Case Study 10: Jobs for You - Employment Agency Ethical Analysis

This case study centers on Stella, a recruitment manager at an employment agency grappling with ethical and privacy concerns regarding employee records. The agency maintains diary notes, and employees are requesting access to their records, raising management's concerns about potential legal repercussions from potentially discriminatory or false claims. The management instructs Stella to devise a coding system to protect the agency. The student's analysis emphasizes Stella's ethical responsibilities, highlighting the importance of honesty, transparency, and the primacy of public interest. Stella is advised to reject the coding system, advocating for open and honest record-keeping practices that allow employees to review and correct information, thereby promoting ethical conduct and professional standards. The analysis references various sources to support its arguments and emphasizes the importance of ethical decision-making in leadership and recruitment.

Case Study 10 – Jobs for You – Employment
Agency

Table of Contents
How should Stella proceed?.......................................................................................................2
References..................................................................................................................................3

How should Stella proceed?
Stella is the recruitment manager in the employment agency. The employment agency
maintains diary notes of phone calls as well as interactions with the employees on their
database. Due to the concern that what the employment agency files may say about them, the
employees appealed to the national privacy legislation to view their own records. It caused
concern to the management of the employment agency, if the employees may blame company
for making false or discriminatory claims against them. That is why, the management of the
agency instructed its HR staff to be careful about everything recorded in database. Despite
the concern, the agency wants to record the truth as their observation about the employees but
they are concerned that it might appear rude, discriminatory or insulting to the employees if
read by them (Lowry, 2006). Considering all this, the management instructed Stella to devise
a set of codes that could be used in notes that would be meaningless to the employees as well
as the lawyers and could not be used against the company in court (Parkes & Davis, 2013).
Stella should be concerned as what she considers are actually the ethical and privacy
concerns. Being professional she should adhere to the societal values and should keep the
interests of employees above the business interests (primacy of public interest). In this
context, she should identify the employees potentially influenced by the records and should
consider their interests under Clause (a) of primacy of public interest (Australian Computer
Society, 2012).
First of all, she is the recruitment manager in the agency and should not be bias and
dishonest either against employees or the agency (Wilson, 2015). She should exhibit honesty
in her representation of skills, knowledge, services as well as products (Honest) under Clause
(a) (Australian Computer Society, 2012). In this context, she should not knowingly mislead
the employees or the lawyers through use of code language in diary notes under Clause (b).
Recruiting right person is her actual job responsibility. As mentioned above, the agency

maintains the record of all the employees through diary notes on their database. According to
the agency, they want to record truth about the employees, which is ethically and
professionally correct. Concerning about the fact that the truth about the employees might
feel insulting to the employees, the agency must not adopt unprofessional and unethical
conduct. As the management instructed Stella to devise a set of codes that would be non-
understandable by the employees and the lawyers, it would be highly unethical on the part of
the agency as they will ruin transparency of the agency (Zillman, 2014). The records about
the employees should be based on truth and diary notes should include actual and factual
information about the employees whether it affects employees positively or negatively. The
agency should maintain transparency in the maintenance of records so that it could be clearly
visible to the employees as well as the lawyers and any lame person as well. The use of
coding language displays unethical and cheating conduct by the agency; however, the
company is not recording anything false about the employees. Thus, Stella should not be
agreed to devise a set of codes to be utilized in the diary notes as it would be unethical
towards the organization as well as for the employees. The information recorded in the
database should be transparent so that everyone could understand it. She should not be
concerned about the feelings of the employees as anything negative about the employees
would provide them an opportunity to correct it and they will be able to become better
employee. The decision of Stella will enhance the quality of life of the employees getting
affected due to her action following Clause (a) of (Enhancement of Quality of life). In this
context, she should make efforts to develop personal satisfaction and competence among the
employees who are supposed to get affected by the actions against them under Clause (d)
(Australian Computer Society, 2012). Additionally, the process would be all ethical and
professional to be challenged by the court.

References
Lowry, D., 2006. HR managers as ethical decision-makers: Mapping the terrain. Asia Pacific
Journal of Human Resources.
Parkes, C. & Davis, A.J., 2013. Ethics and social responsibility – do HR professionals have
the ‘courage to challenge’ or are they set to be permanent ‘bystanders?’. The International
Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(12), pp.2411-34.
Wilson, P., 2015. Ethical workplace cultures. [Online] Available at:
http://www.hrmonline.com.au/section/featured/ethical-workplace-cultures/ [Accessed 26
April 2018].
Zillman, S., 2014. HR's role in fostering ethical workplaces. [Online] Available at:
https://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/hrs-role-in-fostering-ethical-workplaces-143471.aspx
[Accessed 26 April 2018].