CHAPTER 8

Ethics and Employment Relationship

Corporate policies are subject to the law governing business issues such as the level of minimum wages; maximum hours of work; standards of health and safety; and other rules in the context of hiring, promoting, and firing an employee. These corporate challenges are related to the general employment relationship, where a positive attitude toward a work climate of excellence and motivation is essential. Working in an inspiring corporate environment must be a mandatory initial strategic policy for each organization. The meaning of work is one of the most important aspects of employment. The time we dedicate to work is considerably long. It takes a major and vital part of our life, and thus we need to evaluate and prioritize work conditions, such as the importance of business ethics and other organizational issues such as operational flexibility. Factors affecting organizational and workforce behavior include the characteristics of people and the level of diversity, individual differences such as attitudes and personality, how individuals are motivated and engaged, and, generally, the organizational culture as a process that generates organizational commitment and trust among the involved members.

In particular, people can present differences in a variety of factors. Sex, gender, mental ability and intelligence, cognitive skills, educational background and experience, emotions, or culture and personality are only a few of the individual differences. People present divergent perceptions and reactions to change, morals and values, reasoning, memory, and verbal abilities, speed of learning and understanding, social skills, creativity and judgment level, critical thinking ability, vulnerability and positiveness in different conditions, straightforwardness, trust, commitment, engagement, openness and feelings, friendliness, self-discipline, recognition needs, and innovative ideas.

Additionally, globalized shifts in the financial, technological, environmental, societal, and cultural fields have a strong impact on corporate governance and on the expectations of the workforce and the society in which a corporation operates. Social dynamics and multidisciplinary issues have the potential to create conflicts and behavioral change. This calls for a positive employment relationship built on trust and mutual respect. Corporate policies must provide consistent procedures and practices, dealing with employee relations by applying fairness, meritocracy, and ethics. Emphasis should be placed on commitment enhancement, and general harmonization of terms and conditions for all individuals, by leveraging their capabilities and eliminating the weaknesses in their personality and knowledge.

Furthermore, the nature of work complements a variety of employment dimensions. Money is not the only aspect of an employment relationship, even though earning money is important for living, in the global money-oriented system of consumables. Rather, people work for further satisfactions, such as the opportunity to develop new skills and retain the existing ones, to be part of a greater team with valuable members, to do something important on both personal and societal levels, to achieve both individual and organizational goals, and achieve a status in life, as well as a multidimensional power based on work positions.

It is important to establish policies that enable recognition at various levels. First, individual satisfaction can be achieved through operational recognition, in terms of training deliverables and improvements in productivity. It is critical for a worker to be recognized, because it encourages him or her to contribute more, while increasing the levels of engagement and trust. It is important to note that there are differences between individuals in the mechanisms that drive job satisfaction and related concepts such as affective commitment (Hofmans, De Gieter, and Pepermans 2012). Also, the emotional impact of policies and behaviors is remarkable, because individuals usually expect to receive such recognition, by way of encouragement and appreciation. Even in cases where their contribution does not meet business standards, they would likely receive recognition by various methods, in order to encourage them to work toward success and development.

It is crucial not to force employees to sacrifice their perceptions or other factors that are valuable to them such as their free time. For instance, it is very risky to force people into social activities, when they simply do not want to, even though it would be nice and valuable to be part of such activities. It is not about the team as a democratic process of flattening everyone’s beliefs. Rather, it is about the team as a place where everyone can contribute, where the individual can choose from among alternative practices and implement the method that is most desired and suited to his or her expectations.

Hence, undesired business environments can lead individuals to slow down and even get distracted easier. Given the fact that work is distasteful to some individuals who are money driven and status oriented, a fundamental policy among practitioners is to creatively supervise subordinates, make each individual feel useful and important for the corporation and society in general by sharing common passions and strategies, and form a business environment in which all members want to contribute to the limits of their own abilities and desires. In addition, this influential relationship between the corporation and its human workforce consists of a moral-ready and efficiently optimized environment of excellence. It is vital not to underestimate the impact of such practices on the relationship between corporate agents and employees, because cooperation requires a series of mutual concessions in the interest of developing a working atmosphere of appreciation and moral values.

