Names

Maylai Lew
Ishan Sengupta

Roll No.
29

Diksha Rai
Jheel Shah

40 50

A group of moral principles, standards of behavior, or set of values regarding proper conduct in the workplace Work ethic is a set of values based on hard work and diligence. It is also a belief in the moral benefit of work and its ability to enhance character. A work ethic may include being reliable, having initiative, or pursuing new skills. It outlines principles and ethical commitments that demonstrate the competence and responsibilities required of professionals delivering employment

Opportunity and Equality

Professional Competence

Employment professionals should maintain the highest levels of competence in their work, and should recognize the need to update their knowledge in the key areas of Employment. They should be responsible for their own continuing professional development and consult with other professionals to exchange information, share good practice and develop professional and technical expertise.
Employment professionals should be honest, fair and respectful of others in the professional activities. Employment professionals should conduct their activities in such a way that it inspires trust and confidence. Employment professionals should be aware of the impact they have on peoples lifestyle and on the communities in which they live and work, they should accept the responsibility to contribute to social inclusion through employment.

Supported Employment professionals must respect the rights, dignity and worth of all stakeholders. They must not discriminate in any way on the grounds of gender, age, religion, race, ethnicity, political opinion, disability, sexual orientation, health condition, dependents or social status. They should be sensitive and responsive to cultural and individual differences and needs and provide equality of opportunity and of outcomes for all individuals.
Supported Employment professionals have an obligation to ensure that confidential/sensitive information is protected. Agreement must be sought and gained from the individual regarding matters relating to disclosure and a professional relationship with individuals must be maintained at all times. Supported Employment professionals have an obligation to actively promote the maximum participation, decision-making and autonomy of individuals within the supported employment process.

Legal Rights are granted to the employees on the basis of legislation or judicial ruling. Thus employees have the right to minimum wage, equal opportunity to bargain collectively as a part of the union, etc. Contractual Rights are granted on the basis of contractual agreements with the employer. In this sense a particular employee might have a right to a specific health care package, paid holidays, pension funds and the like Moral Rights are devolve from social norms and moral standards, and are independent of any legal system. For example, right to work, right to basic medical treatment, right to safe drinking water etc. are our moral rights, but not legal rights, unless they are made legal by special enactment of a law in the country. Moral rights are also called as human rights, because they try to protect the basic human needs of a person in order to survive in the society.

One of the business attitudes in India is that business cannot be done without paying bribes, hence receiving kickbacks is justified. The mindset is that an ethics program is not practical as business will suffer. For business growth some compromises need to be done. This thinking makes a code of conduct a document without much strength. Ethical behavior is considered insignificant in evaluating managers performance. Hence, the need of the hour is to build ethical culture as part of business strategy. Processes for monitoring ethical behavior need to be implemented. For example, performance appraisals of employees should incorporate bonus points for the ethical means adopted to meet targets. If unethical methods are used to achieve targets some penalty points should be awarded. In recruitment itself, reject candidates who have falsified information even slightly. Next, in a few cases senior managers formulate strategies considering the political connections and propensity of politicians to accept bribes. Ethics managers must change this attitude of senior managers. Do this by assessing growth and risks on parameters of clean business operations. Present a business case to senior management emphasizing the political, legal and reputation risks in case unethical practices are adopted for implementing business strategies.

In India, even a youngster will tell you that it is practical to be corrupt. If a person speaks of ethical behavior, the person is most likely to be viewed as an idealist with their head in the clouds. This cynicism makes it difficult to implement an ethical work culture. Organizations need to give ethics training to change perceptions and thinking. Providing classroom training or e-learning is not sufficient. Ethical training should involve group discussions, case studies, brown bag sessions and 1 to 1 meetings with senior managers to emphasize the importance of ethics. Secondly, ethics managers believe that once training is given their job is done. This thinking is incorrect. They should implement measurement and evaluation methods to judge the impact of training in employee behavior and decision-making. Lastly, ethics training is an ongoing process, not once in a blue moon session.

Most of the organizations have a code of conduct that employees sign at the time of joining the organization. New recruits receive a brief overview of expected business conduct in the induction sessions. However, rarely organizations code of conduct is a living document. These documents are not taken seriously. In Our View, this is a good time to review the code of conduct and implement the policies properly. For example, although organizations have sexual harassment policies, India reports one of the highest cases of sexual harassment. As per a recent report India is the fourth threatening country in the world for women. This clearly indicates that most organizations prohibit sexual harassment only in theory.

As the procedures for filing a legal case are long drawn out with high social harassment, organizations may not feel the need to implement the policies. This definitely harms the ethical culture of the organization and the business environment of the country.

To make Indian organizations globally competitive at par with the multinationals building an ethical culture is a necessity. The war of talent is won by organizations that provide a comfortable and secure work culture to employees. Multinationals invest in organizations where they are sure of the ethics of the management teams. Customers prefer organizations fulfilling their corporate social responsibility. Look from any lens, adopting ethics pays in the long-run. This is the right time to do some internal selling and get management commitment for building an ethical work culture.