The ethics in which we work

The ethics in which we work

Human Resources

Through out the course of this class my thoughts and views on the aspect alone of the human resources department has changed. I once thought this was a department that had little to no foothold in the dynamics of a corporation. However it is now evident to me that with out the HR department the entire functionality of any organization would crumble to ruins. For this research paper the assignment was to investigate and research one aspect of human resources; find out how it is operated and how it can be improved upon. I plan to discuss the issue and topic of ethics, and its relation to human resources. I chose this topic because during this trying time that our nation has encountered, I feel ethics needs to be at its strongest standpoint ever.

First I will define what is meant by ethics. Ethics is a set of rules or values, often set by society. These are the fibers, which set the standards for our culture, and the paths that form the means to our ends.

Even though the atmosphere at the workplace should begin to code the ethical standards and practices, it is the role of HR to spell out these rules in black and white. These can be found in the employee handbook. I decided to peruse through our handbook at work, and not to my surprise the ethical message was either too short or tangled up in legal jargon. That is exactly what the problem is. Society is so far torn from its values that we need, and I say that emphatically, we need something to spell out our moral and ethical codes for us.

I spoke with the human resources generalist for our facility; I asked her what she thought about the moral codes of the work place today. I asked her to try her hardest not to confuse the question with a sexual harassment situation. She had the following to say: "What values?" I had to laugh at this point; just knowing her cynical outlook on things the rest of this interview was bound to be interesting. The rest of the verbatim continued as follows: "I remember when values were important, when a handshake meant something." "The values not only of Grimes, but in the business arena as a whole has gone to hell in a hand-basket." I asked her what HR is going to do about this, and if it is fixable; her only reply was a nod of the head, and her phone rang. Back to business.

I decided to look fo...

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...st a little, but once I started with the project of researching ethics in the work place I wanted to know all I could find out about it. It was more than evident to me that values and morals were fighting a losing battle against mergers and dollar signs. But I knew there had to be a way to combine the two. However after doing my research I have come to this conclusion. Between 800 and 900 years ago, human beings sought honor. Knights lived for nothing but honor and were guided by their values alone. As time pressed forward and technology increased; values dwindled. People began to associate values as kindness, and kindness as weakness. Weakness has always been in opposition to power, and in the world today power equals money.

I feel the only way to apply a more friendly code of ethics, without dulling our level of aggression in today's business world is to train. By this I mean hold mandatory classes on ethics, teach your employees how to have these two streams of life coexist. Good strong morals and ethics are important as well as aggressive business tactics. If a company were to combine the two together, think of the possibilities. They are virtually limitless.