Reflection on Ethical Behavior at Workplace - Essay Example

If being ethical is part of your objective or purpose you will always do morally right things. One should take pride in doing what is right and should not feel inferior if ridiculed for being ethical. Ethical workers or leaders in the workplace should also be patient, they should have faith that things will work out right because they can handle any situation. Persistence is when we continually do what is right at the workplace no matter the situation. One should not just act ethically for convenience or because he is forced to do so. Perspective is the capacity to see what is important and right. If we reflect on the five Ps in our workplace then we can bring about ethics in our organizations.

The major ethical challenges facing employers are abusing power and using deceptive information. Employers have the power to employ the workers in a workplace. Employers are most of the time tempted to abuse this power. This is done through employing those within their social network, asking for sexual favors from employees, inadequate pay, or unequal payment. The employers may employ their relatives or friends who are less qualified and leave applicants who are more qualified. Employers may also ask for sexual favors from employees in return for promotions or employment. Employers will always want to maximize profits so they may pay substandard salaries to achieve their objective. The employers may also give high salaries to those they are related to. Using deceptive information comes about when employers want to win the favor of their employees. They may promise pay increments which might not be forthcoming in the long run. Therefore, the major challenges facing employers come from a recruitment, payments, and promotion.

The challenges facing supervisors include abuse of power, using deceptive information, and betraying loyalties. Supervisors are normally put in charge of other workers. They may be tempted to act unethically by abusing their power. This can be through harassing employees below them (Johnson, 9). They can also give false testimony about a certain employee so that he can be sacked. Supervisors can also ask for sexual favors from employees so that they can be assigned fewer duties or they are promoted. They can also use their power to absent themselves from duty. These are just but a few examples of abuse of power as a major ethical challenge. The second ethical challenge would be betraying loyalties. This comes about in two ways. There are standards that the organization may set for the supervisors to follow. These standards even though may be good the supervisors may not be comfortable with them. In this case, the supervisors may act otherwise hence acting unethically. The second instance is where the organization sets unethical rules and regulations that they expect the supervisors to implement. One example is when the employer expects workers to work overtime without extra pay. The supervisor being their leader has to see this done. He may not be comfortable with this idea but now he will have a tough choice to make; either to betray the loyalty to his seniors or to act ethically. In this case, he will require a strong moral will to stick by his moral standards.

Employees face the challenge of abuse of loyalty and conflict of interest. Abuse of loyalty is a major challenge to employees. In most cases, the organizations do not expect employees to take bribes and at the same time, these employees may be underpaid. This puts the employees in an ethical dilemma in case such an opportunity comes about. There may also be unethical practices that may take place in the organization, the employee may have a hard choice either to reveal such practices and risk losing his job or keep silent and keep the job.

The employers, supervisors, and employees can act ethically by coming up with strategies to promote ethics in the organization. This can be done through the development of a code of ethics and each party should be motivated to stick by the code. Through teamwork, efforts to promote ethics in the organization can be realized.