Ethical Dilemmas in HR: A Reflective Essay for Managers

This reflective essay examines the importance of personal ethics in the role of an HR manager, using a real-life scenario to illustrate ethical dilemmas. The author, an HR manager in the UK, discusses the conflict between personal values and professional obligations when dealing with an employee's workplace injury and subsequent compensation denial by the management. The essay highlights the author's struggle with peer pressure and the professional code of ethics, ultimately leading to a commitment to uphold personal ethics and professional standards, including honesty, integrity, and advocating for staff members' rights. The essay concludes with a commitment to use SMART principles to make ethical decisions and provides a list of relevant references.

Reflective Essay
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Ethics is the backbone of every decision making process that makes by an individual at
personal level. The values hold by a person shows to the world by making choices that include him.
All people have different values and their decision making in the life reflects their principles
(Personal Ethics, 2016). I am a HR manager in a well reputed organization of the UK from last 3
years. As per my professionals, we have taught that always be ethical at the time of delivering the
HR service to the employees of the company. Along with this, we have taught that how to solve the
issues of staff members, how to volunteer and how to live honestly at the workplace. But, it has
most important for and HR manager to adopt and maintain some personal ethics. It is a category of
philosophy that identifies what an individual believes about morality and right and wrong (Personal
Code of Ethics, 2016). This is completely different from business and legal ethics. During the
workplace, I have always made sure that I have followed my personal ethics.
The organization where I was previously working has formulated the compensation policy
for the employees for injury at the workplace. One day, in the company, an accident has happed
with one of the staff members in which his right leg has fractured. As per the compensation policy,
firm has responsible for paying compensation to employee if he or she meets any accident during
the work. On that case, management has neglected the request of the worker regarding
compensation and always gave excuses that we will give it two week or one month later. As a HR
manager, I was communicating the instruction to that employee and that time, I was known that
management was doing the wrong thing by ignoring the compensation request. It was very bad
experience for me that higher authority were cut down the employee rights. For that situation, I
could take stand up for what is right rather than influence from peer pressure. The reason of doing
this is I think that every person should adopt and follow some personal ethics at the workplace
because it helps in taking decisions what is right and what went wrong. But due to the peer pressure
and professional code of ethics, I was unable to take any kind of action in the favour of that
employee.
In the light of the following reflection, to deal with such kind of issue, I will follow my
personal ethics. For this, I will maintain the highest level of professional standards as an employee
of the company and conduct myself with honestly and integrity at all time towards the other staff
members. Along with this, I will maintain a positive attitude towards the issues of the staff
members. On the other hand, I will take stands for the wrong things without influence from peer
pressure. Further, I will use my own sense to judge the situation that things are either going into
wrong direction or not. So, these all SMART principles of personal ethics will help me to take right
decisions.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Gioia, D.A., 1992. Pinto fires and personal ethics: A script analysis of missed opportunities. Journal
of Business Ethics. 11(5-6). pp.379-389.
Quinn, J.J., 1997. Personal ethics and business ethics: The ethical attitudes of owner/managers of
small business. Journal of Business Ethics. 16(2). pp.119-127.
Tsai, M.T. and Shih, C.M., 2005. The influences of organizational and personal ethics on role
conflict among marketing managers: An empirical investigation. International Journal of
Management. 22(1). p.54.
Turnipseed, D.L., 2002. Are good soldiers good?: Exploring the link between organization
citizenship behavior and personal ethics. Journal of business research. 55(1). pp.1-15.
Zanker, G., 1996. The Heart of Achilles: Characterization and Personal Ethics in the Iliad.
University of Michigan Press.
Online
Personal Code of Ethics. 2016. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/personal-code-of-ethics-faq.htm>. [Accessed on 3rd
October 2016].
Personal Ethics. 2016. [Online]. Available through:
<https://pages.stolaf.edu/ein/disciplines/personal-ethics/>. [Accessed on 3rd October 2016].
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