Entrepreneurship is that truly amazing endeavor where you are solely responsible for providing livelihood to people. There probably is no greater joy then realizing the fact that you control the fate of a few individuals and everything that they have chalked out in life depends on the monetary benefits you are providing them. However, it is also important to note that your role as an employer doesn’t end at paying them and extracting work from them. As your employees, they expect you to treat them with a certain degree of respect and dignity. The main strength of an organization does not lie in you or your idea but lies in the people who work for you. A happy workforce is a productive workforce. An employer’s attitude towards his people is wholly responsible for building loyalty. The set of protocols an employer needs to follow at a workplace towards his employees is termed as employer ethics. Quite a few organizations have curtailed due to the wrath of their employees because of lack of ethical practices. However, there is also good news, a recent report states that 79 percent of the companies have a written ethical code of conduct and 55% of them have started giving ethical training to their employees. The only bad news being that the number of employees reporting misconduct at the hands of the employer has still not reduced. If you are an employer, who wants to inculcate ethical practices at his/her work place here are some of the things that are expected of you.
Ethics For Employer
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To begin with, provide accurate job positioning information; there have been cases where an employee is swindled into believing that he/she will be posted to a location suitable to his needs and then he/she is posted to a location, which is not commutable without a 4-hour drive in traffic. This is ethically wrong and an employee can sue you for this.
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While hiring, provide reasonable notice to the candidates about the interview and in case of cancellation inform the candidate that the interview is called off.
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Do not discuss the job postings or rankings before, during, or after the interview. This gives the employee an illusion that he/she is already hired.
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Once an employer has been chosen, confirm his posting in writing.
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Abide by all the labor laws of a country, for instance in India no employer can make you work for more than 8 hours without providing remuneration for the extra work you have provided.
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Decide on the period for probationary or temporary employees. Abide by the rules of the contract and after the probationary period based on their performance either make them permanent employees with benefits such as health insurance or fire them if they are unsatisfactory. Some organizations continue keeping people as temporary employees so that they don’t have to give them benefits like provident fund and medical insurance.
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Do not show favoritism or any kind of discrimination based on sex, creed, or race of the person. Racism is a terrible evil people face, it can be extremely demoralizing. It is against the law to practice it however many immigrants have claimed to seen subtler manifestations of it. It truly is the worst thing you can do to your employees.
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In a recent report, Chinese employees of the IPAD, IPhone manufacturers Foxconn sued the company for using screen cleaner that was poisonous and could be injurious to their health. As an employer, it is your duty to provide non-hazardous working conditions to your employees. The health of your employees is of utmost importance.
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Have a written code of ethics and follow it to the last point. Ethics training also aids in inculcating a sense of morality in the employees. For instance, the TATA group is considered the epitome in conducting business ethically.
