Proposed Models for Addressing Workplace Bullying
Workplace bullying has become rampant over the time and although it is regarded as the biggest ethical challenge but there is no as such conceptual models for preventing bullying at workplace. In order to take effective measures for understanding the concept of workplace bullying a proposition has been given (Rhodes, Pullen, Vickers, Clegg & Pitsis, 2010). This proposition is sure to assist the practitioners as well as academics to address issues related to bullying at the workplace. Origin Energy in the current case has deliberately ignored coal seam gas wells, which has been leaking along with an offshore gas well. McDow alleged several issues where Origin hid with failing to comply with legal or regulatory requirements. The company did not adhere to ethical aspects and preferred paying fine instead of meeting statutory requirements. There will be a brief discussion about normative as well as process-oriented models. These two models will allow the practitioners to establish interactive as well as preventive frameworks for workplace bullying. The normative model has been taken from the moral principles framework. There are almost five types of moral principles that are found in moral principle framework.
The five principles include virtue ethics, utilitarian, care ethics, moral rights and distributive justice. It can be said that these moral principles needs to be put into practice in different areas of human resource management by the future researchers. The author is of the view point that this framework is suitable for making ethical decisions in regards to workplace bullying.
The management style defines the interaction between employee and the employers. This management style can vary from military style to coaching in a friendly manner. There are times when people tend to take strict management style as a way of bullying employees. In such cases, the subordinates feel as if they are working under pressure and they might also feel uncomfortable. Bully-style management can be defined as the situation when a manager becomes a bully among the subordinates due to their strict nature (Fahie, 2014). One example of bullying is to shout at employees in a meeting. Another form of bullying is when an employer tries to criticize the employees harshly instead of advising them is called bullying. Workplace bullying often become physical violence. At Origin Energy, McDow states that almost 35 managers reported of having ignored multiple serious issues, which earlier was not where reported. She highlights that the management culture was in support of such culture, where often there was physical abuse and intimidation as well.
Management Style and Workplace Bullying
In order to terminate an employee, legal challenges are associated with it. Based on the employer’s policies and also whether the employees bound by employment contract, an employee can possess wrongful discharge claim. However, the at-will employers are free from the bond of such claims as they can terminate employees without any valid reason. But an at-will employer needs to get worried about other types of claims (Liao, Gurung, Luo & Li, 2009). The employees need to increase their awareness on the claim of discrimination that might occur as a result of employment termination. In order to persuade the claims, the former employee need to give adequate proof that the he/she was terminated due to their employer’s protected status that include age, gender, race, disability, origin and so on. In the current case example, several employees alleged that they faced bullying from their organisation when they raised ethical concern of serious incidents. The employees were punished, physically tortured and even there were incidents of bullying post which they left the organisation. The organisation on short did not at all follow any ethical policy in regards to discipline and dismissal.
Along with this, the employees can even claim that they were terminated by their employers due to the following reason:
- Employer had terminated them through legal rights like reporting discrimination.
- Making defamatory comments about them in front of other staffs.
- Employer has disclosed reason for involuntary termination by invading their privacy.
- The behaviour of their employer has resulted in emotional distress.
The terminations can be defended if a termination is justified by an appropriate business reason even after the at-will employers tried to terminate their employees without or without valid reason. An employer had to give justification that the employee had been terminated due to his/her misconduct, problems arising due to his/her contribution to the organization and also financial consideration of the employer (Pilbeam & Corbridge, (2010). It is the responsibility of an employer to specify rules and regulations regarding termination. The at-will employers are required to include in their rule list that company rules will not change the at-will status of nay employee. Nonetheless, an employee should include that they have the right to terminate employee other than the stated rules in case an employee has anyway display behavior of misconduct.
Whistle blowing is regarded as a complex mater and it has been found that fares and loyalty comes in collision with each other while discussing whistle blowing. This can be explained through an example: promotion of a skilled worker due to their talents often collides with promotion of an unskilled employee (Mansbach & Bachner, 2010). On the basis of loyalty whistle blowing can include agonizing conflicts. It can be said that loyalty should never be placed above ethical obligations for acting responsibly for an employee’s actions that involves wrong doing for the organization. It is commonly believed that a responsible person tend to blow whistle they are more pre-occupied with negative than positive impact. However, ethical considerations are followed by virtuous kind of whistle blowers as they try to take responsibility solely for safeguarding interest of the public. These kinds of virtuous whistle blowers are sure to accountable for their actions. The case study reveals corporate example of whistleblowing, which is done by filling a suit against the Company. The procedure has been conducted in an ethical manner, by reporting several instances in which the organisation did not follow legislations. Corporate loyalty cannot ever come before ethical concerns; therefore McDow did the right thing by reporting.
