Employment Relations with Respect to Their Roles and Functions - Case Study Example

Outline Introduction The definition of business ethics The definition of professional Human Resources Management and Employment relations with respect to their roles and functions. Body The three solutions Discussion of the best solution (employing an employee relation officer) Ethical back ground. Timing at work place Harming an individual Harming others Employers mitigation Equitability and the ethics Conclusion Appendix (case study) Work cited (MLA) No of words without the outline (2198) Introduction Business ethics Business ethics has also been referred to as corporate ethics. It is a type of ethics that is used to examine the ethical principles, a set of morals or ethical issues that could arise in the business environment. It is set to monitor all aspect of business conduct. ‘Its application lies in the checking the relevance of conduct of individuals and the entire business organizations’ ((Crane & Matten, pp 224). It has characteristics that are normative and descriptive in dimensions. The association in terms of the range and the quantity of business ethical issues indicate to a great extend the interaction of profit maximizing behaviour which has non-economic attributes. Just like government laws have influence on the business, ethics regulates the areas and the detail of conduct that lie beyond the government control. Human resource Management Human resource is a term often used in describing individuals that make up the work force of an organization. ‘It also the function within an organization that has been charged with the responsibility that has the capacity for implementing strategies and policies related to the management of individuals’ (Crane and Matten, pp 235). This practice of coordinating maintaining awareness of and compliance with the local and state or the federal laws, employee record keeping and confidentiality, organizing, design and development, business transformation and change, performance and finally the conduct. Employee relation Employee relations on the other hand deals with both the industrial and personnel management. It has been labelled as an alternative for the academic field of industrial relations. It is involved in maintaining the employee-employer relationship which has great impact on the satisfaction of productivity, motivation and morale. ‘It also extends its role to the prevention and problem resolving among individuals that may arise in the work situations’ (Ferrell, C. Fradrich and Ferrell, Linda, pp47).HRM has been suggested to differ from the ER in the sense that HRM is a unitarist, which holds that the employer-employee interest should run parallel as regards the organizational effectiveness. It also holds that the interest of the stakeholders such as the employees is marginalised. Key issues in the case study. This is purely a generation marked by the insensitivity of institutional administration with limited relationship and sensitivity to the staff which has been purely accelerated by the development of informal ethics regimes. They are essentially the philosophy of the institution which relate fundamentally to the purpose of the company while it has no relevance to the whole communal aspect of ethical standards. The staffs are therefore the recipient of such like measures. They are understaffed and over worked, they have to work for overtimes and more is that they have developed some dislike for the administration. The relationship between the staff and the nurses has gone sour and something needs to be done for this is very risky kind of situation especially with service delivery which might impact on patients. The three problems There are several solutions to be presented in this case study (see the appendix for the case study). The first conflict is that the hospital is understaffed and the whole region seems not to have enough Nurses to work for the number of patients who seem to outweigh the number of nurses in the facility. This has been rampant to the extent that several hospitals seem to exploit the available staff. They are overworked and have to work overtimes, their decisions do not hold any effect. They are demotivated and lack the mutual respect to their employer. The solution is that the institution should work in line with the Australian labour laws and also introduce the occupational and health safety policies in order to protect the employees from occupation injuries and other setbacks. Secondly, the new staffs are also to be recruited for the vacancies as per the demand in the institution to avoid the work load on the current limited number of staff. This will be able to handle the second area of conflict that is an issue of the administration where by the administration is not willing to admit new staff but willing to bring in mechanisms that will assist in terminating the current crisis. When the director of the clinical services was contacted, she denied the allegation that the health office will be unable to fill the vacant shifts. Above all, this has widely exposed the third area of conflict between the staff, nurses and the administration. The decision being made by the administration does not seem to auger very well with the staff (See appendix for case study). As such coming up with an employee relation officer might serve as an intermediary between the two opposite sides. There is lack of trust between the employer and the employee. This has generated a very wide gap in the service delivery. They see the administration as trying to instil force in their work. It is very unconstitutional for both the employer and the employee as directed by the professional behavioural conduct. This is the best solution which will yield good results more especially in the long term mitigation of ethical issues of staff and the administration. Discussion of the best solution ‘The employee relation officer will handle the major critical aspect when it comes to employment; the ethical issues which relate to the long working hours that relatively also influence the aspect of overworking and overtime’ (Carmichael, pp35). This has very dire effect to the health of the staff. Ethical guidelines are there to safe guards the interest of the employee from long working hours and a breach of this will result in unprofessionalism on the part of the employer. Ethical background As regards long working hours, considerable research has been done and accumulated evidence show that there is increased likely hood of injuries and sickness to the staff who are allowed to work for long hours. This especially happens to the nurses who most of the time they will work in shifts; night and evening. It has been stated to be. ‘The most probable cause is fatigue which has been associated to most of the errors that occur in big corporations’ ( Henn, pp89). These concerns raised issues and led to the development of the new protective legislations that restrict the working hours more especially for the health care