Managing Employee Ethics, Engagement, Retention, and Fair Treatment
Overview
The small firm's CEO paid higher than average salaries but couldn't keep good employees. "Perhaps you should stop screaming at them," advised his wife. The main purpose of this chapter is to explain how to manage employee ethics, engagement, retention, and fair treatment at work. The topics we cover include Ethics and Fair Treatment at Work, Managing Employee Discipline and Privacy, Managing Dismissals, Managing Voluntary Employee Turnover and Retention, and Employee Engagement.
1. Provide three examples of behaviors that would probably be unethical but legal, and three that would probably be illegal but ethical.
2. List 10 things your college or university does to encourage ethical behavior by students and/or faculty.
3. You need to select a nanny for your or a relative's child, and want someone ethical. Based on what you read in this chapter, what would you do to help ensure you ended up hiring someone ethical?
4. Explain how you would ensure fairness in disciplining, discussing particularly the prerequisites to disciplining, disciplining guidelines, and the discipline without punishment approach.
5. Why is it important to manage dismissals properly?
6. Why is it advisable for an employee retention effort to be comprehensive?
7. What actions would you undertake to improve employee retention?
8. Explain why employee engagement is important, and how to foster such engagement. What exactly would you as a supervisor do to increase your employees' engagement?
9. HR professionals may also be asked to participate in drafting, modifying, communicating, and enforcing their organization's code of ethics. In some organizations, the Legal department is heavily involved in drafting this communication as well as monitoring ethics training.
10. What else stands out to you from this particular article?