Policy makers tend to accept ethical practices that they perceive to be relevant to their own principles. However, particularly in multicultural organizations, an individual represents only one side of the employment relationship. Various moral issues are perceived differently by different individuals, and thus everyone in a corporation must accept the thoughts of other entities, even if they do not agree with them. The logic that the one-size-fits-all approach is the ultimate method of managing such challenging work environments is unacceptable. Indeed, most researchers recognize that this approach is not the best solution (Davies and Schlitzer 2008). Although individuals could present some common characteristics and perceptions, this does not mean that they are identical. Thus, corporate policies as a set of ethical and legal measures that enable people to make the best use of their capabilities, realize their skills, and achieve satisfaction through their work, are critical for the implementation of a multidimensional and multicultural approach of satisfaction through the employment relationship.

The Moral Contract

Employment relations are emerging not just between an employee and an employer. Employee relations are affected in many dimensions, there being numerous parties with the potential to significantly influence corporate practices. For instance, the government plays multiple roles in forming corporate policies, as the ultimate instrument of legislating on employment rights and standards for both the public and the private sector. Furthermore, there are cross-national agreements, such as those within the European Union, or international agreements on common employment law between countries across the world. Also, trade unions and other forms of representatives, staff associations, and institutions are responsible for protecting and promoting the employee’s interests, having been elected by their members to take actions such as exerting pressure on corporations to improve health and safety conditions as well as increase wage levels. Accordingly, leadership or management schemes are responsible for controlling and inspiring the workforce, through their decisions that have an impact on employee relations.

Moving on to a universal framework, the purpose of developing and implementing an employment law is to encourage job creation and make it possible and easier for individuals to be employed and to protect human resources from being exploited in the context of productivity without moral concerns. For instance, technological advancements and emerging financial conditions have created an international business trend and an environment in which there is no job security for many new employment relationships. This signifies that an individual will be employed if the corporation needs a human worker to add value to its operations for a certain period. However, this process of exploiting human workers on demand does not amount to long-term cooperation, which means that people cannot feel safe about their future, cannot make plans about their life, and cannot serve their personal interests rationally. Hence, it is critical for a practitioner to consider how individuals could be happier with the establishment of a moral contract, given that they react differently under identical circumstances. Practitioners must rely on cooperation rather than control and coercion in their relationship with employees. Consequently, the most important and fundamental principle is the moral entity consideration, that is, by putting yourself in the other individual’s position and by trying to identify how you would react, what expectation you could have from yourself and the corporation under the same conditions, and what corporate policies could solve the challenge, while being legally aligned.

Employment law can be introduced at a local, regional, national, or international level, in response to political and economic transformations. New employment law and agreements can be introduced due to political actions or union campaigns or through individual initiatives. Regardless, the purpose is to develop a fair and ethical employment framework within which people can defend their rights, corporations can work by adding value and promoting good practice in the employment relationship instead of decreasing the value of its workforce and society, and, finally, governments can create an attractive business environment in which all parties involved are motivated and moral players.

Therefore, the employment contract must be aligned with a variety of agreements and standards, thus shaping a corporate strategy that can achieve consistency, fairness, and employee engagement. Corporations with high commitment systems have higher levels of productivity and lower levels of employee turnover than those with control strategies (Arthur 1994). Human resource control systems enforce employee compliance with rules and procedures, while commitment-based systems shape employee behaviors and attitudes by creating a moral culture of psychological links between organizational and employee goals. Furthermore, high-performance corporate practices influence employee turnover and productivity, the adoption of such practices being more important than ensuring that these policies are internally aligned with corporate strategy (Huselid 1995).