professionals. The major ethical concerns that is addressed in this paper are the mandatory or even the unpaid overtime, employers forcing the employees to provide him service, political influence on the working hours, limits on the aspects of voluntary assumptions of the risks, the associated benefits that can arise from the equal distribution of resources. ‘It is the employer’s responsibilities on the spill over effect in demanding the work schedules’ (Petterson & Ferrel, pp114) Timing at the work place It has been substantiated that working for long periods of working hours or on the non standing off shifts risks the workers for injury and diseases. Statistical data has shown that the more one stays on the job working overtime, the more the chances of somebody getting injured. This has also led to fatigue, injuries, stress, suffering ailments that includes; hypertension, diabetes, and cancer while to a far extend; heart diseases. ‘This has had very serious spill over effect to the service delivery of the staff and has been associated with diminished performance, mistakes in the decision making process and a lot of error in simple assignments’ (Cowton & crisp, pp123). This spill over effect has dire consequences to the safety of the public and especially as it applies in this context of the nurses. The different effects from the overworking of the staff are one of the ethical dimensions. It can be approached from working overtime in unconventional shifts. The effects that can arise in this issues can endanger workers will also endanger workers which is likely to place other s in jeopardy. The ethics in demanding work schedules is the other complicated consideration in the employment context. ‘In all this aspects employees always find themselves in a position that allows them partial control of their Work activities and work environment’ (Weiss, pp348). It is the ultimate reason that the federal laws have been promulgated by the Occupational health and safety administration which has full mandate over the ethical and legal responsibilities with the main aim of creating a safe working environment. This can be well coordinated with the ER. Harming an individual It has been however very difficult to manage this because in some cases, the employee’s decide on their own to decrease their risk or increase their own risk of injury or the disease, they can voluntarily take the more hazardous jobs which could be motivated by the attractive higher wage in exchange for their services . ‘This can be justified by the principle of trading greater job demand and higher health or injury risk for very high increased risk for the very attractive wages’ (Torriton, Hall and Taylor, pp456). This has been incorporated in the provision of the fair labour laws of the Australian government. It grants permission for the hourly rate extra pay for overtime. In health care, the rationale behind the prevention of some good amount of a harm has to an individual through the voluntary assumption associated with the increased risk related when one is working for long hours has been supplemented by the additional ethical obligations not to harm others. A very highly publicised criminal cases involving a nurse for administering a wrong drug to a pregnant mother who was still a teenager. The back ground too this case was that the nurse had worked for a two consecutive shift which were for a maximum of eight hours each and was due to start another shift. This is one of the consequences of overworking which mainly will never be voluntary especially in this case (see appendix). ‘It is imperative to consider the ethical responsibilities that will need to be borne by an individual’ (Mathias & Jackson, pp560). Each individual has to learn to avoid the dangers that are associated with their profession to avoid endangering others and themselves. Harming others The obligation to avoid harming others is of importance in the public safety profession and particularly very paramount in the health care practice. Hippocratic Oath is part of this strategy. Many accidents in the work place has been found to be due to fatigue, which is caused by the long working hours and which has catastrophic consequences. This has even been the major cause of the world most serious accidents such as the Chernobyl and the others accidents. This is an issue that can be mitigated by the employers by taking into accounts the interests of the affected employees. ‘It is a public concern especially regarding the long working hours and understaffing to maximize on the little expenses for the institutions at the expense of the interest of the few employees’ (Torriton, Hall and Taylor, pp454). This has been transformed into public policies and political debates as regards the societal obligations in safe guarding its citizens. This involves having allowable working hours as a regulatory measure to help individuals who are fatigued from harming other. Employers’ mitigations Under state workers, compensational rules and regulation, employers are obligated to medical expenses on insurance coverage or for self employment to pay the medical expenses for injuries and other accidents that take place in the line of duty. This are the roles that will come with the new employee relation officer who will stream line the working of the administration and the employee, he or she will be the mediator in dispute resolution and crisis handling among the staff. Equitability and the ethics A shorter standard work week can be proposed or rather be done and accounted in the form of working days. This will transcend to spreading the work on the available amount of hours of work within the staff. It introduces an aspect of equitable distribution of wealth and resources. This is widely opposed by many employers who are at the same time the managers for fear of interference with the economic processes of the institution. ‘Regulation of long working hours can also be analysed with relevance to the statutes that have been put in place’ (Bratton & Gold, pp 28). International standards hold it that one has to have a maximum of 35 hours per week; this is a good basis for an ethical background for protection of affected workers. Much can be achieved through special guidelines to ensure adequate rest breaks and recovery time between shifts along with substantial limitations on accumulated work time in a standardized time. Conclusion In conclusion, it is very important to employ an employee’s relation officer who will see the adoption and implementation of the protective legislation and this should be a neutral position. This will be necessary because a number of issues are at cross roads with the employee health, safety and state labour laws. An avid and rigorous system of reporting on the actual working time of employees should be put in place Other measures also needs to be considered and a diverse mechanism of handling all this should be applied in order to monitor the ethical issues to avoid peoples life to be in jeopardy. Read More