Ethics of promoting unqualified individuals in professional settings

¶ … ethically right to promote an unqualified individual?

The role of ethics is increasingly gaining ground in every sphere of activity. This is stemming from the perception of declining standards in public life raising issues regarding the cost of wrongdoing by the very individuals charged with the responsibility of safeguarding public interests and resources. These costs are losses in expectation and self-assurance in public institutions and degradation of valuable resources that are supposed to sustain the social and economic development of countries and human resources. There is a campaign across the world to restore a measure of confidence and veracity in public institutions and officials so as to protect democracy and foster better governance. (United Nations, 2000) Thesis Statement: Promoting an unqualified individual constitutes an ethical wrongdoing that ignores the capability and potential of a deserving candidate and consequently is a major roadblock to the growth of an organization because qualification and talent takes a backseat in the process.

Discussion

It is a transparent thing that factors besides job qualifications sometimes are responsible for promotions. "The duration a person has been with a company, the likeability factor, the industry contacts, and the last time when one was promoted all these are responsible factors impacting promotions in the practical business world. Similar to recruitment, the most important moral issue is fairness." (Padilla, 2004) Nobody would seriously argue that promoting the unqualified is fair or justifiable. It constitutes a serious breach of duty to owners, employees, and eventually the public at large. However a lot of reasonable people argue whether or not promoting solely by job applications is the fairest thing to do. Are we able to identify other criteria? In case this is so, when and how much importance should those criteria carry. These are difficult questions and finding easy answers are hard. These need the properly-honed concept of fair-play, a capability to compare and contrast the courses available and also a fertile imagination for devising alternatives. (Padilla, 2004)

In order to highlight the problem, three factors such seniority, inbreeding and nepotism serve as bases for promotion and in these three areas unethical practices of promoting the unqualified are adopted. To return to the first of the three factors, seniority implies the longevity on a job with a company. More often that not, promotions are made strictly on the basis of seniority i.e. individuals having the most longevity get the promotion. When company policies indicate what should contribute in promotions, the problem subsides, but does not vanish completely. We can continue with the ethics of the policy itself and in situations where no distinct policy is found the problem seeks a solution. Inbreeding is the practice of promoting exclusively from within the company and not outside. In theory, whenever managers should fill up the positions they must consider only competence. The most competent whether inside or outside the company must receive the position. In this manner, responsibilities to the owners are catered to in the best possible manner. (Padilla, 2004)

Coming to the third point, nepotism is the practice of showing favoritism in favor of relatives and close relatives. Considering that a manager recruited, relative solely on the basis of the relationship between them. In this case "such a gesture would arise several ethical concerns, the most potent among them being disregard both of managerial responsibilities to the organization and of fairness to all other candidates. At this juncture it is important to note that definitely not all examples of nepotism raise important ethical concerns." (Padilla, 2004) For instance, in cases where a company is strictly a family corporation and has its purpose providing work for family members, nepotistic practices are justified on the whole. Moreover, the reality that a person is a relative or friend of company members must not by design exclude him from job considerations. Nevertheless, even when such people get qualified for a post, responsible management should consider the impact of nepotistic recruitment. Will the selection spawn outrage and jealousy among the other employees? Will it dishearten qualified outsiders from looking forward to employment with the company? Is it going to create problems in future placement, scheduling or removal of the relation? (Padilla, 2004)

General concepts of parity in opportunities and preventing workplace discrimination:

Workplace discrimination is a universal problem which sometimes is at the cost of talent and potential. This can be considered as a phenomenon as this happens both within the workplace and also the society at large. Undoubtedly, it is a matter regarding the exercise of choice for instance in recruitment or in promotions. Understood in this exercise of choice is the reality that action can be taken in favor of one person and against another. The most important question is the basis on which that discrimination or choice is undertaken. For instance, when a Manager gives appointment to a person to a particular post, the most important question is 'what is the basis for coming to that decision and leaving aside other applicants where the applicants were considered against objective benchmarks for the position for instance experience, key skills and qualifications?' Is any evidence discovered that any illegal benchmarks were applied for instance avoiding the selection of a women who is pregnant or a disabled person? The notion of discrimination in reality covers broader patterns of social, economic and political behaviors wherein specific groups of people are typecast victimized and suffer discrimination against on the assumption that they have particular characteristics. ("The Context of Discrimination at Work," 2008)

