Ethics and Employment

By Matt Guerriero, Campus Representative, University of Pittsburgh

Many employers are currently stressing the importance of ethical behavior in the workplace. There have been an alarming number of criminal punishments due to the lack of ethical behavior in the United States over the past few years. However, it may be difficult to raise concerns about unethical behavior because of fears of losing one’s job or facing persecution within a company for being a “whistle blower.” Mary Gentile wrote an article about what to do when faced with a decision about ethics in the workplace. She writes:

When raising an ethical issue, people seem to be most effective when they script what they'll say and how they'll proceed. It often helps to get some peer coaching, as well. It occurred to me recently that it might be interesting to do some scripting and peer coaching in this space (anonymously, where appropriate).

This issue is very important for entry level employees because they will be brand new to the company. If the company is acting in an unethical manner, something should be done but there are steps that should be taken to ensure anonymity. With so many companies enforcing ethical behaviors, it is important to know what is right and what is wrong. For me, if what I am doing will hurt other people in any way then it is probably unethical. Everyone has different standards for what constitutes this kind of behavior, but employees should always be wary of how they are performing a task.