Legal and Ethical Issues

in HRM

Human Resource Management

Introduction (Ch 1)

Legal & Ethical

Issues
(Ch 2 & 14)
Recruitmen
t
&

Selection

Performanc
e
Manageme
nt

Compensat
ion

Job Analysis
(Ch 4)

Appraise
Employees
(Ch 9)

Establish
Employees
Pay plan
(Ch 11)

Recruit
Candidate
(Ch 5)

Train
Employees
(Ch 8)

Reward
Employees
(Ch 12)

Select
Employees
(Ch 6-7)

Global HRM
(Ch17)

After this session, you should be

able to:

1. Explain major employment discrimination laws

in Hong Kong.

2. Recognize and avoid potential discriminatory

employment practices.

3. Explain how employees (the plaintiff) can

prove and how employers (the defendant) can

effectively handle sexual harassment case.

4. Explain causes of ethical problems and how to

ensure fairness and ethics in disciplining
employees.

What Are the Major

Discrimination Laws in Hong
Kong?
Disability Discrimination Ordinance
Disability: Total or partial loss of a bodily
function
To eliminate discrimination against people
with disability or differently abled people.
Can an employer ask an applicant to take
a disability test (e.g., hearing test)?
Reasonable accommodation

PRS Case
An employee who had a bad back worked
as door greeter in a store. She asked if she
could sit on a stool while on duty. The store
said no. She sued the store.
If you were the court judge, what would be
your decision?
1.Accommodating the employees request
2.Not accommodating the employees request

What Are the Major

Discrimination Laws in Hong
Kong?
Sex Discrimination Ordinance
Discrimination on the basis of gender,
marital status, and pregnancy, and
sexual harassment are made unlawful
under this law.
It covers both work and non-work
situations.
Applies to all employers in HK except
where their employees

PRS Case
Company As ad: Stable and well-paid
jobs in a fast-growing company. Male
needed for the administrative assistant
position. Female needed for the secretary
position. Must be able to type, travel
involved, flexible hours. Attach photo
when apply.
Potential sex discrimination issue(s) in this ad
include:
1. Different titles for essentially the same
positions
2. Asking photos at the application stage

What Are the Major

Discrimination Laws in Hong
Kong?
Family Status Discrimination Ordinance
- Unlawful to discriminate anyone, at work and
outside work, on the ground of family status that
implies an individual having responsibility for the
care of an immediate family member.

Racial Discrimination Ordinance

- Direct: treating a person from a particular race less
favorably in the same or similar circumstances.
- Indirect: A requirement is imposed generally, but it
is .. and it is not justifiable on nonracial grounds.

 Physical appearance discrimination

Age discrimination
South China Morning Post, Monday, Jan. 16, 2006:
Airlines are taking advantage of Hong Kongs lack of
age discrimination laws to force flight attendants hired
locally to retire up to 30 years earlier than their
overseas colleagues. Japan Airlines, which has about
250 Hong Kong-based staff members, makes flight
attendants retire as early as 35, while Tokyo-based
staff retire at 65. At Cathay Pacific, Dragonair and
British Airways, cabin crew hired in Hong Kong must
retire at 45.

Equal Opportunity Commission

Investigate non-compliance with the laws
Provides employers with a code of practice.
Examples of barred practices:
- Advertisement that specifies gender or marital
status
- Questions on job application forms that ask
gender or marital status, or information about
spouse
- Different job titles for men or women doing the
same work
- Certain employment tests

What Is the Employers Best

Defense?
Genuine occupational qualification
Requirement that an employee be of a
certain race (national or ethic original), or
sex where that is reasonably necessary to
the organizations normal operation.

South China Morning

Post, October 5, 2009:
Democrat Kam Naiwai is to face an
internal inquiry by his
party into allegations
that he had sexually
harassed an assistant
whom he sacked late
last month.
I have good feelings
toward you

What is Sexual Harassment?

Sexual harassment
- Harassment on the basis of sex that has the
purpose or effect of substantially interfering
with a persons work performance or creating
an hostile or offensive work environment.
- Two forms:
unwelcome sexual behavior (conduct) toward an
employee
a sexually hostile working environment (e.g.,
sexually offensive pictures and languages)

How to Prove Sexual

Harassment?
Most direct way: Rejecting a supervisors
advances adversely affects the employees
tangible benefits, such as raises or
promotions.
Hostile environment created by supervisors.
Behaviors that substantially affect an
employees emotional and psychological ability
to the point that they affect the employees
ability to continue with the job.

