Analyzing an Ethical Dilemma Sleeping on Duty

¶ … Ethical Dilemma of Sleeping on Duty Taking naps while on duty may cause individuals to be suspended from their jobs. Particularly in the field of law enforcement, sleeping while on duty is regarded as a serious form of misconduct, generally leading to disciplinary action, and in some cases, employment termination. Individuals may intentionally or unintentionally fall asleep at work. This employee misdemeanor is considered a serious issue and is mentioned in a majority of personnel handbooks.

It has adverse impacts on productivity, and may be dangerous when the person in question is supposed to be alert and on surveillance, to prevent a harmful situation from occurring. Furthermore, sleeping at work reflects unprofessionalism.

Different organizations have different attitudes towards this misdemeanor - while some are tolerant and permit personnel to take naps in between work hours under their policy of improving productivity, others are strongly against it, and make use of video surveillance and other such high-tech devices for catching employees who take naps at work (U.S. Legal, 2016).

Sleeping is even prohibited by some organizations (particularly law enforcement organizations, where employees are required to be alert and vigilant always) during unpaid breaks because of the fear of appearing incompetent, as well as the need for employee availability in times of emergencies, or because of legal regulations. Employees whose on-duty naps endanger other individuals can be faced with legal sanctions. For instance, in the United States, war-time statutes/policies claim that, if guards fall asleep when on duty, they may be faced with death penalty.

Creek (2015), a retired official working for the police force, states that officers are expected to patrol, seek out troublemakers and innocent individuals in trouble, give testimonies and write reports; thus, to sleep on duty hours represents unethical conduct. This paper evaluates the ethics relating to law enforcers' sleeping on duty hours, how the dilemma can be resolved, and the advantages and disadvantages of each option considered.

When was it recognized there was an ethical dilemma? Recognition of ethical dilemmas involves threshold determination, which is quite often difficult, particularly in the present day. The average modern-day employee is bombarded with more information in a single day than that received by employees in their whole lifetime, a hundred years back.

Thus, when situations that deviate from routines develop (for instance, situations which may involve unethical shortcuts, or indicate bias/favoritism, or offend others, or involve rule-breaking), is there sufficient time for providing adequate scrutiny and establishing whether an ethical problem exists that ought to be dealt with? Or, in a busy era of vicious competition and information overload, will ethical problems be short-changed or neglected? (O'Rourke, 2013).

The simple part is identifying an ethical problem; for instance, in the Canadian province of Quebec, two sleeping patrol officials were caught on camera by a civilian (Arsenault, 2011). While such controversial events are under investigation and the results are yet to be known, they are publicized abundantly and may cause the public to distrust individuals to whom their safety has been entrusted. Such evident signs may help with problem recognition.

However, the difficult part is solving such a problem, as awareness "of anything that has the slightest hint of being unethical (Loscher, 2007)" assists law enforcement agencies in being on top of unethical situations. What options were considered when looking at how to resolve the dilemma The aforementioned situation poses an ethical problem across every rank of a particular department. The following elements must be considered before one can come up with a resolution to an ethical quandary; 1.

Did the situation entail an officer who was unaware of the right procedure/course to be followed, or 1. Did the situation entail a right course (in the officer's view) that he/she found hard to follow, or 1. Did the situation involve a tempting, but unethical course (Braswell, McCarhthy, & McCarthy, 2002). Solutions to police officers' failure to behave ethically start with selecting and hiring qualified personnel. Department heads must refrain from actively working their way around minimum standards of hiring for recruiting persons belonging to special interest groups.

The following two options are taken into consideration; Make Ethics Training Real Ethics training should be of a feature-intensive nature (Papenfuhs, 2011). It should deal with, and not neglect, human emotions. Mankind does not possess an on/off switch when it comes to emotions. "Chemical cocktails" released during fight or flight scenarios cannot abruptly and magically vanish after physical altercations get over.

Instead of merely instructing officers to control their application of force, they must be given feature-intensive training, which must include making officers understand that they will be adrenalized, and will feel its physical effects, and may wish to continually strike a suspect, even after he is in handcuffs. Such feelings are absolutely acceptable and normal, but they must be recognized as emotional and physical responses to chemicals in their system.

They should be made to understand that it is important to stop, breathe, and set about re-engaging their thinking/processing abilities (Papenfuhs, 2011). When it comes to napping on duty hours, one may train them to ask for permission to rest/nap for a brief period. Creek (2015) claims to having allowed his subordinates to take a break and sleep on duty hours in situations when the shift is short-handed and officers work mandatory overtime.

In such scenarios, time spent at work, in preparation, and commuting, leaves officers with only 3-4 hours of sleep a day. However, Creek (2015) did not spare officers who slept at work after partying or staying awake until late at night for personal reasons. Officers were only allowed rest if it served agency interests. Such a strategy ensures increased productivity in the law enforcement organization.

Planning and Effective Framework Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) gives extremely high priority to leadership, ethics, and professionalism, and these constitute the foremost learning domain new police academy recruits are presented with (Papenfuhs, 2011). However, learning is an ongoing, rather than one-time, process of reinforcement and review. A key leadership skill for law enforcers is high moral/ethical intelligence. Bad behavior may seem to glean rewards in the business world, but not for long. Good behavior is what pays off in the long run.

CEOs must sincerely plan for their departments' future, by scrupulously adhering to promotion based on merit, instead of advancing careers of those who support a special interest group, thereby advancing their own career (Papenfuhs, 2011). The Pros and Cons of Each Resolution Considered Make Ethics Training Real Cons Further training in ethics is very expensive Workforce availability will be affected Pros It builds officer capability Planning and Effective Framework Cons None Pros 1. Consistency -- It leads to more systematic outcomes 1. Efficiency -- Quicker decision-making 1.

Self-respect -- Officers will feel good about themselves 1. Payback -- Develops emotional goodwill with constituents Why the Particular Path Taken in Response to the Dilemma Was Chosen The aforementioned approaches are teleological, as they assume a pragmatic, un-philosophical, and common-sense.