Practical Social Work Ethics

Question: Describe about the Practical Social Work Ethics? Answer: Introduction: Organizations generally monitor their employees to ensure that they are performing their duties correctly (Carey, 2013). Continuous monitoring of employees also ensures that none of the resources of organization are being misused by employees (Kaptein, 2013). However, organizations require informing employees regarding their monitoring practices to avoid ethical dilemmas. The current assignment deals with discussion on the ethical dilemmas in organizations due to use of ICT. DET technique: The ethical dilemma in my workplace is analyzed with DET technique. Use of DET techniques for analyzing ethical issues not only enables to identify the impacts of an incident on its stakeholders, it is also effective to identify the potential solutions for the problem (Ciurria, 2014). Case Description: In workplace some employees have been accused of using official resources for their personal purpose. Apart from this there were some incidents related with loss of office property. However management of our organization increased the number of CCTVs at office premises to avoid such incidents in future. Although the organization made stricter employee monitoring policies, staffs were not aware about these policies. Increasing the number of CCTVs is beneficial to the management for protecting office properties, but it is also violating the policies regarding privacy of employees at workplace. As it is related with my workplace, real names are not used for maintaining confidentiality. Analysis on the current situation is indicating presence of ethical dilemma in my workplace. Stakeholders related with incident: In our organization staffs protested against the issue of monitoring employees without informing them. The stakeholders who are directly related with the incident are management of our organization and staffs of the company. Has a stakeholders trust been broken? Ideals: As some of the staffs misused office property, they violated rules of our office. On other hand, management also increased the number of CCTVs without proper notification. It violated the rules of employee monitoring. Rights: Employees require being informed properly before they are monitored using CCTV. As the management applied new monitoring policies without informing them, the right of staffs privacy at workplace is violated. What are the obligations? The incident of CCTV monitoring without informing employees violated the law of privacy at work place. Employees have rights to protect their privacy at workplace (Oaic.gov.au, 2015). However the management used this policy to avoid misleading people in office. Misuse of office properties violated the rules of company. What are the consequences for stakeholders? Although the management of our organization succeeded to reduce misuse of resources, new monitoring policy is affecting the relationship between management and employees. Thus the incident is affecting our company for long term by reducing integrity among employees. Employees are also affected due to new monitoring policies as their right to privacy is violated. Application of ethical theories: Impacts of the incident in my workplace can be analyzed using Act Utilitarianism. Monteverde, (2013) states that use of Act Utilitarianism theory provides idea regarding overall impact of an incident on all parties. Reilly et al., (2012) opined that use of Rule Utilitarianism also provides idea regarding impacts of an ethical dilemma on all parties associated with it. The incidents of resource misuse and implementation of new monitoring policies decreased happiness of both management and employees. The response of stakeholders for an incident can be understood using social contract theory (Quigley, 2011). In my organization new monitoring policies were not accepted by employees as management had not informed them earlier. Use of Kantianism theory indicates that basic rights of privacy would be violated of the monitoring policy was obeyed by everyone. What is the best action? Analysis on the current scenario indicates the management requires increasing the number of CCTVs for protecting office resources. However the employees need to be notified properly regarding the new surveillance policies. However management also can provide employees with the guidelines for using company resources to protect those from being misused. Justification for the best action: Analysis on the possible actions indicates that increasing the number of CCTVs at office premises will be more effective. However, the management requires ensuring that the employees are informed properly and they are agreed with these new policies. Use of CCTVs will also beneficial for management to identify whether the staffs are performing their duties or not. Mere providing guidelines to staffs will not be effective as it will not facilitate the management to understand whether staffs are following these guidelines or not. Conclusion: Analysis on the current incident indicates that both the stakeholders are affected. Trust between management and employees have been reduced due to misuse of company properties. On other hand, employees also became unhappy as their right to privacy was violated. However such ethical dilemmas can be avoided by revising existing policies. References Carey, M. (2013). Practical social work ethics. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. CIURRIA, M. (2014). Answering the Situationist Challenge: A Defense of Virtue Ethics as Preferable to Other Ethical Theories. Dialogue, 53(04), 651-670. doi:10.1017/s0012217314000560 Kaptein, M. (2013). Workplace morality. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Oaic.gov.au,. (2015). Is my employer allowed to monitor my activities in the workplace?| Office of the Australian Information Commissioner - OAIC. Retrieved 19 March 2015, from https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-topics/photos-and-surveillance/is-my-employer-allowed-to-monitor-my-activities-in-the-workplace Quigley, M. (2011). ICT ethics and security in the 21st century. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Reilly, N., Sirgy, M., Gorman, C. (2012). Work and quality of life. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.