Ethics in the Work Place I chose ethics in the workplace because it is a topic that is very important in my opinion, but one that gets overlooked so many times. Each person has their own views and thoughts of what is right and what is wrong and how to deal with them. While you may think that one particular person may not necessarily be right or wrong the law would beg to differ on certain situations. Other times what one considers to be an ethical decision is not always a legal matter, so the line is thin and it’s hard to know where the boundaries start and end. I went and met with two different companies. One was a law firm downtown Chicago and the other was a smaller fine dinning and banquet restaurant in Crestwood called House of Hughes. Karoly Mengan is the owner of the restaurant and Steve was the associate at the law firm who is in charge of many of the high profile cases and most of the management responsibilities at the firm, and is looking to make partner in just a few short years. You wouldn’t think that the law firm and the restaurant would be the same in many ways, however when you look at things from an ethical point of view then you will see that businesses both small and large are the same when it comes to what is morally and legally right and wrong. I wanted to compare two very different places to really see how different or similar they were, this would be the best at showing diversity.
Suwanski, 2 Most people assume that every work place and its employees are fair to each and every person, while most of the time this holds true, in some cases it is not. Truth is there is no such thing as workplace ethics because ethics should be the same no matter if it is a personal or business situation. Ethics are about making choices that may not always feel good or seem like they benefit you but are the “right” choices to make. The difference between human relation and businesses is that most businesses only look out for number one and what will benefit them in the long run. While most of us would not agree with that, it is the way it is in the workplace. It seems like this theory holds true more for the larger corporations then it does in a small business. Although in some cases like the one I will show you, some small businesses find ways around certain situations in their favor. I had to put a lot of thought into the questions that were going to be asked. I wanted to sound professional, but still find out the answers that I wanted to know. At the same time I had to be careful not to offend anyone with some questions while seeking the truth no matter what the answer was going to bring. Sexual harassment was defiantly one of the most important questions I had to ask. Next was about theft and money laundering, which was something we hear about in the news so much and I wanted to know if things had changed or if companies were still operating the way they always had. Also I wanted to know more on the bigger company end, what the penalties were if someone was caught using company money for their own gain. Suwanski, 3
Other questions included about professional courteousness and employee quality. Would someone be graded and hired on their performance or on their qualifications or even both for that matter. Matters such as language and religion, were they matters that would hold someone back or would they be treated just the same as any employee who worked for them. How each person’s pay rate was decided and would age or disability hinder someone from being employed with the companies. I knew that some of these would be a touchy subject but at the same time I needed to know and informed them if there was something they didn’t feel comfortable discussing that they had the option of not answering, however both men answered every question to the best of their knowledge and as honestly as they could.
According to the article Ethics in the Workplace written by Joshua Joseph, he points out that formal ethic