Ethical Dilemma #2:

1. In this scenario there are a couple ethical issues that immediately arise, the first one

being the responsibility of the human resource manager with the safety hazard. HR managers

tend to have a bad reputation in other department’s eyes when it comes to supposedly

“unnecessary” expenses. As an HR manager it is your job to find and correct certain human

resource mistakes that often get overlooked. In this scenario that is what is happening regarding

the proposed safety correction from the HR manager to the plant manager. This is an important

topic because employees in the United States have the right to work in safe and healthy

environments, and the rules of health and safety in employment are held in high regard in the US

(DeNisi, Griffin, 2020, 2-3). The issue here is that employee safety infers that the problem

should be fixed right away, while financially common sense would say to wait so that the

company doesn’t incur an “unnecessary” expense. The second ethical issue here is the overheard

conversation of the OSHA inspector. OSHA stands for “The Occupational Safety and Health Act

of 1970” and is the standard that health and safety is held to in the United States (DeNisi, Griffin,

2020, 2-3). Is it dishonest to secretly let the plant manager know what you overheard the OSHA

inspector saying? Is it dishonest to say nothing? Should you tell the OSHA inspector who you

are and what you heard? It’s not your fault that you heard something, but is it ethical to keep it to

yourself or tell the company? Once again, our ethical dilemma falls into a grey category of “what

is right?” and we must evaluate that question to the best of our ability. When it comes to making

these decisions, we must choose the alternative that gives a greater good and lesser evil (Ethical

Dilemma, n.d.).

2. Overhearing private conversations can be dangerous territory, especially in the

business world. In our example there would be logical pros and cons to keeping the information
to ourselves verses telling the plant manager. One of the pros to telling the manager would be

that they would be more likely to take quick action on the scenario. Knowing that an inspector

was coming would be a pretty good incentive to promptly fix the problem. Another pro to

sharing the information would simply be the safety of the employees, which as a HR manager is

one of your number one priorities. The supposed cons to telling the plant manager about the

inspector visit would be the admitting that you overheard a private conversation, and ethically

that wouldn’t be the most honest way to go about finding out information. (citation?)

3. In my opinion the way that the information was received was not dishonest. If the HR

manager had snuck into the office of the inspector, that would be a whole other story. The

manager just happened to be in the room and innocently overheard a portion of a conversation.

In this scenario the information was not obtained unethically, but now that the HR manager has

the information it is their responsibility to do something with it. As an employee and HR

manager you should want what’s best for the company and the employees, so I believe it is their

duty to relay that information to the plant manager if it determines something crucial for the

company. For the sake of the company and its success, the information is valuable in the sense

that correcting the health hazard would keep them out of trouble with the inspector, and for the

sake of the employees it is also valuable because of their health and well-being. In this scenario I

would go straight to the plant manager and share the information I received while strongly

suggesting that they get the safety violation fixed for the benefit of the company and employees.

I think that most other managers would do the same because of these viewpoints I listed above.

Again, the way the information was received was not dishonest and I think people would realize

that and feel like it was their duty to inform the company. In the end the safety of people should
always be a manager’s number one priority, and loyalty and devotion to your company should

remain high on the list as well. (citation?)

 References:

DeNisi, A. S., & Griffin, R. W. (2020). HR5: human resources [5]. Boston, MA:

Cengage Learning.

Ethical Dilemma - Definition, How to Solve, and Examples. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/ethical-dilemma/