Scott's questions are fundamental to workplace ethics. I know people feel
threatened by what they perceive as employee disloyalty. But is it really
true in all cases? And what percentage of the cases are true? Intent, as
Scott pointed out, is important in these ethical cases. And like Scott, I
question whether the employee surfing the net shopping is actually
thinking about being disloyal or unethical. May be it is a service we
should encourage for our employees to win their loyalty. I read recently
somewhere that consulting firms are offering their employees such services
as dry cleaning pick ups, flowers for Mother's day and birthday presents
shopping to ensure that these employees did not waver in their work and
necessary private duties. Should we look at such employee behaviour as
attempting to learn and/or balance their lives well? Either way, they
bring something to us that we otherwise will not have from them. But I
agree, it is important to be focussed on case-by-case because intent does
matter.
Vincent Amanor-Boadu
George Morris Centre
http://www.georgemorris.org
--Vincent Amanor-Boadu <vamanorb@uoguelph.ca>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>