Skills and abilities needed for making ethical decisions
Privacy is a fundamental right of every individual. In workplace, privacy connotes securing the needs, demands and requirements of the employees and the customers. The managers are entrusted with the responsibility to train the employees about the importance of maintaining the privacy. Here, mention can be made of the Ethical Code of Conduct, which enhances the awareness about the correct approach towards the clients and the customers (Poell, 2017). Consideration of the standards and protocols of the employment legislations is assistance in terms of averting the illegal instances. This assignment attempts to skills, abilities and competencies needed for making ethical considerations within the workplace.
Before undertaking any task, the individuals need to assess whether they possess the skills, competencies and abilities needed. This assessment is crucial in terms of averting negative outcomes. Conducting self-assessment is appropriate for examining the feasibility of the possessed skills. This exercise is applicable for all of the tasks, including undertaking ethical decisions.
At the initial stage, the employees need to be proficient with the mission and vision statement. For this, the managers need to provide congenial environment to the workers, which do not support unethical actions. According to Weinberg et al. (2015), conscious approach is needed for the managers for enhancing the awareness of the staffs about the illegal actions. Possessing adequate and accurate information about the standards of Ethical Code of Conduct is crucial before making ethical decisions. Within this, awareness about how to handle the unethical instances is important for undertaking ethical decisions.
Mention can be made of Ethical Decision Making framework, which the employees need to be aware of. According to this framework, firstly the employees need to identify the ethical principles, which might be conflicting for a particular situation. Typical elements in this aspect are confidentiality, fair dealing, diligence and independence. The employees need to be aware of all these attributes. Consulting the senior and the experienced members is effective in terms of enhancing the preconceived skills, knowledge and expertise in these attributes (Bello, Armarego & Murray, 2015).
After identification of the principles, the employees need to consider the possible factors, which might influence the decision-making process. Situational influences or internal biases acts as obstacle in the process of making the ethical decisions. Accepting such offers is unethical and might compel the personnel to encounter negative results. Instead, evaluation needs to be conducted for assessing which factor might lead to the appropriate decision. At the initial stage, the tendency would be to accept all of the factors for undertaking the decisions. However, exposing open-mindedness is assistance for the employees in terms of expanding the thought horizons. Time management is an important aspect within ethical decision-making process. This is in terms of examining the feasibility and effectiveness of the adopted decision. This reflection provides the employees with effective learning opportunities. In the opinions of Hughes, (2018), using this method would enable the employees to gain familiarity with their strengths and weaknesses.
Apart from this, the employees need to have cognitive skills for handling the unethical situations. Placing themselves in different situations and applying various perspectives broadens the scope and arena of judgmental decision-making power. Taking help from the senior and the experienced managers is beneficial for the employees in terms of judging the effectiveness of the adopted learning process. These skills lay the foundation for appropriate ethical decision-making skills. Judgment of the decision-making skills enhances the awareness of the employees about the impact it creates on others’ thought process. The sub skills required in this aspect are implementing the decisions and reviewing it.
Training methods for respecting privacy
Here, mention can be made of the different approaches, which the employees need to possess for undertaking decisions, which are ethical (Simmel, 2017). These approaches are utilitarian, right based, fairness or justice and virtue. Utilitarian approach helps the employees to gain an insight into the consequences of the actions and decisions. Right based approach is fruitful in terms of assessing whether the rights of the people have been respected in the process of undertaking ethical decisions. Fairness or justice approach is productive in terms of assessing whether the undertaken decisions provides fair treatment to the clients and the customers. Virtue action is productive for examining the actions, which results in embodiment of the strengths.
Training regarding privacy is crucial for inculcating the values of securing the feelings of privacy and security within the employees. However, I think adherence to integrated frameworks help in achieving positive outcomes. The managers take into consideration the modules, which consists of the basic ways for maintaining privacy, confidentiality and security. I can make the mention of the induction trainings, which helps the new joinees to gain familiarity with the confidentiality and security policies (Martin, 2016). Within this, I can point out c omputer based training module. When the systems receive the information of ID card, the course is delivered to the employees. The duration of the course is 20 minutes, within which the employees are made acquainted with the dynamics of security, privacy and confidentiality within the business networks. Special initiatives are taken for helping the employees in renewing their ID cards.
The managers take into consideration the latest versions of Privacy Act for transmitting the essential information about maintaining the security of the workplace. Within this, reference to Access to Information Act, is fruitful in terms of assessing whether the employees can access necessary information regarding their private and confidential information. Here, the managers undertake practical training methods, which provides an easy understanding to the employees about the basic ways and means of preserving the security (Birnstill, 2016).
Within the training methods, the trainers take into consideration, the statistics and the objectives. These consideration helps in improving the focus on teaching the employees the basic ways of preserving the privacy. After the provision of training, assessment needs to be made regarding whether accurate control and protective measures have been adopted. Practical training methods are adopted for enhancing the familiarity of the employees regarding accessing the confidential files and storing them effectively. Here, mention can be made of the practical trainings, which upgrade the knowledge, skills and expertise of the employees regarding averting the instances of cybercrimes (Boehm, Hey & Ortner, 2016).
Preparing frameworks for providing trainings help in systematizing the activities according to the priorities. This is on the grounds of dignity, respect, disagreement and other attributes. One of the typical components of the framework is the group work, which generates interest for collaborative output. Allow ample opportunities to the employees to read about the cases, which violates the privacy or respect the privacy, helps in enhancing their skills towards ensuring that the privacy and security is maintained. These group works seem effective for assessing the capability of the employees towards responding to the allocated tasks.
