Essay Instructions: Perfer user-Freelancewriter:
I sent you some papers on my ethics and one of my job issues, to give you a little background on me for the Personal Values Development. If you cannot completed both papers I do understand and you can pass one on to another writer.
Perpare a paper on Personal Values Development examining your personal values, ground rules and/or ethics development. Focus on the development aspect rather than on a particular position on any issue. Do this by identifying:
A) what your vaules are
B) the sources(people, institutions, events, etc.) that helped shape your my values
C) the criteria and decision-making factores you utilize to revise them
D) the implications/application of my values my work situation
Nature of Ethics
The definition of ethics is a very difficult thing to pin down, since in the modern world it means so many things to so many people. Of course, the basic, main meaning of the word is clear enough. Through one?s life, and especially when growing up, a person learns what ethics are. This usually entails that one?s parents give guidelines according to which life in society should be lived in order to make life as easy as possible for every individual person and for society itself. So on the one hand ethics come from how a person was raised. This in itself is very individual, since some parents do a better job of raising ethical children than others. A child could in this way grow up to be either ethical in a social sense, or unethical. Either way, every person forms an individual set of ethics, even though this set of ethics could be negative, or not compatible with the general ethics accepted by society.
An individual on his or her own also derives an ethical system. Using a parent's guidelines while growing up, a child also uses his or her experiences in society to shape personal ethics. When a person is very young, for example, it is easy to succumb to peer group pressure in order to form ethics that are not really in keeping with what is required by general society. Peer group ethics may require a person to steal and to murder, and this is not ethical in the general, social sense. This could happen even if parents were extremely conscientious and ethical in raising their children.
In the job situation, ethics are again subjected to the individual situation. Business ethics in certain companies are for example not necessarily values that would be acceptable when applied to society in general.
The law profession is an example of this. Lawyers are often obliged by professional ethics to keep conversations with their clients confidential, even though such a person confessed to a murder or some other unlawful act.
The lawyer in question must then defend the client, even though he or she knows that the client is guilty. If individual ethics clash with professional ethics, it is difficult to keep doing the job with enthusiasm.
In the workplace, ethics as a concept is more complicated than ethics in general life. The reason for this is that each profession entails its own set of specific ethics. This helps the job to run smoothly, and it gives workers a guideline according to which they must work. I therefore believe that it is very important to be in a work environment where one's personal ethics do not collide with those required by the job. I also believe that the rules of ethical behavior, both socially and professionally, should be followed absolutely and without fail.
I do think that circumstances dictate the ethics of a situation, but these should never interfere with the basic principle. I would for example not let my relationship with a person interfere with what I believe is right. If I think I need to report the unethical behavior of a family member, friend, or co-worker for example, I would not hesitate to do so. I do not think this is only good for the workplace and society, but also for the person committing the act of unethical behavior. When a person's ethical system breaks down, this endangers the person's future ability to function well in society. In the end curbing, such behavior by reporting the wrongdoer is then better than turning a blind eye for the sake of my relationship with the person.
It is therefore important to me to maintain a strong basis of ethics in both the business and social world. I do not think society or the workplace can function properly without a strong set of ethics. This belief comes from the way I was raised, my family members, and from my life experience during the 45 years that I have lived as a black man. I was raised to have a strong set of values, because often this is all that separates us from those committing crimes against humanity in the name of justice.
My ethics have helped me through my years as a teenager and as a young man. Because I was given a strong set of ethics in my parental home, I was able to withstand peer pressure and not be drawn in by things like gangsterism, drugs or any other self-destructive things. This is why I believe that not behaving in an ethical way endangers a person's safety and way of life. The function of ethics is therefore to protect public safety.
My family members also help me to keep up my ethical behavior, as they support this point of view. Family support helps a great deal when there are ethical problems and issues at stake. My family has supported and helped me to keep up my ethical lifestyle, and to keep from succumbing to peer pressure not only when I was young, but also now. Like me, my family would also turn in anyone they perceive as behaving unethically. Knowing this also helps to keep us from breaking the rules.
I have also seen from experience how things work out better if I keep up a certain standard of ethical behavior. The danger of breaking the rules is not only that one gets caught; it is also about the destructive effect of breaking the rules. Drinking too much for example results in a loss of self-control, which may in turn be destructive when fights break out between people.
I manifest my ethics both in my relationship with myself and with others. For myself, I am very aware of my conscience at all times. I therefore try to make decisions and do things that do not bother me in an ethical sense, and I try to do what I think is the right thing at all times. This then translates to my relationships with others as well. My family, friends and co-workers know me as a person who would never help another person commit an unethical act. Instead, I would report this person regardless of my relationship with him or her.
