The Ethics of Human Resource Management and Employment Relation - Term Paper Example

Running Head: MANAGEMENT The ethics of Human Resource Management & Employment Relation Student Name Institution Date Table of Contents The Ethics of Human Resource Management & Employment Relation 3 Introduction 3 The various suggestions for the situation facing NSW ambulance service would entail complete analysis of stability and change in employment and human resource; in detail evaluation of the ethical role and prospective of human resource; analysis of alternative futures for human resource management as a profession and suggestion on how to come up with precise and self-governing professional practice with the latter taking a great toll on the NSW ambulance circumstances. This was split into several areas with major emphasis on the employees’ welfares. Much emphasis is given on the latter, and chosen as the most ethical since it relates mostly to the major problem which has been facing the employees presently as well as during last 5 years. 5 Organizational Fair Treatment 5 Challenging Existing values 6 Harmonizing Employee Rights 7 Harmonizing Care for every Individual 8 Business & Professional Ethics Adherence 10 Conclusion/Summary 11 The process assessed within the case study of NSW ambulance services replicates the various principles of fair procedures. The scenario truly reveals an irony since the various processes meant to provide fair treatment could turn to become basis for rows as well as grievances between the Human resource players, line managers and individuals experiencing the various issues. An importance on the bureaucratic justice ought to be developed to ensure the continuation of a documentation track that will often play the role of defense against allegations of unfair treatments within NSW ambulance services. This is as found from the facts that unfair treatments are a major cause leading to ethical tensions with regards to displaying respect as well as care for the individuals. This brings out an insight in a particular acute predicament for the human resource players which are intensified by an increase in regulations. In enhancing the use of processes created to reveal equal rights within all the organizational practices. Through this, the level of regulating the rules to fit individual needs as well as situations can be dealt with. 11 The case study here highlights the significance of coming up with processes which meet the obligation of bureaucratic justice and fair treatment as well as the flexibility to enable responsive personal interactions which considers individuals requirements. The management conducts in the appliance and understanding of organizational regulations have a vital impact on individual insights of fair treatment processes which ought to be seen in management education as well as the development involvements. 11 References 11 Pinnington, A.H, Macklin, R, Tom, C, (2007): Human Resource Management: Ethics and 12 Employment. New York: Oxford University Press. 12 The Ethics of Human Resource Management & Employment Relation Introduction The paper looks at the scenario at the NSW Ambulance Service, an important and vibrant part of the New South Wales health system and one of the largest ambulance services in the world. As reported on 18-10-2008 in the daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia, Ambulance Service of NSW has been on the limelight on several occasions, in the past five years, with the human resource scopes tested in a number of times. It has been the focus with 11 investigations in the past 5 years with hundreds of troubling stories related to bullying, intimidations, abuse, harassment as well as occupational health and safety concerns. This led to the questioning of its capability to deliver as well as offer protection when it could not even assure a protective work culture to its loyal employees. For instance, hardly 24 hours prior to the start of the NSW upper house investigations in July, the premier’s Department evaluation of the service came out with serious operational as well as workforce concerns that were hurting the welfare of various ambulance officers. According to the chairwoman, Robyn Parker, the investigations were called in reaction to the issues brought out by the ambulance officers, the community, members of parliament as well as the public domain concerning, particularly, intimidation, harassment, bullying in addition to the occupational health as well as safety concerns. The investigations had a hearing of tales involving officers who were not able to tolerate the prolonged complaint management structure that was being condemned of its aggressiveness which was seen as a form of bullying in it. For the majority of the officers, the management’s repetitive letdown to even solve their concerns aggravated their anger. Some gave up and proceeded on stress leave; some committed suicide. This paper’s major objective is to assess ethics and employment concerns in contemporary Human Resource Management at the NSW Ambulance Service. It examines the problems as well as opportunities facing employers and employees, particularly, in the past 5 years until present, and thereafter proposes possible developments for the future seeking to discover a more practical Human Resource Management approach on the road to ethical concerns coming up within the organization. Its aim is therefore that of regulation as well as increasing proceedings that can enhance an employee relations environment and where the human resource practitioners as well as the line managers in a similar way put much emphasis on complying with the processes come up with in order to portray moral impartiality as away of protecting managerial decision making processes. The various suggestions for the situation facing NSW ambulance service would entail complete analysis of stability and change in employment and human resource; in detail evaluation of the ethical role and prospective of human resource; analysis of alternative futures for human resource management as a profession and suggestion on how to come up with precise and self-governing professional practice with the latter taking a great toll on the NSW ambulance circumstances. This was split into several areas with major emphasis on the employees’ welfares. Much emphasis is given on the latter, and chosen as the most ethical since it relates mostly to the major problem which has been facing the employees presently as well as during last 5 years. Organizational Fair Treatment The application