taken to improve the effectiveness of employees. However, HR managers, sometimes face the dilemma of assigning higher rates to employees who are not deserving them; based on some unrelated factors. 

For Example, Closeness to the top management

4. Privacy:

         The private life of an employee which is not affecting his professional life should be free from instructive and unwarranted actions.

5. Safety and Health:

             Industrial work is often hazardous to the safety and health of the employees. Legislations have been created making it mandatory on the organisations and managers to compensate the victims of occupational hazards. Ethical dilemmas of HR managers arise when justice is denied to the victims by the organisation.

6. Restructuring and Layoffs:

                         Restructurings of the organisation often result in layoffs and retrenchments. This is not unethical if it is conducted in an atmosphere of fairness and equity and with the interests of the affected employees in mind. If the restructuring company requires the closing of the plant, the process by which the plant is chosen, how the news is to be communicated and the time frame for completing the layoffs is ethically important.