The capitalization of potential sources of profitability indicates that corporations will try to produce performance at any cost. At the same time, the production of sustainable efficiency consists of high-performance systems with high-value corporate principles. If people are negative and not interested in their jobs, then it is almost impossible to apply business ethics in the day-to-day procedures. Therefore, practitioners must create a strong and ethical employee relations climate, where consideration of other entities, trust, fairness, transparency, and willingness to cooperate lead individuals to moral behavior. Policy makers are largely responsible for the implementation and promotion of such practices in order to improve the conduct of employee relations and must therefore be well educated, moral thinkers, rationalists, trained in multidimensional approaches, and open to developing new theories and policies.

The moral contract represents that the individual is encouraged, motivated, growth oriented, and involved in corporate procedures in such a way as to ensure a balanced and harmonious relationship between the individual and the corporation, which, accordingly, encourages commitment and enhances productivity. Having the ultimate legal right to tell a worker what to do operationally does not justify actions aimed at exploiting the individual with unethical practices. The employment contract must be a comprehensive guide with legally acceptable notions that include moral standards, ethical expectations, and obligations, as well as the flexibility required to reflect the structural developments of external factors.

Paying employees their wages or salaries does not necessarily mean that an organization is ethical. Instead, it only signifies that the legal entity is fulfilling its legal obligations toward the employee, in the context of fixed terms in regard to compensation benefits and capital rewards. However, the employment relationship, or the moral contract, must cover a variety of other conditions as well. It must also be noted that there are expressed agreements and other types of contracts, such as psychological contracts, that may be conveyed orally or included in collective agreements and policies. In any case, when two or more parties agree on a contract, they must ensure its validity and consistency and develop mutual understanding of its terms, particularly its ethical dimensions (Table 8.1).

Table 8.1 Moral employment contract essentials

The dynamic relationship between parties in a corporation increases the difficulties of applying business ethics. The contract agreed between two or more parties is strongly influenced by corporate policies. Therefore, the moral contract is mostly an unwritten relationship, because individual behavior cannot be predefined and controlled by written agreements while it evolves over time. Thus, it is the individual’s responsibility to behave as an ethical part of the business culture, whereas corporate policies must include comprehensive guidelines in terms of moral awareness. Consequently, a corporate policy maker must formulate procedures of moral transparency, approach the expectations of resourcing and developing programs, adopt decisions that do not affect other entities negatively, and treat the workforce as a valuable and crucial part of the business, relying on cooperation, trust, and commitment, rather than control, strict policies, and undesired actions.

Moral Corporate Culture

The establishment of ethical behavior must be accompanied by a moral corporate culture. The role of corporate culture in moral development is crucial, because corporate emphasis on profitability substitutes for the production of the desired ethical behavior through managing corporate culture (Reidenbach and Robin 1991). This means that people must have strong moral engagement and commitment to the corporation, two important elements affecting organizational development and performance. Retaining the workforce in a state in which the worker gives of his or her best, as well as remains proud of working, is critical for corporate sustainability. Therefore, developing the individual’s moral quality is a process that is fundamental to excellence.

People working in an organization must be well engaged. This means that they should remain interested in their job roles and want to be as efficient as they can be so they can achieve both entrepreneurial and personal goals through ethical practices. The significance of people’s engagement toward the employment relationship emphasizes the connection between corporate culture and workforce performance; in other words, an ethical climate affects organizational performance (Victor and Cullen 1988). In particular, financial choices of a company have consequences for the corporate culture (Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales 2015), although it is important to note that some studies highlight the difficulty of defining the term “organizational culture,” and the influence of subcultures has to be taken into account too (Lim 1995). Furthermore, an ethical culture can encompass both culture and climate. Organizational climate depends largely on the quality and stance of management and on the values to which it subscribes, whereas organizational culture has deeper roots in corporate identity (Collier and Esteban 2007). Indeed, there are a host of factors that have a great impact on engagement, such as work satisfaction, interesting challenges, room for employee contribution, responsibilities based on job roles and rewards correlated with achievements, the availability of knowledge development, the flexibility of work conditions, and the opportunity for personal growth through the corporation. It is also imperative to work in a high-performance and inspiring work environment that enhances employee efficiency and supports job needs with the required infrastructure.

