The work of a recruiter is of particular importance, as it depends on them to find the perfect employees for the business, details that are important for achieving successful results. Stereotypes are a big problem throughout the HR aspect. The thing is that stereotypes are a tool with which the human brain simplifies its work when it needs to analyze a large amount of complex data. It is easier to think that people from an unfavorable environment will turn out to be inefficient workers. This allows companies to weed out some of the workers and reduce the amount of information that will need to be processed. However, thinking in this way can deprive a business of unique and talented specialists.
Professional personnel is the leading resource of the company, which is necessary for its prosperity. As strange as it may sound, it is not money, technology, or resources that decide everything but people. The prosperity of the business depends on the quality of the human capital (Obiekwe, 2018). The corporate culture, the level of productivity, and the degree of creativity depend on who and how the organization recruits and what characteristics of the future employee it takes into account.
The candidates’ nationality, orientation, or economic status may lead to an incorrect assessment of their professional qualities and the possible loss of a valuable employee if stereotypes manifest themselves in the recruitment process. A stereotype is characterized as a certain representation that people keep in their heads to save the effort necessary to interpret more complicated situations (Kopytowska & Baider, 2017). Stereotypes can be enforced by social views and shaped through the observations and usually carry a negative connotation (Samson et al., 2021). Social stereotypes are the most destructive for people’s worldview. They impose the wrong train of thought on a person and hinder people from making personal conclusions.
People’s wish to adhere to stereotypes negatively affects the attitude about the real world and poisons their existence. A person often condemns others taking into consideration the opinion of the society about a person and not for this person’s doings. One of the reasons why a recruiter may not want to hire a representative of the LGBT + community may be the stereotype that all gays are feminine. This may mean the perception that these members of the community are not capable of doing “men’s work” or holding leadership positions that require strength and responsibility (Koenig, 2018). The fact that some men behave feminine is not a problem and does not deserve public censure.
The problem is that all gays are attributed to a similar style of gender behavior. In fact, gay people as a demographic group show a wide variety of ways of expressing themselves, which does not negatively affect the quality of their work.
People coming from lower economic and social strata of society are particularly stereotyped. It is believed that a poor employee among more successful colleagues will be a black sheep (Durante, 2017). It will be difficult for them to learn to share the joys of others. It is even more difficult for them to understand that colleagues receive salary increases and promotions not for their general appearance but also for actual achievements. Nevertheless, applying such an opinion to all people is fundamentally wrong. Despite their low economic and social status, many people are excellent employees who are ready to work hard and who can withstand any stressful situations and are excellent in the team.
In the process of interpersonal communication, perception, cognition, and evaluation of a person by another person occur, among other things, due to stereotyping. An ethno-cultural stereotype is an interpersonal perception, an image of someone else’s ethnic community, reflecting a simplified knowledge of the characteristics of representatives of a particular people (Ndobo et al., 2020). This type of prejudice can be applied to indigenous Australians when recruiting staff. However, these population representatives are valuable workers, as they are soft by nature and genetically devoid of aggression, which can make them resistant to stressful situations.
The cost of an error in personnel selection can be pretty high, up to the economic damage to the company. For the evaluation process to be genuinely objective, companies need to know the fundamental laws of information perception and the typical stereotypes that arise when communicating with candidates. The main rule for the employer may be not to extend personal sympathy or antipathy to the professional qualities of the candidate for the workplace.
Before starting to look for candidates for a certain job, the company organizes a meeting attended by an HR manager, a manager, and a recruiter. This is necessary to agree on what skills, experience, and knowledge are essential for the future employee. The candidate’s formed profile will help avoid stereotypes related to orientation, cultural, economic, and social affiliation. When selecting, it is crucial to pay attention to what work skills can be developed and which features, depending on the upbringing and character, are difficult to influence.
Stereotypes and subjective opinions about the candidate can play a cruel joke with the manager, as often recruitment specialists overestimate the importance of self-presentation. Therefore, to avoid stereotypes, the company must find actual indicators of behavior. Organizations need to maintain their database, briefly recording the identified qualities and properties for each candidate. The collected database will then be analyzed to give each employee the same chance, regardless of their distinctive features.
Recruitment and search of personnel, as a rule, are always on the agenda of any manager. The correct organization of the selection process will not only provide the business with the necessary personnel but also increase efficiency, as well as reduce personnel costs. However, the effectiveness of this process can be influenced by stereotypes. Living in a society, we are faced with stereotypes every day. Stereotypes are well-established opinions about people, their nationalities, actions, or actions.
Adherence to these prejudices can negatively affect the work of the organization. The effectiveness of the organization’s functioning directly depends on the competence of the employees working in it and, accordingly, on the accuracy of personnel selection. Bringing in people from different cultures and backgrounds can help increase diversity and help the company achieve better results.
