HRM and the Ethical Decision Making Process

Ethical Decision Making and the HRM

The real purpose for setting up any organization is to realize profits for the stakeholders who have channeled resources towards establishment of the same. However, as the organization is set up and even later on running, it is important to always have the ethical considerations upheld in every department within the organization. One of the central departments in any organization that will be charged with ensuring ethical decision making process is strictly followed is the human resources management. Business ethics involves the application of ethics to business behavior and the decision making process in the business setting. The connection between business ethics and decision making comes about as a result of the considerations that leaders in businesses put before they make their decisions . When decision making and ethics go hand-in-hand, the decision makers ensure that they strive not to make unethical decisions as much as possible. The role of leaders in organizations is to convey to their employees ethics but this is however very difficult to put into practice when it comes to actual running of the organization (Kidder, R., 2012).

There is a complex tie that exists between profit maximization and ethical decision making and the HR is always caught right in the middle of it since it is responsible for bringing in the quality staff that will be responsible for making the company profits but also fair remunerations as well. For full profit maximization, there will be unfair remuneration that is not commensurate with the output of the individual employees. This means then that the HR has to make ethical decisions that will not weigh too much on the organization or the employees in drafting their salaries and wages. Apparently, the business code of conduct demands that ethical decisions need to be made even if it means the organization may make a loss. This is rarely an applied scenario since it may not be sustainable if widely applied. The possible loss making often creates tension between profit making and ethical behavior.

The HRM will also have to engage in ethical decision making process while dealing with customers and employees once they have been absorbed into the organizational system. These will involve ensuring a safe working condition for these employees, the treatment of the employees in an appropriate manner, looking into employment of people with disability, the decision making on balancing the genders employed and well as the catering for the ethnic minority to be able to hold high positions in the business, making correct decisions in the issue of the age limits to employ as well as the treatment of the customers and their complains (Chmielewski, C. 2013).