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Essay / Ethical Issues in the Workplace Essay - 1200
Leaders in today's businesses face many different issues that are radically different from the work environment of just a short while ago 20 years old. The 21st century is filled with many dilemmas that managers will face and continue to address over time. With the rapid availability of personal electronic devices and social media, managers face many ethical questions related to these two areas. This is a truly unique problem in the 21st century and as they are still new, managers continue to find creative ways to combat the problems they face related to personal electronics and social media in terms of information leak. The concept of ethics has been around for a long time. for a long time and is roughly defined as a system of moral principles. These moral principles When ethical questions arise, managers find a way to deal with them in the best interest of all parties involved or overcome them in court. The right of employees to receive a fair wage for work performed is considered a universal ethical right in today's world. It is covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. In this act, businesses are required to act ethically by paying their employees fair wages for the work they have performed. It also set the standard of a 40-hour work week as well as how overtime is paid. This concept of ethics was new at the time but is now considered the norm. It was an uphill battle, even in court, as the Supreme Court even struck down a law mandating a minimum wage. Many business owners already paid their employees what was considered a fair wage. “Risk managers face a series of balancing challenges amid the explosion of social media in the workplace. The first is to grant freedom of speech to workers and protect company assets, including trade secrets and proprietary information. » (Greenwald, 2013, p. 135). The risks involved are very serious depending on the sector in which the employer operates. A major problem is the “potential disclosure on social media of proprietary information and company trade secrets” (Greenwald, 2013, p. 13). Managers who attempt to determine the balance between what constitutes an employee's right to free speech and what an employee can share could be considered defamation by the employer. These employee posts may not even be intentional. An example would be a high-level employee whose company merges with another. Simply posting something hinting at the location of a potential merger partner can tell people who the partner might be and how likely the merger will be due to the occurrence of a head-to-head.