Discrimination and harassment cases are one example of legal issues that can arise from the workplace. Consequently, discrimination and harassment basing on skin color, age, social background, social status, and religious background amongst other discriminatory grounds are extremely dangerous and are likely to cause a lot of problems in the workplace should they arise. The issue has come at the right moment when diversity is being employed by most organizations to boost the levels of their performances. When a workforce of any given organization is built basing on diversity, it becomes easier for the professionals to attend to the clients from different backgrounds irrespective of their diversity. In addition to that, diversity improves teamwork due to the creation of interdependence culture amongst the workers from different departments. Moreover, diversity enhances competence amongst the helping workers because of the shared responsibilities of attending to the patients (Symposium on legal issues in the workplace, 2010).
However, discrimination of any form in workplaces is against the law and should be curbed whatsoever. Organizations should design measures and regulations for dealing with any kind of harassment or discrimination in the workplace. During hiring, the companies can take the initiative of briefing the workers about the consequences of taking part in discriminatory and harassment activities against their co-workers. In fact, it would also be important if they hold meetings on a regular basis to determine if there are any forms of harassment or discriminations amongst the workers. All workers should operate under the pre-defined legal frameworks that define their tasks and duties and at the same time uphold the dignity and the underlying respect to their counterparts (Symposium on legal issues in the workplace, 2010).
ETHICAL ISSUE THAT CAN BE ENCOUNTERED IN THE WORKPLACE
Conflict management is a significant ethical issue in workplace environments. Effective conflict management is important for workers and their leaders to develop a wonderful environment for conducting their activities that are primarily aimed at improving service delivery to the clients. Leaders and their co-workers should understand that peaceful work environments promote productivity. Apart from that, leaders should also protect the interest of all people in their vicinities by focusing on the management of the arising issues and concerns. The absence of chaos will promote exemplary work practices like research that can assist in improving the quality of service delivery in workplace environments. Currently, most workplaces are being subjected to numerous scientific advancements and changes that require ultimate performance. Workplace environments are primarily defined on how workers relate to one another because all workplace departments or divisions are dependent on one another (Roche et al., 2014).
Thus, there is no better way of facilitating for such advancements with the presence of conflicts. Perhaps, conflict is part of human nature, but it should be addressed as a negative constraint that can alter people’s goals and productivity. Proper conflict management techniques can help the workers and their clients to harbor their emotions and concerns in a manner that will not affect their neighbors. Despite that, the aspect of conflict management in workplace contexts is should be treated as the foundation of building healthy relationships amongst all workplace participants and stakeholders. Perhaps, it is the best criteria for helping people to put their diversities away and face issues that are important to them like developing ways of being competitive in their undertakings. It should be noted that cooperation and teamwork have been a great tool for boosting the performance of companies and organizations to exemplary levels of performances lately. Unfortunately, such levels of productivity cannot be achieved with the presence of conflicts in the workplace environments. Hence, conflict management should be treated with a lot of concern as an ethical issue that can make a difference in the performance of an organization (Roche et al., 2014).
- Roche, W. K., Teague, P., Colvin, A. J., & Godard, J. (2014). Labor-Managment conflict. The Oxford Handbook of Conflict Management in Organizations. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199653676.013.0002
- Symposium on legal issues in the workplace. (2010). Notre Dame, IN: Thomas J. White Center on Law & Government, Notre Dame Law School.
