Human Resource Management -- Ethical

Human Resource Management -- Ethical Concepts What is moral compassing? Does it make sense? What about the six pillars of character? Do you agree that these serve as the template for ethical behavior? Are their other considerations? Moral compassing is the process through which individuals in human societies and in business organizations learn, internalize, and uphold specific moral and ethical values and ideals promoted in those environments (Berman & West, 2006).

It makes sense because it is perfectly consistent with what the fields of sociology and psychology tell us about human behavior and social psychology (Robbins & Judge, 2009). The six pillars of character defined by Michael Josephson (Berman & West, 2006) are trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. In my opinion, they all have a place within a template of human behavior but some of them (such as fairness and caring) may be more applicable to personal relationships than to the professional workplace environment.

The list provided by Josephson does not include honesty or good faith, both of which are crucially important values in business (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008), although I can anticipate the response that the values of trustworthiness and fairness include honesty and good faith presuppose honesty and good faith. To make the list more complete, I might add appropriateness and flexibility because the concept of appropriateness applies to a wide variety of situations and allows for the optimal application of more specific ethical rules than a blanket approach.

Similarly, flexibility implies that the specific application of general principles may vary in different situations without deviating from the general principle or value. Finally, transparency might be another value that should be included based on the idea that actions and decisions that are ethically appropriate need not be concealed from public view or scrutiny. In your opinion, which of the six pillars do you believe is the most redeeming to have? While principles give an employee more freedom in their workplace, it also makes them more accountable for their actions.

Would you prefer to work at a company that taught principles as opposed to policies? If you were a manager, how would you implement the moral compass to make it work for your organization? In my opinion, fairness would be the most redeeming of the six pillars because it encompasses trustworthiness and could also be defined in such a way as to encompass the other five pillars.

In that regard, absolute fairness would always require that individuals be trustworthy, that they treat others with the same respect and care they would hope to receive, and that they would conduct themselves within any community as a citizen who recognizes the rights and sensibilities of all other citizens. Therefore, it is not necessarily that fairness is the most important; rather, it is that fairness is the single pillar that could be most accurately described as encompassing all of the others.

As a manager, I would implement a moral compass by presenting my employees with the principles and values expected by the organization first, without reference to specific policies. I would introduce the specific policies only afterwards and, in that process, I would make sure to connect the principles to the policies. As an employee, I would be more comfortable following principles (and principle-based policies) than strict policies without the support of justifiable policies.

Policies can be unfair and unjust whereas principles necessarily limit policies to those that are logically consistent with those principles (Mihaly, 2007). Also, from the employee's perspective, it is better to understand.