Ethical Issues in Discipline and Dismissal
Perhaps intentions serve as the guiding principle behind deciding whether a whistle blower is ethical or not. It is to assess that a whistle blower is able to give voice to the values of the employee of a particular organization or not. Another thing which is also to be considered is whether the whistle blower is influence by greed (Liyanarachchi & Newdick, 2009). It might happen that financial perspective has been taken into consideration for blowing the whistle. It can be said that external context can influence perception even though reporting of wrongdoing is accepted a part of organizational governance. Whistle blowing is not considered to be a negative practice in those organizations that are able to conduct good practices related to corporate governance. My argument might indicate to my readers that I am of the viewpoint that whistle blowing is filled with ethics. I am quite aware of the fact that ethics followed by each of the individual are strongly influenced by culture. It is quite essential to bring forth ethical consideration in an organization. One of the worst things that organizations have to face is when the employers themselves do not follow ethics due to their behaviors.
The American Accounting Association (AAA) model provided by Langenderfer and Rockness (1990) includes a seven step process for decision making encompassing ethical issues in consideration (Lin & Ho, (2008). Applying the case study of Origin Energy and whistleblowing by McDow, decision making for evaluating ethicality can be understood. In the first step of the model, the facts of the case is evaluated that has been uncovered and then ethical issues are evaluated. Facts related to the case can be said not only several spills or accidents that the organisation was involved in; rather it included various decision and dismissal allegations against employees. At the third step principles and values are evaluated, where it can be said that the organisation did not follow moral conduct for the society or community or environment. The organisation did neither adhere to legislations or ethical proceedings for employees of the organisation (Cooper, Leung, Dellaportas, Jackling & Wong, 2008). The organisation did not knowingly wanted to report the several instances of unethicality that it was committing and as ready to pay fine. It found the legislations and regulations difficult as well as expensive to follow. McDow did the right action by reporting against the Company, though there were other options to accept some payment in favour and keep quite. McDow undertook the best course of action that is consistent with principles, norms and values. In accordance to the fifth step, there could be highlighted instances where such reporting has been avoided. Consequences of each possible course of action would be to adopt ethical course of action. Reporting against the Company such that possible course of action can be undertaken. Therefore, in accordance to the above procedure, McDow decided to report incidents as there was grave moral misconduct that was taking place. The Company was supposed to adhere to regulations and follow environmental as well as ethical codes of conduct.
Factors and Considerations in Whistleblowing
An organization tries to promote ethical conduct by compliance and Ethics (“C&E”) and it falls a crucial part in an organization’s policies. Origin Energy does not have an ethical program which has led to several instances of unethical instances and conflicts arising in the organisation. Presence of an ethical program will provide the organisation effective procedure to contain ethical procedure and regulations. Such programs have capability to prevent the need of a whistleblower and legislative troubles with the Company. If an organization intends to establish ethical behaviors then they must take assistance of cultural attributes, procedures and communication efforts. Law can be taken as one of the forces behind an organization’s C&E programs. A number of reasons can be specific for making C&E as the priority (Towell, McFadden, McCoy & Buhrow, 2012). The codification of sound management practices can be linked to the legislation of C&E. There are attempts made in different countries to give global acclamations to C&E programs. The originating country of this policy is U.S. This program deeply delves ingot the matter of conflicts of interest, whistle blowing and corruption that are often encountered in a business organization. It can be said that C&E is responsible for encouraging workplaces to maintain ethics. Some of the programs that are under taken by C&E include risk assessment, measure for accountability, procedures for increasing whistleblowing and devising systems for addressing the conflict of interest in an organization.
- Encouraging senior managers to inculcate C&E programs: If an organization wishes to gain maximum profit from such programs then it is quite essential that the senior mars gets involved I it. Their participation can help in bringing forth a cultural aspect into the ethical behavior.
- Promoting C&E by supporting mid-level managers: Similar to the encouragement of top level managers, mid-levels managers should also be encouraged as without their support ethics might not be established in an organization. For promoting C&E at workplace the mid-level managers needs to be encouraged to:
- Ensure whether employee evaluation reports are reflecting on the performance of C&E.
- They are required to make sure whether issues pertaining to C&E are properly communicated to the employees or not.
- Mid-level managers need to understand the implications of ethical behavior and accordingly they should praise their employees in front of the entire unit.
Business management: It will take into consideration procedures and policies, monitoring, training, response and analysis and also communication.
Business performance: This might include reporting, enforcement, performance and resource, management, auditing and processes and polices.
