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to focus on growing your business while ensuring that you maintain a healthy working
workplace are still prevalent. If not taken seriously, they risk not only ruining your hard-earned
reputation, but may have legal ramifications. It's crucial to identify such issues early and
Before we go through some common ethical concerns that businesses encounter, it’s
When an activity in a business environment conflicts with moral human principles and affects
individuals involved working within the organisation, it becomes an ethical issue. While
government-enforced rules can hold employees and employers accountable for lawbreaking
conduct, they can't entirely prevent individuals from acting unethically. Thus it's your
responsibility as a business owner to address ethical concerns and establish clear guidelines
Discrimination
Discrimination is still a major concern in this modern world, and a workplace is no exception.
towards a particular gender, age, ethnicity, religious views, and more. For example, if a female
employee who does the same amount of work as her male coworker is refused equal pay
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AllVoices
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preferences at any time. workplace discrimination, a startling 80% of surveyed employees
disclosed that they had experienced instances of discrimination while working remotely.
These incidents unfolded through various digital means, including video conferences, chat
applications, and phone conversations. This data serves as a stark reminder that
discriminated against intentionally or not, these toxic behaviours must never be entertained
Ensure that all your employees are aware of behavioural rules before joining your
Give an option for your employees to report discrimination issues anonymously. In the
same AllVoices study, 90% of respondents expressed that they will be willing to report such
Tech Talk incidents of discrimination if their identity could be protected.
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Having a diverse workforce will lower the risk of discrimination and bring in different
Maintain a fair and transparent pay scale and always keep a check on if anybody is over or
Read more about workplace entitlements and obligations on the Fair Work Ombudsman
website.
Workplace safety
According to a 2019 report by Safe Work Australia, 183 Australian workers lost their lives at
work due to injuries sustained doing a work-related activity. Although the overall the number
of fatalities has been decreasing since 2007, every number above zero is one number too
many. Regardless of the size of your business or the industry you’re in, as a business owner,
you are ultimately responsible for ensuring the health and safety of employees in your
workplace. It's also wise to remember that an employee's psychological well-being is just as
important as their physical health, and it's important to pay attention to both.
Regularly inspect your workplace for any potential hazards and assess if your business
Make sure your business meets the mandatory requirement for having an adequate number
of trained first aiders. Apart from that, you can also train all your employees on how to
handle emergency situations and give them a hands-on demonstration to use basic first aid
equipment.
Talk to your employees about their work-related stress and regularly check in to see how
they're doing. For example, you can have a scheduled check-in meeting with your
employees once every quarter or conduct anonymous surveys to check how the job
Read more about workplace safety on the Safe Work Australia website.
It's hard to determine the ethics of dismissing or disciplining workers for their social media
behaviour outside of work hours. In most situations, an employee can be fired for their online
behaviour given that there's a justifiable reason (such as breaching your business policy)
rather than an attempt to cover up a business's unlawful activities. However, when the
process of determining the valid reason is mishandled, it can cause serious trouble for your
business.
What you can do to address ethical concerns related to your employees' social media use:
Set a clear social media policy for your business to help employees understand what online
behaviour is expected from them, why it's important, and what consequences they may
Use clear and simple language while drafting your social media policy to ensure that its
Employee privacy
With advancements in surveillance technology, you can now track every step your employees
make on your business-owned devices. While this move is intended to ensure productivity, it
can quickly become unethical when it crosses the line into snooping. At times, employees
might use their work devices to read personal emails and store private files, increasing the
risk of exposing sensitive data such as health information, bank account details, personal
phone numbers, and browsing history. Therefore it's necessary to have a clear set of rules for
Have a workplace privacy policy that clearly defines what information your business
collects about your employees, the areas you monitor, where their information will be
Create strict guidelines to restrict the use of business-provided gadgets for personal use.
At Zoho, we do not use third-party software to track website visitors. We take your privacy seriously and use our own
tools hosted in our data centres. Your data is yours, and we never monetize it for advertisement purposes. You can MANAGE COOKIES ACCEPT ALL COOKIES
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preferences
how at any
youtime.
will respond to a lawful or third-party request to share an employee's
personal information.
Wrap up
Even after taking all necessary precautions, ethical problems can still arise, so it's crucial that
you be well-prepared to tackle them. First, be aware of all the ethical concerns your business
is likely to face, identify ways to detect them at the earliest, and most importantly, learn to
manage such issues fairly without ignoring or denying that the problem exists. Never hesitate
Note: This article is intended to raise awareness on ethical issues in business and should not
Related Topics
what are ethical issues? ethical issues in business workplace safety running a business in Australia ethical concerns
Afshana Fathima
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