A lot of hurdles, both social as well as employment are there which can underpin unfair discrimination and prevent a person achieving parity in treatment. It is important to note that the social role of taking care of children that is conventionally attributed to women is acknowledged as a substantial hurdle in achieving promotion, career progression and parity levels in remuneration. Also compensatory action is sometimes undertaken to correct historic wrongdoing and systematic breaches of fair treatment in the form of social justice. These actions can assume various forms like public training courses for women or different groups divided by ethnicity; assistance with childcare; recruiting people from disadvantaged sections to public offices as representatives of specific interests and as role models; and in workplace, fixing quotas for the selection and promotion of specific groups who are under-represented. This action assists in circumventing social exclusion, foster social cohesion and the moral obligations as also the privileges of a liberal democracy. ("The Context of Discrimination at Work," 2008)

Case of Affirmative Action:

A question arises whether affirmative action conflicts with the principles of merit. The answer is 'NO'. Affirmative Action gives everybody an opportunity to be judged on the basis of one's individual potential. It does not require an employer to hire a person who lacks the qualifications to undertake the job in a successful manner, recruit the unqualified, or recruit a person who is less qualified in preference to a higher qualified one. Affirmative action gives women, minorities, person with disabilities and veterans an opportunity to compete. Another issue crops up whether affirmative action acts as racial spoils. The answer is again 'No'. Affirmative Action at no point of time has been planned to create preferences. Apart from that at no point of time it involves recruiting or promoting persons who are unqualified. Besides, affirmative action is just not an issue of race but benefits ladies, persons with disabilities as also elderly people. Another question of whether affirmative action leads to reverse discrimination? Normally three decades of policies in 'Affirmative Action' have not resulted in reverse discrimination against any ethnic group. Within the year span of 1990 and 1994, less than 60 cases of discrimination were reported in Federal Court alleging reverse discrimination against the white males and very few were upheld as meritorious. (Iowa Civil Rights Commission, n. d)

Nepotism:

In situations where people have suffered nepotism, it puts an adverse effect on the morale of the employee. One can think of the wrath of the employee when he discovers that his competitor is a very intimate friend of or a relative of the boss. Next one can imagine his boss who is facilitating the bad behavior of the competitor and substandard work ethic, while one is still expected to follow protocol in front of the feudal master. This is the case where one is the victim of nepotism in the workplace. Precisely, nepotism is just the act of recruiting, promoting or rewarding an individual without any regard to his real qualifications. Really, this means the skills of the person those who are really qualified are not accounted for in the process of deliberation. ("Nepotism: Adverse Effects on Employee Morale- Favoritism of Close Friends and Relatives in Workplace," 2007)

On the whole, the management or the person who is at the helm of affairs undertakes a conscious decision to disregard the qualified candidate as he is aware of whom the candidate is for the post. This person might be an intimate friend, relative or in certain cases somebody who fulfils his personal ethnic or gender preference. External to the small family business, all of the above practices are not appropriate, not ethical and sometimes grounds for workplace discrimination. Hence it is considered unethical using one's position of power to benefit friends and family at the cost of the customer and is considered corrupt practice and contemptible behavior. ("Nepotism: Adverse Effects on Employee Morale- Favoritism of Close Friends and Relatives in Workplace," 2007)

Employment Equity:

There is a myth that equity in employment has to do everything about quotas. But on the other hand, equality with regard to employment is not always related to 'quotas' while it is regarding objectives which are flexible, targets which are rational which the employers are able to use, similar to every business goals as planning and evaluation tools. On the other hand quotas as rigid and random thresholds that must be reached on case one is desirous of avoiding 'penalty'. Based on the federal rules relating to employment equality, employers fix their independent objectives as well as practical schedules for attaining them depending on the assessment of 'sound' as well as 'planning'. Employers fix targets with regard to calibrating growth in place of quotas, while recruiting employees from 4 specific categories. It is a fact that in most occasions, businesses fix 'targets'. For instance, in a production unit, a target relating to production is mostly fixed. Thereafter 'plans are' formulated in order for attaining 'target' goals while the growth is assessed on routine mode. ("Employment Equity- Myths and Realities," 2004)

Similar to a business, an equality plan relating to employment makes use of similar processes. It described wherein a person is on any given day and where he is desirous of at a certain time and the manner in which he plans to attain the objectives. Similar to a target relating to industrial manufacturing, a plan relating to equality in 'employment' shows the situation of the firm. Further the processes relating to goal formulation never implies that individuals would lose employment to allow for members of 'designated groups'. Objectives are formulated with regard to the scope of new job arena which is 'predicted'. There is also a myth that goes around that employment equity implies providing every qualified as well as individuals who are qualifiable having equality in the 'opportunities' and not with regard to a few selected. Further the main objective of equality in 'employment' is recruiting employees who are qualified and it is never intended to recruit employees who are unqualified so as to attain certain required targets. It is always to be remembered that equality in employment relates not to giving persons position or job primarily because those person happens to be members of a 'group' which is 'designated'. ("Employment Equity- Myths and Realities," 2004)