Evaluation of the adopted training methods helps the trainers in assessing its appropriateness, feasibility and effectiveness. Using checklists and templates for evaluation is assistance for the trainers for gaining an insight into the capability of the trainees to grasp the basic concepts related to securing the privacy (Gheorghe, 2017).
If somebody from other department comes to me with the rumours, I would judge the reality of the news. This judgment would enhance the practicality of the situation, assisting me to assess whether the situation is ethical or not. However, in order to maintain the courtesy towards the clients and the customers, I would first thank the member, who informed me about the issue. I think his spontaneous nature needs to be applauded in terms of reporting the issues at the right time for averting the unethical situations in the workplace. I would instruct him to inform HR.
This is not the end of the actions for me. I need to study and research on the issue for excavating the circumstances, which compelled the member to consider the situation as unethical. Here, I think journey mapping would be effective in terms of assessing the appropriateness of the proposed decision. Involving the stakeholders and shareholders in the decision making process would be beneficial for me in terms of gaining an insight into their approach. I feel that conducting question answer session would help me to delve deep into their mindset. This insight would be fruitful for undertaking plans and programs for securing the privacy of the employees and the clients.
In the research, I would refer to the company policies. This approach would act assistance in terms of aligning the claims with the identified and the specified objectives. I would take special permission from the higher authorities and the statutory bodies of law for establishing contact with the third parties. I think privacy policies is vital for me in the process of referring to the third parties, which would help me to maintain safety, security and privacy of the personal belongings in case of the employees.
In the process of research, if I do not find any relevant policies, I would place request before the higher authorities conduct meetings and develop one. This needs to be done rationally and logically for gaining the trust, dependence and loyalty from the clients and the customers. I need to establish contact with the personnel of IT department for gaining accurate information on the issue reported by the member. Here, policies are important for aligning with the standards and codes of the requirements. I can make mention of Data Protection Act (1998), which would help me to protect the interest of the members as well as the victims of the concerned parties. Moreover, it would be my duty to protect the interest of the culprits in terms of maintaining their individualism within the workplace.
Apart from this, one of my duties would be to organize training programs for the employees. This would be done by me after the discovery of the negative results or drawbacks in the research process. In this case, if I follow the Ethical Decision Making framework, I would achieve positive results in the forms of enhancement of the skills, knowledge and expertise of the employees towards the ethical considerations in the workplace. I can relate the framework with Gibbs reflective Cycle. This is in terms of assessing the effectiveness of the proposed decisions. In this assessment, reflection and evaluation are the essential elements, enabling me to re-exercise my thought process about undertaking decisions for the reported incident.
Inclusion of the latest revisions of the laws and legislations would be beneficial for me in terms of enhancing the skills relates to handling of the unethical situations and cases. I think contacting the managers would help me to design quality training programs. Hiring law experts for delivering lectures and seminars would yield productive results. However, identity verification needs to be conducted for maintaining the safety and security of the organizational data and the personal data of the employees, clients and the customers. I would propose the installation of privacy cookies within the profile of the customers. This would help me to keep a track of what the employees are sending to others. Along with this, the cookies would assist in security the privacy of the personal information belonging to the employees.
Sending email to friends during the lunch hour is unethical. This is because emails are kept for contacting the managers and the supervisors regarding the completion of the allocated tasks or to sending drafts regarding the progress of the tasks. However, emails have been used by the employees for personal usage, which is unethical. Instead, if the employee notified the manager regarding the absence, it would not have been considered as unethical. Here, I would take the initiative of instructing the employees about sending emails directly to the supevisors in case of any issue. I think this step would be beneficial in enhancing the stability in the relationship between the managers and the employees.
Conclusion
Management of the human resources is vital in terms of maintaining the order and harmony within the workplace. Within this, mention needs to be made of the employees and their approach towards preserving the privacy in the organizational data. Training and development regarding maintaining security and privacy is effective in terms of enhancing their preconceived skills, expertise and knowledge. Taking into consideration, the privacy cookies and policies proves beneficial for the personnel for averting the illegal instances. Establishing contact with the statutory bodies of law is assistance in terms of maintaining the pace with the latest revisions and updates in the employment legislations.
References
Bello Garba, A., Armarego, J., & Murray, D. (2015). Bring your own device organizational information security and privacy. ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(3), 1279-1287.
Birnstill, P. (2016). Privacy-Respecting Smart Video Surveillance Based on Usage Control Enforcement (Vol. 25). KIT Scientific Publishing.
Boehm, F., Hey, T., & Ortner, R. (2016). How to measure IT security awareness of employees: a comparison to e-mail surveillance at the workplace. European Journal of Law and Technology, 7(1).
Gheorghe, M. (2017). Considerations on the conditions under which the employer may monitor their employees at the workplace. Juridical Trib., 7, 62.
Hughes, C. (2018). Conclusion: Diversity intelligence as a core of diversity training and leadership development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 20(3), 370-378.
Martin, K. (2016). Understanding privacy online: Development of a social contract approach to privacy. Journal of Business Ethics, 137(3), 551-569.
Poell, R. F. (2017). Time to ‘flip’the training transfer tradition: Employees create learning paths strategically. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 28(1), 9-15.
Simmel, A. (2017). Privacy is not an isolated freedom. In Privacy and Personality (pp. 71-87). Routledge.
Weinberg, B. D., Milne, G. R., Andonova, Y. G., & Hajjat, F. M. (2015). Internet of Things: Convenience vs. privacy and secrecy. Business Horizons, 58(6), 615-624.
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