Thus, there is a set of factors that can have a strong effect on business ethics policies and facilitates or complicates corporate strategies. “Ethical climates identify the normative systems that guide organizational decision making and the systemic responses to ethical dilemmas” (Victor and Cullen 1988, 122). However, developing a work environment that encourages moral engagement is difficult to define as a single procedure. Employment relations must be conducted within the framework of a general positive corporate attitude that leverages human resources in the best interests of both individuals and the corporate entity. Respect between employees, fair treatment of individuals, recognition of employee value and efforts, support for initiatives, and enhanced communication among them is the basis for cultivating a moral corporate culture in terms of people engagement.

Moreover, organizational commitment as a state of loyalty between different corporate parties has a direct relationship with business ethics. An individual must be inspired by moral awareness and a work climate of values and moral goals. If the individual cannot be satisfied by these mandatory ethical needs, then he or she will not be ready to exert any effort in the organization’s behalf or desire to remain a valuable member of the corporation. Commitment proposes that the individual, instead of having to be controlled by strict rules and corporate policies, is sufficiently strongly committed to enhance and increase corporate values and performance, respectively.

Indeed, no one in a corporation, neither employees nor agents and shareholders, would want to be controlled by tight management, narrow vision, and strict responsibilities, because this could lead to an insufficient corporate culture, decreased organizational performance, and unhappy employees. Furthermore, it is vital to focus on how managers and practitioners frame an ethical decision in regard to a variety of moral issues that influence individuals’ moral reasoning and decisions (Weber 1996). Hence, the morale of people working for a corporation is not only a critical factor in business success but also the key to corporate and individual growth. Commitment strategies must be applied with additional caution, aligning them with flexible policies. Following a moral entity consideration approach, policy makers can create value through people, influence their expectations, and make moral use of their capabilities.

However, corporate policies are affected by globalized trends and cultural developments. This indicates that even for a business based on local activity, there are some common challenges that have no borders. Thus, it must be noted that multicultural environments as multidimensional factors can potentially have a robust impact on a variety of business processes. For instance, human resource practice is becoming more and more challenging in the face of problems such as retention, dealing with culturally different people, and managing technological and informational changes (Vohra, et al. 2015). Hence, the spread of technological advancements can cause cultural homogeneity and value similarity within organizations (Fujimoto, et al. 2007), leading practitioners to adopt and use globally common practices by focusing on aligning people, processes, and systems to overcome such challenges (Morris, et al. 2009).

Thus, the challenge of employing a workforce with a sense of commitment is difficult to manage with a single policy and a set of limits. We cannot avoid change. Hence, to motivate people to work with commitment, corporate policies must include investment in training and development and increase cooperation consistency and trust, support participation, and employee contribution. The development of a sense of employee involvement creates the conditions for a moral work environment, because the individual whose feeling of belonging is enhanced, while being part of the business decision processes, will not accept being deceived.

Consequently, moral corporate culture relies on the development of ethical awareness, communication of common values and norms, acceptance of diversity in the context of contribution through different capabilities, cohesion, and the establishment of a fair and meritocracy-centered business culture. The latter can turn out to be dysfunctional in numerous ways: when individuals cannot communicate properly, leading to the discussion going nowhere; when team members cannot understand the corporate objectives and standards; when conflicts are quite frequent, particularly if they are related to personal characteristics; when the final decisions are made by some people rather than the whole team, so they dominate the latter and other perspectives; when there are strict policies that limit the use of multiple skills per procedure; and when there are no common values between the individuals and the corporation as an entity.