of fair treatment has been acknowledged as a significant ingredient in enhancing employees or workers commitment. Folger and Cropanzao scrutinize that fairness raise “Supportive citizenship behaviours that extends beyond the call of formal job duties. “Before the 1980s, the academic structure which controlled and enlightened research was mainly that of distributive justice. This meant that fair treatment results were considered in terms of individuals or group contributions. Concerns on fair treatment were subject to the equity theory predominantly in relation to how various individuals assessed as well as reacted to the dissimilarity in treatment. Insufficiency of equity theory as theoretical structure in addition to the growing application of lawsuits to determine cases of discrimination as in the case of NSW ambulance services diverted the attention a distance away from the former distributive justice to a more organised procedural justice within the employment processes. In the circumstance of legal rows resolution as in the case of NSW ambulance service, direct control over the processes and the resolutions have been recognized as the fundamental determinants of the beaurocratic justice, as well as the probable way through which the employers establish the rationality of their judgements. This ability to exhibit fair treatment in the job allocation procedures has taken a great toll in organizational significance not only in evading rule defiance but also due to its impacts on the probability of an individual alleging unfair treatment. Challenging Existing values Different perspectives bureaucratic justice has enlightened research as well as the development of practice. Among these is the perception of process control described as the level of individual opportunity to control decision. In spite of the seemingly straightforward separation between ethics and the profit intentions, literature with ethics on human resources remains occupied with opinions on how the two match. Douglas (2004), for instance concludes in his review that organizations that operate with an intention of long-term welfares of their important stakeholders have high probability of excelling as compared to those with short term share holder approach. They state that organizations need to pay attention to, process and act helpfully in response to the values as well as the requirements of their stakeholders, and most importantly their workers, clients and investors. The public has been able to expand their understanding of the outcomes when many businesses do not act in accordance with ethical practices. It is at this moment that the human resources along with the industrial relations players investigate the relevance of ethics in employment relationship and to find out the significance of treating employees in a proper manner. Alternatively, they need to investigate the various ethical dimensions that generate deviations in values, attitudes as well as behaviours so that they are able to tackle the challenges facing the organization. The organization should therefore work towards challenging the current values as well as the behaviours, in order to enhance a change in the perception that would be seen by all as an opportunity for greater equality. This is both within the internal organizational relationships as well as in the external service provision. Lack of implementation will lower down the long-term commercial feasibility in addition to raising the dangers of corporate downfall (Cropanzano, 2001). Harmonizing Employee Rights Certain employee rights are breached or satisfied especially in resource allotment decisions. The insights of these bureaucratic processes are dependent on the degree to which they are satisfied. The elements of such fair processes include; lack of biasness, accuracy, ability to correct as well as a good representation of the troubled and ethicality. Organizational research on fairness recommends that breaching the dimensions of bureaucratic justice will probably pose great impacts with regards to fairness than the distributive justice of the ultimate results. The human resource expert role for organizational justice is to ensure the organization is out of mess and away from the major employment hearings handled often by the human resource specialists. Human resource has therefore a major stake in the employees’ alleged fairness of results. This is able to strengthen the organizational role of offering ethical leadership, which on the other hand sustains the focus on the reliable application of favourable practice. The most practicable way that can be applied even to the scenario of the NSW ambulance service is by coming up with measures that concentrate on the scope of human resource actions. Torrington and Hall (2000) portray the development of workers’ rights in the 1970s as leading to resulting to an era dominated by legal rows between them and their employees over the understanding of the book of rule. This resulted to unconstructive perceptions amid operational managers over the personnel roles’ general contribution towards the various business objectives. The important argument here was that organization personnel departments had become exceedingly controlling the official procedures which had an integral role as organization relation experts. Harmonizing Care for every Individual The capability to handle allegations of conflicting treatment was found to be of great significance as highly cherished by the various human resource staff as compared to other prospective benefits coming out from indicating better care in individual cases. The move towards has however no justification as it is only based on research proofs that recommend conflicting dimensions of bureaucratic justice which can come out with bigger effects on fair treatment that are the result justice. A draw back towards this approach is that can come up with destructive twists and thereafter accompanied by more complicated evading tactics. Such suspicions were manifested with the line managers at the NSW ambulance services as well as a revelation that the regulations of the game were getting more vital than justice coming out with the ultimate results. This case study on NSW ambulance services therefore demonstrate that distinguished fair treatment can at times be undermined with the intentions of take full advantage of other human resource practices. A not fully formed topic in the organizational justice, however, is the organizational literature covering justice issues on the impacts of the quality