Ethical Issues in the Workplace
Institution Affiliation
Harassment is unethical behavior that involves personal or social treatment of a person within the organization. It goes in hand with discrimination, which can negatively affect the employee in matters relating to the job (McLeod, 2019). As it happens to many others, one morning, as my workmate was seated at her desk checking the to-do-list for the day, a certain senior manager came up behind her and ran his fingers over her hair. As if that was not enough, he did the same across her neck. Comments followed that that she was not comfortable with. She must have been strong enough to put him off and firmly tell him never to repeat that. Well, since his mission failed, my workmate was discriminated against to the point of deciding to quit the job.
Nonetheless, this is not the only kind of harassment in organizations. Denying an employee sick leave, hiring people of the same ethnic group, and many others are forms of discrimination (Aswani, 2018). Employees cower speaking out in fear of losing their jobs, so most cases go unnoticed. These and other forms of ethical issues can have a severe impact on the organization. The organization can lose vital employees who may decide to quit the jobs rather than tolerating those behaviors. Similarly, employees can be affected emotionally, resulting in ineffectiveness in job delivery due to lack of concentration. This can later affect the organization in ways such as losing customers, low returns, and legal implications.
To deal with these ethical issues, organizations should have a compliance workforce on-site to guarantee that regulations by state and federal are being complied with (Aswani, 2018). Organizations also need to put in place policies that govern the operations and consequences for unethical behavior. Employees should have the courage to point out and speak on issues affecting them ethically.
References
Aswani, N. (2018). Major ethical issues in business. Retrieved on February 2020, from .
McLeod, M. (2019). 5 Common Ethical Issues That Can Affect Your Business. Fast Capital 360. Retrieved from