Ethics are important, both socially and professionally. When a business is perceived as ethical, the public trusts it, which is good for business. In society, an ethical person is also seen in a favorable light, which is beneficial in all contexts of life.
References:
Audi, Robert. (2004). The good in the right: a theory of intuition and intrinsic value. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Post, James E., Anne T. Lawrence, and James Weber. (2002). Business and society: corporate strategy, public policy, ethics. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
ETHICAL DILEMMA IN THE WORKPLACE: SENIORITY POLICY
Introduction:
Ace Hardware is a large national chain of independent hardware and home
improvement franchise retail outlets. At the particular retail store in question, the
policy of employee seniority, as it relates to all matters other than vacation allocation,
is either applied inconsistently, or ignored outright, resulting in antagonism between
co-workers, erosion of respect for management, and ultimately, undermining
employee morale in general.
Occupational Situation:
Manager Mike Riley has been with the organization since 1994 and has been
in charge of day-to-day operations since 1998. Several employees have worked at
Ace almost as long as Mike, while two others, Brian Knight and Kevin Brady, were
hired more recently, by Mike, since his promotion to Management. Brian and Mike
grew up in the same neighborhood, attending the same high school where they were
good friends before losing touch while Brian served four years in military service.
Kevin was first introduced to Mike by Brian, who had befriended him shortly after
they met playing in the same weekend softball league.
According to company policy, vacation time, work shift preferences, and
choice of assignments are to be awarded based on seniority, provided employees
fulfill their obligations with respect to minimum scheduled hours and satisfactory job
performance. Corporate directives have issued very specific instructions as to the
proper allocation of vacation time among and between co-workers in good standing,
based strictly on seniority. As a result, Mike has always honored vacation requests
appropriately, according to the relative seniority of employees. On the other hand,
corporate headquarters has never specifically enforced its other policy elements of
seniority, particularly as it relates to honoring shift change requests and preferences
for specific work assignments.
Joe Leonard and Marie Delacruz have been with the company since 1995 and
1997, respectively, both having worked side-by-side with Mike before his promotion
to Manager in 1998. Whereas Brian and Kevin both maintain social friendships with
Mike outside of work, Joe is quite a bit older than any of his co-workers and spends
all of his personal time away from work with his family and rarely, if ever, maintains
any social contact with Mike outside of work. Likewise, Marie is a single, working
mother who attends nursing school in the evenings; she has little interests in common
with Mike and his friends. Joe and Marie both perform quite satisfactorily, in fact,
they helped train Brian and Kevin after Mike hired them.
Initially, Mike honored Ace company policy in entertaining employee requests
for shift and assignment preferences in accordance with seniority. Gradually, as he
and Brian rekindled their old friendship, Mike started giving Brian preferential
treatment, often disregarding Ace policy on employee seniority, to the detriment of
Marie and Joe whenever their wishes conflicted with those of Brian. More recently,
Mike joined the same softball team where Brian and Kevin first met, which greatly
exacerbated the problem.
Since then, Mike has allocated work shift and assignment preferences with
complete disregard of seniority as between Brian, Kevin, Marie and Joe. Mike?s
unofficial policy seems to be that softball-related scheduling issues take precedence
over any matters where the wishes of other employees conflict with those of Brian or
Kevin. To make the situation even worse, Mike simultaneously uses the convenient
excuse of ?seniority? to justify his decisions anytime Carlos Ramirez, his most recent
hire, puts in a request that conflicts with the preferences of his other employees,
including Joe and Marie. Mike?s unofficial policy seems to be that seniority is
respected, but only whenever it does not conflict with his softball team?s schedule.
As a result, Joe and Marie have become quite dissatisfied working for Mike,
and a thinly veiled atmosphere of antagonism exists on their part toward Mike, Brian,
and Kevin, collectively.
Solution:
Human resource experts have implicated unfair, differential treatment of
employees by management as a very significant source of employee dissatisfaction
and morale (Ross, 2002), which seems to have been borne out in this particular
situation. Even from a more general industrial psychology perspective, the
inconsistent application of established rules is even more detrimental to employee
morale than the absence of any such guiding principles in the first place (Gerrig &
Zimbardo, 2001).
Since Ace corporate headquarters already requires that relative seniority
among co-workers be recognized in matters pertaining to vacation time,
management?s only beneficial option is to adhere strictly to this principle in all
situations where relative seniority provides an appropriate method for approving
employee requests. Conversely, continuation of the situation currently prevailing at
the Ace Hardware outlet in question is likely to undermine relations, both between
employees and management, as well as among the employees, themselves.
REFERENCES
Ross, A. (2002) No Collar: The Humane Workplace and Its Hidden Costs.
Basic Books
Gerrig, R., Zimbardo, P. (2001) Psychology and Life 16th ed.
Allyn & Bacon