Given that people have their own values and norms, organizational culture consists of a multidimensional pattern of commonly acceptable and predefined behaviors and unwritten rules. In addition, it is important to mention that people can overcome their cultural needs, because they believe that this could be beneficial for their career, earnings, or their life itself. Individuals faced with difficult situations sometimes react in such a way that their values and norms can be modified in order to be aligned with the values and norms of others, because of circumstances and conditions that they might not be able to control by themselves. Thus, a healthy and moral corporate culture must secure the individual’s perceptions and beliefs while developing a commonly held set of values and assumptions. But even corporations with solid values cannot be highly influential unless the individuals accept change and have aligned internal principles. Therefore, if the individuals do not behave in accordance with corporate ethics, they will be unable to implement business guidelines, and thus generate conflicts.

The association between individual perceptions and business norms is too complicated to be homogenized, as both factors initially present a negative intention to change, unless someone proves to them that the change will be in their best interests. Satisfaction and recognition are usually a priority in terms of persuading an individual to behave as you want, because he or she will feel a part of the system and a valuable part of the available resources. This suggests that their engagement, motivation, and contribution levels will be increased, as also the total efficiency and productivity in terms of business needs. Hence, the establishment of an enhanced business culture implies that there are shared values and a solid connection between corporate norms and behaviors. In contrast, a weak corporate culture evidences that values are limited to a few people, the employees have little knowledge about business ethics and policies, and there is little connection between shared values and individual behaviors.

Human resources cannot be treated like financial resources. An individual’s professionalism depends on a variety of factors and skills. Individuals with advanced technical skills and abilities can have a comparative advantage over those who cannot cope with operational demands. However, behavioral attributes such as moral courage in the workplace are essential for developing a solid ethical character. In some cases, people tend to overlook the ethical aspects of an issue, in the name of financial performance and personal interests, or because their supervisors put pressure on them to implement such practices. This process can have a strong negative impact on the business climate, so employing individuals with moral courage means that they would be willing to adhere to the consequences of their actions and can influence other individuals to increase their moral awareness as well. Moral courage can be positively influenced by training in business ethics (May, Luth, and Schwoerer 2013), and thus corporate practices must integrate such approaches.

In conclusion, a moral corporate culture must be innovative, encourage creativity and change, accept risk-taking, even if it ends in partial failure, in terms of skill development and learning through mistakes, be fair and recognize contribution, build trust between members, be cohesive, and respect both corporate and personal perceptions, goals, expectations, and priorities. It is not possible to develop a corporate culture if it involves putting pressure on people to implement it as a set of behaviors in their operations. Business culture is about maturing through people, and, consequently, it is the individuals who are responsible for growing a sustainable and moral environment of rational behaviors. Involvement is highly desirable but also risks losing control over the implementation of corporate procedures.

Ethical Work Rights

Given both the creation of a moral corporate culture and the conclusion of a moral contract, the employment relationship is associated with moral rights and duties. This signifies that human resources have an extensive set of variables to consider, in order to make critical ethical decisions. There are legal rights, in terms of legislation and government regulations, and nonexplicit rights, such as issues in the context of business ethics. Each party involved in the operations of an organization can claim an assortment of rights. Employees, agents, executives, shareholders, government, and the society in which a business operates have rights, and they express them to each other when appropriate. This plethora of rights is limited only by an ethical standpoint and the moral entity consideration as a vital principle of human behavior. The various categories of entities can claim rights such as the right to receive safe and quality products and services for consumers, protection against the environment for a local community and society, rights in the form of legal and tax duties for government, and rights in the work environment and relationship for employees.

In view of this, the most vital right is that everyone has the right to be employed. The right to work is fundamental for our societies and for how they are constructed. For instance, if human resources were able to secure an income that provided a good living, who would still be at his or her current job? Who would be willing to work under a supervisor and an employer with strict policies and demands? Who would be at the disposal of larger corporations, in terms of creating value and delivering goods and services that need an industrial system of production? Also, given a society with an unlimited lifestyle, who would care about vital job roles such as rescuing people from accidents, including dangerous conditions of fire or floods? Would machines take advantage of their emergent intelligence and do these jobs instead of human resources, or would the latter suffer from greed and unlimited desires? Hence, the right to work is not merely a survival-based need, it is also a meaningful process of being valuable to society.

