Consequences of Ethical Decision Making

The Price of Doing Good: Consequences of Ethical Decision Making

In their day-to-day lives, people encounter a wide range of ethical and moral problems – which do not necessarily have straightforward solutions. As a matter of fact, there are ethical dilemmas which present complicated challenges for the decision maker. During ethical dilemmas, there is need to to establish ideal solutions that are firmly rooted in various ethical theories and sound moral judgment. Most of the times, when an ethical dilemma is encountered in an institutional setting, crucial tradeoffs are involved. This is to say that the decision embraced could be taxing on other fronts - but the dilemma will likely or ultimately be solved.

An example of an ethical dilemma is when incompetent staff are employed by the human resource manager as a result of nepotism. In a hypothetical scenario, the human resource manager of bank X is responsible for employing staff based on their qualifications. However, when the employees are further deployed to different bank branches in the institution, it is noted that the staff members lack competence. This would routinely be expected if such persons are employed on nepotism grounds. More specifically, in the said hypothetical scenario, the bank manager from a specific branch notices that sales and performance in the concerned branch are declining at a high rate – with the underlying reason for the said occurrences being the sheer incompetence of some members of staff. Hiring decisions should be firmly founded upon qualification and competence. It is important to note that in the present scenario, one of the incompetent staff members is a branch operations manager. He is a nephew to the human resources manager. The position of an operations manager requires the relevant education, experience and certain competencies. The branch manager finds it difficult to work with the operations manager because they are not qualified for the job. He is convinced that they were hired simply because they are related to the HR manager.

The branch manager would want to escalate the matter but he is afraid that he could jeopardize his job and end up jobless. On the other hand, the branch manager faces a lot of challenges every day at work because he is forced to do all the work by himself, since the operations manager has no solutions to offer in as far as various aspects of bank operations are concerned. Although the branch manager is overwhelmed and believes that escalating the matter to the management will help solve the issue, the human resource manager is part of the management and he could deem the branch manager’s actions as an attempt to challenge his insight in various hiring decisions. The human resource manager is in this case responsible for all the hiring and firing decisions of the organization. It therefore follows that the branch manager could promptly be fired for relaying any information that could expose the unethical and unprofessional hiring practices of the human resources manager. However, it should be noted that if the branch manager does not report to the management, he will be forced to continue doing all the work in the office and put up with poor performance of the concerned employee(s) – effectively jeopardizing the performance of his branch and ultimately that of the entire organization.

Solving such workplace ethical dilemmas is not easy, however there are various ethical theories that can be deployed to help arrive at the most viable decision. These are inclusive of, but they are not limited to, the utilitarian approach and the virtue ethics approach. The utilitarian approach argues that the best ethical action is the one that provides the most good and does the least harm (Bartels, & Pizarro, 2011). The virtue ethical theory also argues that ethical actions need to be consistent with ideal virtues (Alzola, 2015). In this ethical dilemma, the former approach could be deployed.

In the dilemma, various parties are involved. The first party is the branch manager who notices that the operations manager is incompetent. The second party is the operations manager who knows that they do not deserve the position they presently hold. They are also likely aware of the fact that poor performance on their part would go unchallenged because of their relations to the human resources manager. The third party is the human resource manager who knowingly hires persons who are incompetent to serve in crucial positions within the bank. More specifically, he hires members of his family as employees. The fourth party is the bank itself. The bank, and specifically the concerned branch, is experiencing downward spiral in performance because of the incompetence of, amongst others, the operations manager. As per the utilitarian ethical theory, reporting the matter to the management would be the right approach to solve the dilemma. In the words of Byars and Stanberry (2018), “utilitarianism is a theory of morality that advocates actions that foster happiness or pleasure and oppose actions that cause unhappiness or harm” (67). It therefore follows that the best course of action in this case would be the one that promotes the happiness as well as wellbeing of the greatest number of people. The ‘greatest number of people’ could in the present scenario be the various stakeholders of the bank. The said stakeholders are inclusive of, but they are not limited to; shareholders, employees, and customers of the bank. Poor performance of the bank as a consequence of the incompetence of management and staff could affect the greatest number of the said stakeholders. While employees could find themselves without employment if the bank fails, shareholders would lose their investment. Further, customers would lose the various competent services that they access from the bank. It therefore follows that the branch manager should bring to the attention of the upper management – and perhaps write to the board of directors if, for some reason, he believes that the management could be compromised by the HR director and fail to act.

In this ethical dilemma, a consequentialist framework could be deployed. In basic terms, a consequentialist framework essentially focuses on the future effects of possible courses of action. This framework considers the individuals who will be directly and indirectly affected by certain courses of actions (Love, Salinas & Rotman, 2020). The framework considers outcomes that may be desirable in a given situation and the ethical conducts which may result in the best consequences. As has been indicated elsewhere in this text, the best course of action would be expose the hiring practices of the HR manager – specifically in relation to the sheer incompetence of the operations manager. The likely consequence in this case would be the firing (or demotion) of the operations manager as well as the HR manager. This would likely result in better hiring decisions and greater competency among employees going forward. The branch manager could also earn a promotion for his diligence. However, the branch manager could be accused of malice and harboring ill-will against the HR manager. He could face the disciplinary committee for this reason and perhaps be edged out of the organization. Thus, this is a decision that could potentially destroy his career. However, given the extent of the problem and the documented impact of poor hiring decisions, reporting the HR director’s malpractices would be the best course of action – and the effects of embracing this course of action are likely to be positive.