Business strategy: It generally involves procedures related to risk assessment and also oversight.
There is an urgent need for detecting the output which can be obtained from the application of these procedures. There are basically three measures for ensuring whether compliance and ethic programs are able to bear fruit or not. These three components involve designing, implementation and checking the impact. These three practices should be put into place for encountering success in establishing C&E practices in the workplace.
- There is a need for staffing
- Policies should properly comply with the strategic plans
- Establishing authority within the organization
- Coordinating with different types of assurance functions like risk management, audit and internal.
- Changes made in the quality of practice that are implemented.
- Emphasis to be put on ethics for establishing organizational culture rather than relying upon procedural compliance.
- Embedding polices within the organizational processes.
However, good news on the part of employing C&E practices at the workplace is found. It has been found by Falcoine that almost 74% of the organizations conduct daily assessment of their C7E programs. Reports have shown that most of the workplaces are making sue of certain metrics for measuring this program and these include.
- Helpline metrics (55%)
- Risk assessment for results (71%)
- Compliance audit results (77%)
- Training completion rates (59%)
The AAA Ethical Decision-making Model and the Case Study
There are some other metrics that are to be adopted in descending order and it include third party feedback internal and external benchmarking result, culture surveys, employee questionnaires and so on. In fact some respondents have found to use buses metrics in relation to compliance, aging, training competency test, internal customer compliance service level agreement etc and enforcement activates (De Colle & Werhane, 2008). Furthermore, statements obtained from public or presses are also taken into consideration. Both the cost of compliance as well as non-compliance program is to be addressed in the program that is instated by an organization to establish ethical environment at their workplace. The compliance and ethics program can reach success only with the involvement of the above mentioned components. These components are then measured with the help of different types of metrics. It has been found that this Ethics and compliance initiative is slowly moving towards broader system approach. Earlier this ethic and compliance program was mainly pre-occupied with the check-the-box approach but with time it has subjected to changes. It has been evaluated that the ethical advocate is known to give several compliance solutions. An organization is able to find solution regarding ethics and compliance with the help of ethical advocate. In fact anonymous as well as confidential hotlines are also included in it.
References:
De Colle, S., & Werhane, P. H. (2008). Moral motivation across ethical theories: What can we learn for designing corporate ethics programs?. Journal of Business Ethics, 81(4), 751-764. Retrieved on 20th September 2018, from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-007-9545-7
Towell, E., McFadden, K. L., McCoy, W. C., & Buhrow, A. (2012). Creating an interdisciplinary business ethics program. Journal of Academic Ethics, 10(2), 93-112. Retrieved on 20th September 2018, from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10805-012-9160-9
Cooper, B. J., Leung, P., Dellaportas, S., Jackling, B., & Wong, G. (2008). Ethics education for accounting students—A toolkit approach. Accounting Education: an international journal, 17(4), 405-430. Retrieved on 24th September 2018, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09639280802436681
Lin, C. Y., & Ho, Y. H. (2008). An examination of cultural differences in ethical decision making using the multidimensional ethics scale. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 36(9), 1213-1222. Retrieved on 25th September 2018, from https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/sbp/sbp/2008/00000036/00000009/art00007
Liyanarachchi, G., & Newdick, C. (2009). The impact of moral reasoning and retaliation on whistle-blowing: New Zealand evidence. Journal of Business Ethics, 89(1), 37-57. Retrieved on 2nd October 2018, from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-008-9983-x
Mansbach, A., & Bachner, Y. G. (2010). Internal or external whistleblowing: nurses’ willingness to report wrongdoing. Nursing Ethics, 17(4), 483-490. Retrieved on 1st October 2018, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0969733010364898
Liao, Q., Gurung, A., Luo, X., & Li, L. (2009). Workplace management and employee misuse: does punishment matter?. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 50(2), 49-59. Retrieved on 30th September 2018, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08874417.2009.11645384.
Pilbeam, S., & Corbridge, M. (2010). People resourcing and talent planning: HRM in practice. Prentice Hall. Retrieved on 27th September 2018, from https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/people-resourcing-and-talent-planning-hrm-in-practice(a1089f50-0fc1-4665-b1f7-daa50e971950).html
Fahie, D. (2014). Doing sensitive research sensitively: Ethical and methodological issues in researching workplace bullying. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 13(1), 19-36. Retrieved on 28th September 2018, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/160940691401300108
Rhodes, C., Pullen, A., Vickers, M. H., Clegg, S. R., & Pitsis, A. (2010). Violence and workplace bullying: what are an organization’s ethical responsibilities?. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 32(1), 96-115. Retrieved on 30th September 2018, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/ATP1084-1806320105
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