Reflection On Ethical Human Resource Management Practices Within Workplace

Question

Task:
This assessment is designed to provide you with an opportunity to enhance your ethical competence by integrating the course material into your current managerial experiences.

The focus of this assignment involves you reflecting on an unethical, biased or questionable managerial human resource management related practice that you have been exposed to (or took part in) in from your previous or current managerial experience.

You are expected to write a reflective essay in which you consider and use ethical models or lenses (and other relevant aspects of the course) to reflect upon the practice. As a reflective piece, you would want to consider your role in the practice or event and/or your response at the time. You would want to reflect on the obligations of the parties involved in the managerial practice or activity (including you) and consider appropriate behaviours or actions.

You may wish to address: whether and how you responded to or engaged in the practice or activity; how you intend to respond going forward and engage in action; how you and others were/would be impacted by a "calling out" of the unethical, biased or questionable managerial human resource related practice. You would also want to consider whether or how the HR management related activity or practice links with the SHRM system or backdrop in the organisation.

Answer

Executive Summary
The following paper reflects on an experience of handling racial discrimination and abusive behaviour towards employees and ethical human resource management practices. The paper sheds light on the importance of training sessions in order to maintain a proper understanding and development of the staff with regards to the importance of ethics and diversity maintenance across the workplace.

Introduction
The department of human resources, as is maintained by the plethora of business organisations, has been highly effective in dealing with the various issues that are being faced by the employees of the organisation. According to the opinions of Fine, Sojo and Lawford?Smith (2020), the human resource department is held responsible for the training and the development of the employees across the organisation, thereby leading to the development of the performance and the productivity of the concern. The following paper reflects on an incident that I had observed at my workplace that relates to the unethical practices within the workplace. The paper discusses the experience with the help of Gibbs reflective model.

Reflection on an incident
Description
I had been one of the interns at a small business concern wherein I had observed the unethical managerial practices of biasness as was maintained by the manager. The manager who had been responsible for the team at large had been practising a biased attitude towards one of the team members on the basis of the fact that the concerned employee had belonged to a different racial background. The employee belonged to an indigenous background and had been facing issues due to the lack of co-operation on the part of the team manager and a few of the other members of the team. The employee had complained of being bullied on the grounds of the racial background and the ways in which she dressed at the workplace. The employee had, after a certain amount of coaxing from certain colleagues, put forth a complaint against the emotional harassment that she had been facing at the workplace. This led to a plethora of actions on the part of the senior management as well as the human resource executives of the concern.

Feelings
The major issues that had been highlighted in this scenario refer to the racial discrimination that was faced by the targeted employee. The concerned employee had been facing issues due to the lack of understanding on the part of the manager regarding the importance of a diversified team and the fact that the inclusion of cultural and racial diversity within a given team helps in enhancing the performance and productivity of the entire team as well as the organisation at large. The employee had been facing issues due to the unjustified and unethical abusive behaviour on the part of the team manager as well as the team members alongside whom the employee had been serving the organisation. There had been observed biased attitudes on the part of both the immediate supervisor as well as colleagues with regards to granting access to promotions, developmental and training activities, transferring the responsibility of a certain project, thereby not allowing the concerned employee to gain access to the facilities that the other team members had been receiving while maintaining same levels across the organisational hierarchy (Fine, Sojo and Lawford?Smith 2020). This biasness on the part of the immediate supervisor had almost led to the loss of a talented employee had it not been for the interference on the part of the senior management team and the department dedicated towards the welfare of employees across the organisation the human resource department.