Ethical business standards are becoming the subject of increasing interest from managers. Companies pay great attention to the ethics of behavior in all aspects of their activities in order to avoid damaging public opinion, loss of the prestige of the company, both in government bodies and in business circles. That is why, when there is a question about the dismissal of staff, it is essential to follow specific frameworks. The decision to reduce staff can play a crucial role in the functioning of the organization.
To make ethical decisions, organizations create codes of ethics that establish the values and principles of conduct necessary to guide the decision-making process. When making decisions, it is essential to consider individual factors, such as nationality, opinion, gender, age, and situational factors, such as the individual’s reference groups, ethical values, and leadership practices (Atesh et al., 2017). For code formation, it is important to determine what ethical problems arise in employees’ daily activities, classify them, and describe desirable and undesirable behavior using specific examples. The code should be designed for different situations that may arise during the working process.
In the case study, Drew Cunningham might have used the justice approach. This approach means that the proper ethical choice should rely on the concepts of equality, fairness, and impartiality. Moreover, the profit and expenses must be equally shared between all of the employees. Employee attitudes, including commitment and performance, are related to the perception of fairness in the workplace (Nadeem, 2020). Distributional justice plays a unique role in the case study. It requires that contrasts in people’s remuneration should not be built on random features and gender, age, culture (Samson et al., 2021). The main contentious issue in this approach is whether to base the realization of opportunities on needs, ability, or contribution.
The ethics of justice proceeds from the position that people are by nature social beings who must live in society and create social structures to maintain its functioning. The central values for its representatives are human equality, impartiality, and justice as its expression (Singer, 2018). As a result, as it is understood in the ethics of justice, the moral duty is to obey the law, which should be the same for all, to adopt fair laws, and to avoid discrimination and privileges. The decision-making process using the justice approach must take into account fundamental human rights, such as the right to freedom of consent, privacy, freedom of speech, and security.
Kirby Ellis, in turn, would like to take a utilitarian approach to decision-making. On the contrary to the justice approach, this approach indicates that moral actions create the most significant benefit and make the peak social outcome for a more considerable amount of people. The utilitarian approach assumes that the decision-maker considers, calculates every possible action with the participation of all interested parties, and chooses the ways that are appropriate for the most significant amount of involved people (Felzmann, 2017). Utilitarianism idea is frequently seen as a profit and cost analysis, as it compares the two aspects of coming to a verdict. The main downside of the approach is the difficulty of accurately calculating the benefits and expenses taken separately. A number of elements can be evaluated in financial concepts, for example, goods produced, sales, payroll, and profit.
Nevertheless, the ethical characteristics of employees, mental fulfillment, and the value of human life cannot be accessed accordingly. Human resources and welfare outlay are still the most complex aspects to evaluate. With the absence of these dimensions, the review of expenditure and gains stays insufficient, and a right response, if a given operation is moral or not, can be obtained. One of the main disadvantages of utilitarianism is the problem that the majority can often trample on the rights of the minority. It may arise from the fact that this approach states that the overall utility should be maximized for as many people as possible (Byskov, 2020).
Therefore, it can be concluded that the followers of this approach would sacrifice the well-being of a few people to increase the well-being of the majority. Despite these shortcomings, the utilitarian approach in defining the ethics of activities is largely implemented in many companies.
The utilitarian approach is an attempt to justify the ethics of a decision using a quantitative approach. The decision-making individual should consider the impact of each option on all stakeholders and choose the option that brings satisfaction to the most significant number of people. The goal is to provide the greatest benefits for the majority, even if the rights of some stakeholders are not respected. Thus, decisions are made solely in terms of their future results and consequences.
According to the utilitarian approach, a manager’s action is morally justified if it brings the maximum benefit to the maximum number of people. In this, similarities with the justice approach can be seen, which is also aimed at the company’s overall good. The total benefit is weighed against the amount of damage caused, and if it outweighs it, the decision is unethical. If all the alternative actions cause some degree of damage, then the least evil is chosen. That is why such an approach would be well suited to the actions suggested by Kirby. The man tries in every possible way to keep the number of employees, without subjecting them to cuts. This is also influenced by the close relationship that Kirby has with many employees of the organization.
Today, the most effective management is aimed at increasing the role of the human factor, aimed at the individual. It should ensure the free development of each employee, the satisfaction of the personal interests and plans. Such management is called moral because it is based on moral foundations, on a set of interests, focused on developing human relations based on culture, freedom, and initiative. Each company develops its management philosophy, reflecting the level of management ethics and culture. If today the focus of management is on the person, his dignity, recognition of merits, maximum use of his potential, then such management is the most modern, moral, and ethically correct.
References
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