Most people cannot be satisfied with their job roles because various circumstances could not provide them with the desired conditions that could motivate their willingness to build engagement and commitment with their work. Matching jobs with available workers is a very challenging task for the human resources department, while practitioners must consider an extensive list of rights and duties from both involved parties in the context of a contract between the employer and the employee. Thus, the ethical work right in this process is to provide an equal opportunity to individuals to get employed, given their educational background and experience. This suggests that even the process of sharing a curriculum vitae with potential employers is a form of equal opportunity, because everyone is capable of sending an e-mail with his or her résumé to be considered.

However, because it is commonly acceptable, and even if it reflects some points of unethical behavior, some practitioners may end up making an offer to people they prefer. For instance, if you have two or more individuals identical in terms of their résumé, who would be the most suitable for the job? The answer depends usually on the process of a job interview or recommendations provided, whereas work rights begin at the point where the individual agrees to fulfill duties and do whatever is possible and ethically acceptable to achieve organizational goals within the context of corporate policies and demands.

Of course, not any job role is desirable, visionary, interesting, and meaningful to individuals. Indeed, corporate environments and roles that dehumanize people operate as a negative factor in motivation. Therefore, it is crucial to develop corporate policies that create the conditions required to protect and enhance work rights considering business ethics. Consequently, ethical work rights include a set of policies in the context of the right to a safe work environment, the right to compensation for injury and health issues, the right to engagement and participation, the right to job security and equal treatment without regard to discriminative factors, the right to privacy and respect for personal information, the right to be free from harassment and to have a say in such situations, and the right to have an explicit contract with respect to employee well-being.

The right of a healthy work environment is vital for individuals. Working in a healthy place is usually synonymous with the safety of employees. For instance, providing people with fresh air by installing controls to minimize airborne contaminants in a workplace and a smoke-free environment is a crucial practice. Moreover, healthy environments consist of a variety of additional factors, such as motivating people through positiveness and flexible procedures and by ensuring that they will not be harmed by others, in terms of not only injuries but also emotions and feelings related to work satisfaction, job burnout, stress, and risk-taking. Increased stress produces a negative impact on a variety of issues, including lack of control, time pressure and work overload, decreased productivity, creation of conflicts, lack of communication, and decreased levels of cooperation. Stress can be personal or even organizational, because a stressful work climate can lead individuals to inevitably be affected by corporate pressure and unpleasant practices. Additionally, workplace stress is a significant contributor to turn over (Schultz, et al. 2014), and thus corporate policy makers must be aware of such conditions.

It is important to note that in most cases a worker chooses to accept a job with such negative features, for a variety of external reasons, such as the need to survive, which leads the individual to accept everything at even minimum wages. This means that corporate policies must ensure that workers are provided with all the available information to enable them to decide whether they want to do the job, given that they have complete knowledge of the work conditions. Also, employees must have the right to some later choice, because new circumstances and conditions can change the work environment considerably. For instance, when there is financial turmoil or the company decides to exploit its human resources as much as possible under exhausting work conditions, or in a scenario where an epidemic breaks out followed by new employment conditions such as flexible blueprints for remote working, the worker must be able to evaluate the new environment and even leave the job without any contract clauses that could have a negative impact on the worker. Leaving a job due to changes in the worker’s environment is his or her responsibility, but when corporate climate and conditions are changing, it is the responsibility of the organization in combination with governmental regulation. As a result, such vital information about significant changes in work environment should always be communicated to everyone involved.