How to Prove Sexual

Harassment?
Video: Banker Busted!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnmKqOd2ueA&feature=
related

Hostile environment created by co-workers

or non-employees (e.g., customers) can
cause the employer to be held
responsible.

What Should Employers

Do?
Have a policy against sexual harassment
and provide complaint procedure.
Establish a management response system
that includes an immediate reaction and
investigation.
In the case of sexual harassment by CEO,
should be involved, and be brought in.
Discipline managers and employees
involved in harassment (when proved).

A Wal-Mart butcher was promised that he

would be able to start management training
and possibly move up to supervisor. His
supervisor never mentioned the promotion
again after the employee hurt his back at
work and was out for 5 weeks. Feeling
cheated, the butcher went to the Grocery
Workers Union. The stores meat cutters
eventually voted to unionize. A week later,
Wal-Mart announced it would switch to
completely prepackaged meat, and meat
cutters would no longer be required.

What is Ethics?
Ethics
The principles of conduct (e.g., fairness)
guiding an individual or a group
Specifically, the standards used to decide
what good conduct (e.g., behavior, action,
activity) is.

Ethical decisions:
Involve normative judgments (i.e., implying
something is right or wrong, good or bad)
Rooted in a societal standards of behaviors

What Shapes Unethical Behaviors

at Work?
Three factors:
- Bad apples: people who are more
inclined to make unethical choices
- Bad cases: ethical situations that are
ripe for unethical choices
- Bad barrels: company environments
that foster or allow unethical choices

What Shapes Unethical Behaviors at

Work?
Qi States Special Envoy to Chu State (
)
- Orange trees transplanted to the north of the Huai River
become trifoliate orange trees ( ,
)

What Affects Ethical Behavior at

Work?
People in organizations did unethical
things at work solely for personal gains?
- Company environments matter!
Top ranked causes of ethical problems:
Being under the gun to meet scheduling
pressures
Meeting overly aggressive business
objectives
Helping the company survive

What Affects Ethical Behavior at

Work?
At the bottom of the list?
- Advancing..!
In 2004, Worldcoms CFO pleaded guilty for
covering the companys deteriorating financial
situation:
I took these actions, knowing they were wrong, in a
misguided
attempt to preserve the company to allow it to
withstand what I
believed were temporary financial difficulties.

 Instruction: analyze the following case

in a team, and make the arbitrators
decision. Be prepared to share with the
class what would be your decision if you
were the arbitrator and Why.

A computer department employee made an

entry error that botched an entire run of computer
reports. Efforts to rectify the situation produced a
second set of improperly run report. As a result of
this series of errors, the employer incurred extra
cost of $HK19,200, plus a weekend of overtime
work by other computer department staffers.
Management suspended the employee for 3 days
for negligence, a discipline commonly issued for
similar mistakes in the past. Management also
revoked a promotion for which the employee had
previously been approved.

The employee argued that she had attempted

to correct her error in the early stages of the run
by notifying the manager of computer operations
of her mistake. Maintaining that the resulting
string of errors could have been avoided if the
manager had followed up on her report and
stopped the initial run, the employee argued that
she had been treated unfairly because the
manager has not been disciplined even though he
compounded the problem, whereas she was
severely punished. The company had not before
reversed a promotion as part of a disciplinary
action. Moreover, citing her impeccable work
record and managements acknowledgement that
she has always been a model employee, the
employee insisted that the denial of her
previously approved promotion was
unconscionable.

PRS Ready!
1. Uphold the decisions by the
management
2. Revoke the decisions by the
management
3. Uphold the 3-day suspension, and
restore the promotion
4. Uphold the denial of promotion, but
revoke the 3-day suspension

How to Ensure Fairness and

Ethics in Disciplining
Employees?
A set of clear rules and regulations that are
applied consistently (across employees and
time)
A system of progressive penalties that are
applied consistently (across employees and
time)
An appeals process
- The right of the employee to grieve the
decision.

Summary
Managers conduct HRM activities within a
legal framework, must understand antidiscrimination laws, and avoid potential
discriminatory practices.
Organizations must pay attention to
potential sexual harassment issues and
know how to handle it effectively.
Laws are not the only guide. Managers must
conduct HRM activities according to the
ethics in the society where the organization
is operating.