Facing an Ethical Dilemma in HR: How Do We Balance Integrity and Job Demands?

Dear Seniors and all members,

Ethical Dilemma in Employment Verification

This is regarding the employment verification of a female MBA-HR who never worked for us, yet my predecessor in HR issued an Employment Certificate to her last year. Now, this individual has secured employment through personal contacts with one of the top IT & Software Companies headquartered in Bangalore, specifically in the HR Department. The company was in the news for sexual harassment about seven years ago, after which it prides itself on following ethical guidelines in all cases and has established a special cell for that purpose. The employee verification of this individual has come to me, and since I handle HR, I am aware that the employee never existed. Therefore, I reverted accordingly to the verification agency.

Instructions from Management

Now, my predecessor (who was handling HR before me) along with my company owner, informs me that I should positively verify the employment details of the individual in question. I proceed to fabricate a story about how I missed the employment papers and re-verify the individual and her employment with us in a positive light. Having done this, I feel miserable about ethics. On one hand, I faced an ethical dilemma in doing my job, and on the other hand, I had instructions from my boss.

Reflection on Ethics and Reality

However, I also contemplate the giant software company that has employed the individual (especially in Human Resources) through influential connections, despite its claims of upholding ethics and morality consistently and being heavily involved in charity. Such is our lives, full of hypocrisy. On one hand, we HR people preach ethics, and on the other hand, we fail to implement them in practical life. Does reality truly matter, or are we all content under the illusion of practicing the best HR standards?

Regards

It is indeed sad to know that, but it's really happening today while we are using our own created rules and ethics. I have also seen this with many organizations/institutions and people. Believe me, there are numerous people who don't even think that this kind of act can ruin someone's career, who couldn't have a job because of it.

Addressing the Issue

This issue was already addressed on air last week on FM 93.5 by RJ Swati, but it couldn't be resolved as the people who do that have no sense of professionalism and can't help it.

I can understand your situation, but I agree with you that we must not engage in such behavior. On the other hand, we can't ruin her life as I have no right to do so. If we try to do that, it would be wrong and against ethics and professionalism. Yes, it's true that our lives become full of hypocrisy, and we are not happy with it. However, it also depends on our consciousness, as your previous HR man has acted in a way that is absolutely wrong, and his consciousness didn't stop him from doing so.

Following Ethics and Rules

But yes, as we have built our HR world around these kinds of ethics and rules, we must follow them.

Thank you for raising this question/issue, as it is one of the significant problems in the HR world today.

But isn't it surprising that we do reference checks, cross-checks, promote ethics, and provide training about policies and procedures, but then when faced with ethical issues, we ourselves fail drastically? After all, what's HR all about? Is it a hogwash? It sometimes appears just like all other government activities in our country, where rules are meant only for the common man and not for the powers-that-be and their affiliates.

Regarding my dilemma, if you believe that we should not ruin anyone's career, also consider the next close candidate in line for the HR vacancy, who might have genuine credentials but was overlooked because of this female with the fake experience certificate from my company, and might have missed out on the opportunity.

Sad but true - real practical life and theories cannot and will not match. A degree/certificate might look good on paper but needs to be practical too!

Regards

Definitely, I agree with your point of view, dear. We are not alone in this HR world who think the same and are facing these kinds of problems. There are numerous people already searching for a solution to this issue because we understand that it can ruin the life of someone who couldn't get a job just because of a fake experience certificate they don't even deserve.

I agree with your point that we are still not following our own created rules properly and encountering these situations in our HR life. I understand your concern, and now I urge you to create a poll regarding this matter and invite people to join us in resolving this issue. You have every right to do so as you have brought it up. I stand with you and want all HR professionals, or those concerned about HR, to join us so we can find the most suitable and best possible solution to this problem.

Thanks for the response. I am actually not sure if a poll might really help, as the question of ethics normally involves an interlinked scenario rather than a one-liner poll with a click of a button. But you have a valid point when you say that normally every job does face ethical issues, and we HR professionals are also not immune to it. However, because this particular incident involves HR activities between a smaller company and a global giant company, it really makes the job that we do appear fake in a sense.

Look at the forums posted every day, and we have billions of suggestions on how HR should do things right, do this, do that, not do this, not do that for employees, etc. It's full of it. But the moment ethics touches on HR boundaries, it also seems to wash out on HR with the real-life incident as stated above. And no matter how many ethical and other special cells a company operates, the matter of ethics never gets resolved, be it with employees or with HR for that matter.

Regards

I strongly agree with you. As you will find, recruitment policies of most big companies emphasize an employee referral scheme, which was meant to hire a quality and reliable resource referred by an existing employee. Now, it is misused by HRs and employees to get their relatives/friends recruited, even if they are incompetent. HR is saving time and labor since the candidate will easily get selected because the interviewer is closely related to the candidate.

The deserving employee with remarkable credentials and potential will be deprived of working in a big company since they don't have strong references within the company.

Thanks,
Rashee