Furthermore, employees have the right to job security. Corporate policies must be so developed as to exclude firing at will without reasoning. At the same time, promoting or disciplining must be aligned with corporate policies and business ethics as a rational process that prioritizes fairness and meritocracy. This does not suggest that agents and owners of a corporation cannot reduce their workforce. Instead, they are expected to accept and implement policies that protect the rights of both employer and employee, in view of the multidimensional character of the employment relationship, with a strong impact on both sides. Explaining decisions made by supervisors and executives and acceptance from employees if they are rational and understandable is a process of good and moral termination of a contract. Conversely, firing workers without prior notice or discriminating between workers or terminating a contract without considering its clauses such as compensation for leaving is an unethical practice that could run against the law and regulations.

Another critical right is about respecting privacy, because it is quite a demanding field of applied ethics. There is a clear difference between what an employee does during work and in the corporate environment and what the individual does with his or her personal life outside the boundaries of the corporation. Commonly, people cannot discriminate between the two, and they combine both work and personal life in a mixed and complex system of emotions, demands, and duties, making it vulnerable and quite challenging in terms of system sustainability. For instance, job burnout can be the consequence of personal life issues and vice versa, and individuals usually cannot understand and find ways of controlling their behaviors. This indicates that conflicts in personal life could be disastrous for the work climate, while the pressure of the work could similarly have a negative impact on the personal life of an individual.

Furthermore, it is commonly asked whether the personal life and individual choices should be under the evaluation process of practitioners in the context of corporate policies. Although it is very difficult to promote policies that control the personal life of a worker, this should not be the goal anyway for corporate policies. If there is something that the worker of a corporation should not do in his or her personal life and decisions, then it must be agreed on at the outset and analyzed with an extensive description in the context of a contract. For instance, a company could promote policies that restrict other employment relationships, such as working for a competitive company at the same time, in order to eliminate sharing of internal information that can be used against the company from third-party entities. Thus, corporate policies can include terms that could have an impact on the corporation itself as an entity and eliminate any other rules that could affect the personal life of the individual.

However, there are some situations that blur the relationship between a worker and a corporation in regard to what constitutes a personal issue and what does not. Thus, personal life decisions can trigger a series of consequences within the context of corporate policies and business ethics. Practitioners do not have the right to be universally informed about what goes on in an individual’s private life if that person does not wish to disclose it, but they have the right to reveal behaviors and practices that could be unethical and illegal and that could have a negative impact on the corporate climate. Consequently, if an individual does something that is strictly and ultimately personal without consequences for other individuals and entities, then it could be called a personal life concern, or a part of privacy law. But if an individual does something that has a negative or positive impact on other people or entities, then it should be not only noted but also evaluated in the context of corporate policies.

An organization must not ignore the fact that its workforce has a personal life. However, some individuals share their job situations and incidents at work with others. Whether this is done intentionally or not, employees must be admonished to secure corporate information and personal work relations with colleagues and not share sensitive data about certain issues. For instance, if an individual uses the name of the company he or she works for or corporate data to proceed with unethical or illegal activities, it will have a negative impact on the corporation as well. Hence, an organization is not responsible for any harm that you do to others in your personal life, while corporate policies should promote behavioral guidance in terms of being rational and moral humans, considering the rights of other entities both during working hours and in personal life. It is critical to understand your limits, and where your privacy ends, in order to clearly distinguish between corporate and private issues, based on mutual respect and moral behavior.

Furthermore, in the past a worker had absolutely no voice. Employees were unable to express their needs, thoughts, or even their problems concerning issues such as health and safety incidents. In most cases, they were afraid of being fired, because the employer had the ultimate power of ruling everything and everyone without any major feedback. Government regulations and law were not protective of workers, and human resources were usually merely a part of the production system. However, as the relationship between shareholders, agents, and workers changes, the latter is seen as a valuable part of the system, with additional meaning for the sustainability and development of a corporation. Therefore, policies for engagement and participation are crucial for a business, because without workers there cannot be a corporation and ownership in terms of an organization as a production system, and vice versa. In any case, it is suggested that both silence and voice are complex and multidimensional constructs (Dyne, Ang, and Botero 2003), in the light of passive versus proactive behavior, and within proactive, self-protective versus other-oriented activity.

