Workplace Ethical Dilemma

We all face this conflict between what we do and what we are supposed to be doing according to the company’s code of ethics, during my career in several companies, I have faced two problems or should I say ethical dilemmas:

1- Using the company technology for personal interest:

Every time I open my Facebook, LinkedIn or even printout a training material that has nothing to do with my company, even having a small chat with a coworker via the office landline, and of course using the cellphone business line for making personal calls.

The question is, Does the company policy has a clear statement for forbidding all the above mentioned? The answer is yes…, do I understand the company policy?  The answer is also yes, so what seems to be missing?

I often try to solve this dilemma by telling myself that scrolling my Facebook or updating my LinkedIn account has nothing to do with delivering my tasks on time, I do these sort of actions on my breaktime.

Don’t I have the right to use my business line?, what’s wrong with printing a couple of papers?! 

To be frank it does seem like I’m trying to find a decent justification for the unethical actions, but don’t you face these issues every day?  We spend our lives inside the company’s premises hours, months and years, don’t we deserve a little bit of credit for that, I guess we earned using those technologies, don’t you? 

2. Gossiping 

There is a grey area between having a great social life in the workplace, and being a part of the gossip group in the office, as far as I know there is no code of ethics that forbid gossiping in general but what if it’s business gossip? What if it really affects our business environment?, I do enjoy communicating with my coworkers as some of them are actually my friends outside work, but being friends with your coworker makes you sometimes gossip about everything happening around you or at least “In my case” being a silent partner in this.

Being friends with the gossip group grant me access to information, which are not just work related but actually gives me the chance to know things that are related to my career path. 

This type of ethical dilemma brings up so many questions on the table like, should I tell my friends “Coworkers” to stop gossiping? Actually I don’t think that a habit like that can ever be changed...

What should I do? Should I step aside every time they start gossiping? How my day would be like without talking to them? The work day is so stressful and sometimes boring, talking to them makes the day much easier.

Culture 

Should I be the only one to blame? Actually no, according to “Management” a book written by Robbins and Coulter: ‘Managers can do a number of things if they’re serious about encouraging ethical behaviors—hire employees with high ethical standards, establish codes of ethics, lead by example, and so forth”.    

Which means that the upper management is also responsible for formulating the company’s culture through the day to day situations, mangers are supposed to transmit the code of ethics into action. 

Conclusion 

A report published by SHRM states that: 

“In an ideal workplace, structures and relationships will work together around core values that transcend self-interest. Core values will inspire value-creating efforts as employees feel inspired to do what is right, even when the right thing is hard to do.”

Let’s be honest, dealing with these sort of ethical dilemmas requires a high level of maturity as decision making will be much easier then, not to mention that managing the conflict between what we are asked to do according to the code of ethics, and what we assume is the right thing is no easy battle, sometimes we ask ourselves “who put the code of ethics anyway?, do they understand and appreciate what we do?”, I believe that we can obey that code only if we are included in the formulating phase, when we feel that it’s phrased to make our work day easier not harder, we go to work “the battle field” trying to do our best including (Doing our job – Being good to people – maintaining our wellbeing) and the code of ethics is supposed to help us achieve all that.    

References 

1. “Management” a book written by Robbins and Coulter
2. “Shaping an ethical workplace culture” by SHRM