Ethical Issues in

Human Resources
Management
What is HRM?

• HRM refers to the principles, policies, practices as well as the

systems that influence employees’ behaviour, attitudes and
performance.
Scope of HRM
1. Determining human resource needs;
2. Attracting potential employees;
3. Choosing employees;
4. Teaching/preparing;
5. Rewarding;
6. Evaluating performance; and
7. Creating a positive work environment.
 Emerging challenges of HRM
• The increased globalization of markets and intensification of competition has made employers and
employees conscious of their changing and strategic roles in organizations;

• Corporate restructuring has become an absolute necessity for organizations to shed extra flab and to look
lean and competitive resulting in discharge of workers with attendant problems;

• Mergers and acquisitions that are apace to consolidate competencies and to enjoy economies of scale in
the global arena bring their own problems of culture shocks and the need for reconciling to multiple work
ethos;

• Newer organizational designs and strategies pose their own challenges to workforce;

• Increasing emphasis on total quality management and the need for everyone in the organization to get
attuned to the rules of the game;
• Changing job profiles and the need for and ability to get adjusted to them;

• changing workforce profile consequent on structural changes that have to be adopted to be part of the
global industrial scenario;

• increasing role of women employees in organizations even in developing countries that is questioning
many traditional HRM practices hitherto followed;

• increasing use of information technology that is altering the very nature of work delivery in
organizations; and

• increasing emphasis on knowledge management and the need for acquisition and use of knowledge to
keep pace with the fast changing world.
HR related ethical issues
• Discrimination issues
• Suppression of democratization in the workplace
• Privacy issues
• Recruitment and Selection
• Performance tracking
• Privacy issues of computerized employee records
• Electronic surveillance
• Safety and health
• Performance appraisal
 Role of HR in creating an ethical
organization
• Top management should be committed to ethical behaviour and should be the role models to their
employees in this respect.

• The organization should evolve codes of ethics for managers, executives and employees, and enforce them.

• Ethics committees should be formed with top executives as members to advice on ethical issues. These
committees should have such important responsibilities such as fielding questions from employees, helping
the organization in establishing policies in new, emerging and undefined areas, advising the board of
directors on ethical issues and ensuring the enforcement of the codes of ethics.

• Company journals may publish articles on ethical issues and pose hypothetical ethical dilemmas and
discussions on how to resolve these dilemmas.

• An ethics office with ethics officers can be created to oversee the process, and to help communicate policies
to employees.
• Organize employee ethics training. Training programmes help to emphasize the need for and the
importance of ethical behaviour, identify major ethical issues, specify forms of ethical conduct,
enhance awareness of pressures that may lead to unethical conduct, alert employees to the need
for avoiding unethical behaviour, and where necessary to blow the whistle.

• There should be a disciplinary system to deal with ethical violations promptly and decisively.
Employees expect unethical behaviour to be dealt with severely. Double standards should be
dealt with a firm hand.