This brings up the right to a living wage, as a fundamental need to survive. Here, it is important to mention some basic policies and regulation about wages. Most countries have a minimum wage level as a legal requirement to operate within public order and law. However, in some cases pay is not limited to work hours in terms of a given system, such as 8 hours per day. This means that the workday may be longer than the employee’s scheduled shift and hours, due to additional time that an employee is required to spend on the employer’s premises. Therefore, in some circumstances, the level of payment must be increased to match the number of work hours. For instance, given a standard of 40 hours of work per workweek, any additional hour must be treated as overtime, and employees must receive a fair overtime pay while being informed about the minimum and maximum number of working hours. Also, employees may voluntarily continue to work at the end of the shift to finish an important assigned task or to correct errors. This extended workday must also be paid, because the hours are part of work time and are compensable according to regulation.

Additionally, work time includes the period when an employee has been engaged to wait due to specific circumstances or the rest and meal periods. The latter are periods of short duration, such as less than 20 or 30 minutes, depending on corporate policies, and are customarily paid for as working time. Human resources need some time during the workday to regain some energy, be healthy, and, finally, improve their efficiency rates. For instance, a rest break after 4 to 6 consecutive hours’ work is quite productive. At the same time, the employee is not relieved if he or she is required to perform any duties, whether active or inactive, while having a break such as for eating.

Moreover, it is essential to develop ethical policies regarding travel time. In the United States, the principles that apply in the determination of whether time spent in travel is compensable time depends on the kind of travel involved. For instance, an employee who travels from home before the regular workday and returns to his or her home at the end of the workday is considered to be engaged in ordinary home to work travel, which is not work time, while when an employee is given a special assignment in another workplace, the time spent in traveling to and returning from that place is work time. Similarly, in the European Union, when workers do not have a fixed or habitual place of work, time spent traveling each day between their homes and the premises of the first and last customers does constitute working time. Generally, according to the law and regulation, working time is any period during which an individual is working, is at the employer’s disposal, and is carrying out his or her activities or duties.

Hence, providing human resources with a sustainable wage does not presume that the employer has the capability and authority to override the other rights, such as working conditions that respect his or her health, safety, and dignity, to be free from harassment, the right to equal treatment, or the right to participate in unions that have specific, rational, and moral demands. The purpose of ethical work rights is to develop a solid relationship between the parties involved and create a harmony among individuals to reach a balance point of excellence, which is the most suitable for everyone in a corporation. Although this is very difficult as it demands additional efforts and sacrifices from everyone, our moral responsibilities toward others as human beings must be strong enough to make this happen.

Concluding Remarks

Working in an inspiring corporate environment must be a mandatory initial strategic policy for each organization. Social dynamics and multidisciplinary issues have the capability to create conflicts and behavioral change. Therefore, corporate policies must provide consistent procedures and practices, dealing with employee relations issues by applying fairness, meritocracy, and ethics. It is critical for a worker to be recognized, as it encourages him or her to contribute more, while increasing the levels of engagement and trust. Additionally, cooperation requires a series of mutual concessions to develop a working atmosphere of appreciation and moral values. Moreover, it is vital to develop and implement an employment law, as an encouragement to job creation, and to protect human resources from being exploited. Practitioners must treat employees through reliance on cooperation rather than control and coercion. In view of this, policy makers must be well educated, moral thinkers, rationalists, trained in multidimensional approaches that they should apply, and open to developing new theories and policies. In any case, the significance of people engagement to the employment relationship emphasizes the connection between corporate culture and workforce performance. The morale of people is the key to corporate and individual growth, while the association between individual perceptions and business norms is too complicated to be homogenized. Business culture is maturing through people, and, consequently, it is the individuals who are responsible for developing a sustainable and moral environment of rational behaviors.