of fair treatment on individuals. The range of the interaction outcomes appears as the most fundamental influence on the various individuals’ insight of fair treatment processes, instead of faulting extreme degree of rules as well as regulations restricting their chances to practice caution. The level of interactional results occurred as the fundamental influence on the individual insights of the fair treatment process (Budd et.al, 2005). Despite faulting the extreme regulations restricting their opportunities to practice caution, the truth is that every single one except for the most practised managers had a liking for prearranged processes that trimmed down their duties towards decision making. This was seen as less time consuming in addition lowering down the level of accountability in case things don’t get right. Academic researchers, on the other hand, continue to praise the importance of line managers working along with, explaining decisions, and offering opportunities for open communication and portraying immense concern for the various individuals. In their recommence of the various ethical structures that can enlighten human resource practice, Winstanley and Woodall (2000), propose that ethics of care with a swing from the formal structures to an extra individualised approach has a lot to present to the human resource management. In this case study of NSW ambulance service, it can be revealed that its social psychological aspects had got little attention than the mounting processes that verified procedural justice. It was this recognized lack of acknowledgment of personal grievances that resulted to the many rows (Winstanley et.al, 2000). Business & Professional Ethics Adherence Circumstances believed to be infuriating feelings of dissatisfaction and unfairness on the human resource actions ought to be keenly crutinized.Woodd(1997 )disclose confidence by employees in the values of the human resource management authority offering expertise as well as a third party existence in order that fairness exists. This provides the specialist role as well as acknowledged role combination. Alternatively, delegating responsibilities or duties offers a reduction of the activities involving the personnel roles at the most crucial and the earliest stages, which plays a role of neutrality in an organizational situation hence enhancing fairness. Then again, it means that the time-consuming cases are most probably entailing the roles again bringing about questions concerning the nature of their role in the organization. Another somewhat distrustful understanding of the outcomes of excessive regulation may have on the role of the human resource players is that a key assessor of its achievements might be a negative one, with the usefulness of its regulation actions considered by the avoidance costs related to costs of unfair treatment as experienced within the organization. The human resource role of making certain the employees rights are complied with could therefore be determined by other interests such as self-preservation other than offering ethical leadership as in the case of NSW ambulance service. A more positive scenario is that it is able to offer opportunities towards new strategies that can help do away with individual complaints and problems as well. In this there will be a return to recognizing internal values hence doing away with individual differences within the organization set up. Conclusion/Summary The process assessed within the case study of NSW ambulance services replicates the various principles of fair procedures. The scenario truly reveals an irony since the various processes meant to provide fair treatment could turn to become basis for rows as well as grievances between the Human resource players, line managers and individuals experiencing the various issues. An importance on the bureaucratic justice ought to be developed to ensure the continuation of a documentation track that will often play the role of defense against allegations of unfair treatments within NSW ambulance services. This is as found from the facts that unfair treatments are a major cause leading to ethical tensions with regards to displaying respect as well as care for the individuals. This brings out an insight in a particular acute predicament for the human resource players which are intensified by an increase in regulations. In enhancing the use of processes created to reveal equal rights within all the organizational practices. Through this, the level of regulating the rules to fit individual needs as well as situations can be dealt with. The case study here highlights the significance of coming up with processes which meet the obligation of bureaucratic justice and fair treatment as well as the flexibility to enable responsive personal interactions which considers individuals requirements. The management conducts in the appliance and understanding of organizational regulations have a vital impact on individual insights of fair treatment processes which ought to be seen in management education as well as the development involvements. References Budd, J.W, Scoville, J.G, (2005): The Ethics of Human Resources and Industrial Relations, New York: Cornell University Press. Cropanzano, Russell (2001): Justice in the Workplace: From Theory to Practice Series in Applied Psychology, Volume 2 of Justice in the Workplace, Routledge. Deckop, J.R and Raymond, J.D, (2006): Human Resource Management Ethics: Ethics in practice, IAP, Journal of 'Management Inquiry. Greenberg, J and Colquitt, J (2005): Handbook of Organizational Justice: Applied Psychology Series. London: Routledge Publishers. Pinnington, A.H, Macklin, R, Tom, C, (2007): Human Resource Management: Ethics and Employment. New York: Oxford University Press. Winstanley, D, Woodall, J, Heery, E, (1996): Business Ethics and Human Resource Management: Themes and Issues, Personnel Review, Vol. 25 Issue: 6, MCB Limited Publishers. Winstanley, D, Woodall, J, (2000): Ethical Issues in Contemporary Human Resource Management: Management, Work and Organizations, Palgrave Macmillan Publications. Woodd, M (1997): Human resource specialists - guardians of ethical conduct? Employment, Ethics, Human resource management, Moral responsibility, Social responsibility, Vol.21 Iss: 3, MCB UP Ltd, Ipswich, Suffolk, UK. Torrington, D and Hall, L (2008): Human Resource Management, Financial Times Prentice Hall, Douglas, D (2004): Ethical Challenges of an Increasingly Diverse Workforce: The Paradox of Change, Volume 7, Issue 2, Routlegde Publishing. Read More