Analysis
According to the opinions presented by Huang et al. (2019), maintaining abusive behaviour across the workplace is one of the major unethical practices that is commonly observed across workplaces. In the given case that I had observed across my workplace, the indigenous employee had been exposed to regular abusive behaviour on the part of the immediate supervisor. This led to mental harassment and situations of depression and anxiety to develop within the employee, which in turn had hampered the performance that was delivered by the individual towards the achievement of the organisational goals. The lack of training on the part of identified defaulters had led to the increase in abusive behaviour towards the concerned employee. The discrimination on the basis of the race and ethnicity of the employee had led to the lack of proper performance on the part of the employee, which in turn had been hampering the productivity of the entire organisation at large. According to Roscigno(2019), diversity management is one of the major factors that have been affecting globally active business organisations in the present day. The existence of people from different ethnic backgrounds helps in providing the concerned organisational team with a plethora of knowledge and skills, which in turn might help in resolving issues at a faster pace.

Evaluation
According to the opinions put forth by Scarborough, Lambouths III and Holbrook (2019), diversity management is one of the major factors that helps in maintaining an inclusive workplace. The inclusion of diversity across the workforce members helps business concerns in handling various issues due to the increase in the skills and knowledge maintained by the employees. The inclusion of a diversified workforce also helps in improving the knowledge base of the concern, which in turn helps in improving the performance and the productivity of the employees as well as the organisation at large across the given operational market all over the world. According to the opinions presented by Sukalova and Ceniga(2020), abusive behaviour and harassment across the workplace often lead to several health issues like anxiety, depression as well as an increase in the blood pressure of the concerned employee. This, in turn, hampers the well-being of the employee as well as puts forth a deterioration in the services that the person offers towards the achievement of the concerned organisational goals. In order to avoid unpleasant situations across the workplace, the concerned senior management team is advised to conduct several training sessions which would be helpful for the employees so that they may learn more about the importance of maintaining a diversifying workforce and the ways in which diversity across the workplace could contribute towards improving the performance of the team as well as organisation at large.

Conclusion
In lieu of the above discussion, it could be stated that workplace harassment on the grounds of racial discrimination plays a major role in defining the pace of performance maintained by the team at large. The incident that I had observed at my workplace had helped me understand the fact that regular training and developmental sessions should be undertaken at the workplace in order to emphasise on the importance of maintaining a diversifying workforce. The employers, as well as the human resource department across an organisation, should implement strict policies in order to put a check on the discrimination and abusive behaviour which could be directed at a certain group of employees by their colleagues.

Action plan
In case of similar situations in future, I would like to engage in a proper conversation with both the complainant and the person who has been maintaining an abusive behaviour pattern towards the former. This would help in understanding the issue in a better manner which in turn would assist in resolving the issue without facing a loss on the part of the company as well. I would like to enhance my communication skills as well as to conduct several training sessions in order to imbibe in the employees the need and advantages of having a diversified workforce serving the organisation.

Conclusion
The above reflective account sheds light on the fact that the management of diversity across the workforce is one of the major factors that have been affecting the performance and the productivity maintained by the employees of the organisation. The above discussion further shed light on the importance of maintaining proper training sessions across the workplace in order to promote a non-biased workplace environment which in turn might lead to the development of the performance and productivity of the concern as well.

References
Fine, C., Sojo, V. and Lawford?Smith, H., 2020. Why Does Workplace Gender Diversity Matter? Justice, Organizational Benefits, and Policy. Social Issues and Policy Review, 1(14), pp.36-72.

Huang, J., Krivkovich, A., Starikova, I., Yee, L. and Zanoschi, D., 2019. Human resource management Women in the Workplace 2019. McKinsey & Company.

Roscigno, V.J., 2019. Discrimination, sexual harassment, and the impact of workplace power. Socius, 5, p.2378023119853894.

Scarborough, W.J., Lambouths III, D.L. and Holbrook, A.L., 2019. Support of workplace diversity policies: The role of race, gender, and beliefs about inequality. Social Science Research, 79, pp.194-210.

Sukalova, V. and Ceniga, P., 2020. Diversity Management in Sustainable Human Resources Management. In SHS Web of Conferences (Vol. 74, p. 01033). EDP Sciences.