Ethical Dilemas....

What's the biggest ethical dilema you've faced proffessionally? I've been doing some work on this and its really made me think!

I think mine was when I worked for a big company and the Working Time Directive came in, and they wanted me to ask all the very junior, underpaid and very over work members of my team to sign the opt out.

Being asked for a back hander and saying no.

Sometimes, for some people, Its not a matter of having ethics, its more a matter of being able to afford them. Also, what is ethical in one part of the world is considered the opposite in another. I think most people are lucky if they can balance their decisions professionally and personally.

In all honesty, I have made many unethical choices in my years but, in contrast I have also made a lot more ethical ones. I could not point to one single instance either way, that springs out as something worthy of note so perhaps they weren't that important in the first place or perhaps more important to me personally at the time than in the general scheme of things.

Thanks for your honesty Les! I think we've probably all made decisions we might not have been proud of - but I agree that the trick is always to balance your decisions professionally and personally - mind you, surely one of the priveledges of working for yourself is the ability to have more control of that balance?

les is bang on, its not even things we may not be proud of, different cultures see things very differently.

many years ago i helped run a carpet factory in Kathmandu. The UN came in and demanded all the children were removed from the place and could not work in the factory. these were family environments, the whole family worked with other whole families.

The UN got the government involved and it happened that the children were removed.

They doubled child prostitution on the streets of Kathmandu overnight.

I've had a number of Ethical Dilemmas, I stopped working for the ANC in the 80s because they wouldn't state publicly they were opposed to violence, I've walked out of jobs because of their policies on the Environment, and their attitude to staff, and I WON'T work for, or with anyone who has different values to me.

I have integrity by the truckload - does anyone want to buy some?

I think ethics are absolutely at the heart of how you operate in business.

Obviously, there is not just one set for the whole world, and you will come across people with different views. And you can respect that. But compromise on my own ethics?

No. During my career I have stuck to this. At times it has cost me, as it has meant having to explain to senior directors why I wont do something. At times it has benefitted me, as it has gained the respect of people around me. At other times it has caused frictions, because i have take a different stance than others.

But I do think having principles to which you resolutely stick is important. And make a feature of them - tell your team, and your clients.

Two and a half years ago I moved my IFA business into an Independent Estate Agency, looking to join the mortgage boom.

It quickly became obvious that no-one could borrow the sum required to buy without taking an Interest Only loan, lying about their income, or usually both.

I wrote the sum total of zero mortgages in the six months I endured (my non-mortgage work sustained me), which makes me either the least succesful Mortgage Broker of all time or the most successful, depending how you view things. I prefer the latter.

Mark

Mine is right now and on topic...

I knew when I was asked to do 5 HIPs for clients this week/10 days - BUT - I might not be able to fulfill by the end of the week.

I had to knock back 1000.00 worth of work, which would have given me about 400.00 pre tax...I just put out 7000+ including memberships 5 months ago...

I tell my sons - "Do whats right every time"

I love the fact that people will talk right about me today not say he was a ??@£?? and ripped us off...

Way to go David.

It's always seemed easy to be honest in the software development business. The landlord business has been a different matter - am nearly out of it now, and doing the right thing has been a continual story of "this would be a lot easier if we were just a little bit evil"

Al Alvarez wrote one of the seminal poker books, 'The Biggest Game in Town' - and in that he talks a lot about Johnny Moss, who started as a card sharp, but then, in his words, "spent the next 60 years being a sucker" with no regrets.

As recruitment agency we always let our candidates know of vacancies we come across which may be suitable for them, even if the recruiting employer will not use our services as an agency. People come to us for help finding a new job and we try and help them every way we can.

I've also dropped my fee's on a few occasions when it looked like they may cost a candidate a job. Yes it's annoying and I may have been played, but I would rather be happy, sleep well and be poor than be rich, unhappy and ashamed of my actions. I've actually received a cheque from an employer who took on a candidate I dropped the fees on a few months later. Saying they really appreciated what I had done with the situation, they paid roughly half of what the fee should have been for the candidate.

Not the worst dilemma, but recently I was given a lead by a 4N member for a client who may be recruiting. The problem for me was that they client was already using a 4N recruitment agency, and as much as I would have loved the business, I would never feel comfortable going for someone who I know and chat to's client

I refused the lead, but fully explained why, and then got a message saying on reflection they were even more impressed that I had done this!

I have loved reading this Brendan. I'm the same way - that is why I love working for myself. Even when I was teaching I was uncomfortable with how much was NOT about the students and their success but about some other kind of rubbish. My integrity and freedom of choice comes first but I pay the price by having had the financial ups and downs that come with putting integrity over financial gain top of the list.

The biggest ethical dilemma that I faced happened when I worked at the University, at the time I was branch secretary of Unison and was involved in the formation of a new pay and bonus structure. The University wanted to bring in this new structure which would mean that less staff would have a performance bonus than had previously been the case so it was up to the unions along with management to devise a pay structure that was fair and yet had room for performance bonuses. What we did was remove every 4th line on the pay scale which took some explaining to staff who couldnt grasp what would happen if their incremental pay fell on what they called a blank space - in reality if they landed on the blank space then they would get the next increment i.e. more pay - a performance bonus was only given if the employee had over achieved what was expected of them and this had to be evidenced by work produced etc. It was hard to introduce a system that was fair to all but by tweaking the pay scales it meant that staff could progress on the scale quicker than with the old system. It was hard to be fair to all parties both management and staff and the system is still in use today so we must have done something right. Sometimes we have to do things that are unethical but this should be balanced by doing something ethical and I have always made sure that I have given my time to various charities from working in soup kitchens to washing cars.