Human Resources Management

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Building Positive Employee Relations

(Session 13&14)
Define Employee Relations
Employee relations is managerial activity that involves establishing and maintaining the
positive employee-employer relationships that contribute to satisfactory productivity,
motivation, morale, and discipline, and to maintaining a positive, productive, and
cohesive work environment.

Build Positive Employee

The example of building positive employee relations is providing good training, fair
appraisals, competitive pay and benefits, and employee fair treatment program.

Employee Relations Program

Fair treatment
- Reflects concrete actions such as “employees are treated with respect” and
“employees are treated fairly”.
- There are two forms of justice:
a. Procedural justice
Refers to justice in the allocation of rewards or discipline, in terms of the
procedures being evenhanded and fair.
b. Distributive justice
Refers to a system for distributing rewards and discipline in which the actual
result or outcomes are evenhanded and fair.
Communications program
- Example: open door policy, employee handbook, email, hard copy memoranda, focus
group, ombudsman, suggestion boxes, telephone, messaging, web-based hotlines, and
exit interviews.
Develop employee recognition programs
- Example: employee awards
Develop employee involvement program
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- Employers encourage employee involvement in various ways, such as focus group,
suggestion team, problem-solving teams, quality circle, self-managing team, etc.

Ethical Behavior
Ethical organization
- Ethics are “the principle of conduct governing an individual or a group”, the
principles that people use to decide what their conduct should be.
What shapes ethical behavior at work?
1. The person (bad apples)
2. Situations (bad cases)
3. Company environment (bad barrels)
- Pressures
- Organizational culture
How can managers create more ethical environment?
- Reduce pressures
- “Walk the talk”
How can HR managers create more ethical environment?
- Institute ethical policies and codes
- Enforce the rules
- Encourage whistleblowers
- Foster the right culture
- Hire right
- Use ethics training
- Use rewards and discipline
- Institute employee privacy policies

Business Ethics
Definition
Business ethics are a normative that defends moral rules and moral judgements.
The ethical culture drivers are the employee commitment and trust, investor
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Saturday, November 13, 2021
loyalty and trust, and customer satisfaction and trust. Because in the end of the
day the trust can affects the company’s profits.
Benefits of business ethics
1. Employee commitment and trust
The employee will trust the company and their work productivity and loyalty will
increase
2. Investor loyalty and trust
3. Customer satisfaction and trust
When we have a good ethics, customer will trust us more

Where do Ethical Standards Come From – Are They Universal or Dependent on Local
Norms?
Source of ethical standards
1. The school of ethical universalism
We need to be honest, treat other people well, fair to everyone, regardless their
skin color, nationality, etc.
- How we behave to respect someone.
2. The school of relativism
Example: different ethics in Muslim tradition and Christian tradition
- There are different standards in different places, cultures, and group of people
- Examples:
Variations in ethical standards
1. The use of underage labor
2. The payment of bribes and kickbacks
3. Relativism equates to multiple sets of standards
4. The use of local morality to guide ethical behavior
- What happen if you implement relativism ethics?
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Saturday, November 13, 2021

3. Integrated social
The integration between universalism and relativism.
Wherever you are, regardless the relativism, the universalism will go first.
However, if the relativism is too strict, then relativism first.

What are the Drivers of Unethical Strategies and Business Behavior?

1. Faulty oversight and self-dealing
You don’t know or there is a person with high ambitions.
2. Pressure for short-term performance
The superior pressure the subordinate like they going to fire him if he fails his job.
3. A weak or corrupt ethical environment
Example: your family says that corruption is normal, so you brought this behavior to the
workplace.

Consequences of Ethically Questionable Strategies

What strategies fail the ethical litmus test?
1. Sizable civil fines and stockholder lawsuits
2. Devasting image and public relation hits
3. Sharp stock price drops ad investors lose confidents
4. Criminal indictments and convictions
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The Costs Companies Incur When Ethical Wrongdoing is Discovered

Ethical Issues
1. Honesty
2. Integrity
3. Fairness

Ethical Issue and Dilemma in Business

- Abusive or intimidating behavior
- Lying
- Conflict of interest
- Bribery
- Corporate intelligence
- Discrimination
- Sexual harassment
- Power harassment
- Environmental issues

How and Why Ethical Standards Impact the Tasks of Crafting and Executing Strategy
The ethics code litmus test
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a. Is what we are proposing to do fully compliant with out code of ethics? Are these
areas of ambiguity?
b. Is this action in harmony with our core values? Are any conflicts or potential
problems evident?
c. Is this action ethically objectionable? Would our stakeholders, our competitors,
the SEC under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or the news and social media view this
action as ethically objectionable?

Johnson’s Ethical Litmus Tests

1. Honesty test
2. Legal test
3. Conscience test
Can I sleep well if I do this? Is this the right thing to do?
4. Consequence’s test
If I do this, is there any risk I’m being judged?
5. Publicity test
Can what I’m doing be published?

Disciplinary Practices
- The purpose of discipline is to encourage employees to behave sensibly at work (where
sensible means adhering to rules and regulations).
- The three pillars of discipline
a. Rules and regulations
b. Progressive penalties
c. Appeal process
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Common Disciplinary Problem

Approaches to Discipline
1. Progressive discipline
- When applying corrective measures by increasing degrees, always be sure that
employees:
- Know where they stand regarding offenses.
- Know what improvement is expected of them.
- Understand what happens next if improvement is not made.
2. Positive, or non-punitive, discipline
- Discipline that focusses on the early correction of employee misconduct, with the
employee taking total responsibility for correcting the problem

How to Discipline Employee

1. Make sure the evidence supports the charge of employee wrongdoing.
2. Make sure to protect the employee’s due process right.
3. Adequately warn the employee of the disciplinary consequences of his or her alleged
misconduct. Have employee sign a form.
4. The rule that allegedly was violates should be “reasonably related” to the efficient and
safe operation of the particular work environment.
5. Objectively investigate the matter before administering discipline.
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6. The investigation should produce substantial evidence of misconduct.
7. Apply applicable rules, orders, or penalties without discrimination.
8. Maintain the employee’s rights to counsel.
9. Don’t rob your subordinate of his or her dignity, for instance by disciplining the person in
public.
10. Listen to what the person has to say.
11. Remember that the burden of proof is on you.
12. Get the facts.
13. Don’t act while angry.
14. Adhere to your company’s disciplinary appeals process.

Discipline Without Punishment

1. Issue an oral reminder.
2. Issue and formal written reminder and place in the personnel file.
3. Give “decision-making leave”.
4. Dismissal if behavior repeats.

Procedure to do Positive Discipline