Case study about ethical work behavior in gov

6.4 Hiring your Supervisor’s Friend

As a middle manager in charge of making a recommendation for a job opening in your city organization, you form a search committee and appoint a chair to conduct the search. Shortly after the search gets underway, you receive a call from your supervisor, Anne, informing you that a family friend is one of the candidates. Anne assures you that the call is in no way an attempt to influence the search process. Nonetheless, she reiterates the closeness of her relationship with the candidate and comments about the person’s excellent qualifications for the position. The search committee recommends a rank order of three persons. As it turns out, Anne’s friend is ranked number two in what is, by the chair’s own account, a close and difficult ranking process.

Discussion Questions

1. Should you recommend your supervisor’s friend for the job under these circumstances?

2. Would it be morally permissible to do so? Why or why not? 3. Suppose you are the supervisor, Anne, in this case. Have you done anything wrong?

Case Assessment #1:

If the choice among the top candidates is a close one, Joe should interview them personally and make his own decision about recommending one to his superior. He should make the call on the merits and try to ignore his boss’s inappropriate words. If there is a genuine tie between the top two candidates, he can report that to his boss. After all, the boss is doing the hiring, not Joe.

Case assessment #2:

You are placed in a precarious situation by your supervisor. If you recommend the supervisor’s friend, and the committee selects someone else, the supervisor may behave unfavorably to you. If you do not recommend the friend, the supervisor may ask you why he was not recommended and again may behave unfavorably toward you. If the search committee selects the candidate on his own merit without the recommendation, then it seems the process has worked without prejudice. However, hiring friends or family members in the direct chain of command within the same organization seems incestuous and undesirable. Has the supervisor done anything wrong? Yes, although she knows that the person has great qualifications and would be an asset to the organization, if the friend were hired and reported through the chain of command to you and the supervisor, then the morale in the office would be affected by the appearance of “favoritism.” If, however, the friend could be placed in a different department within the organization, then that would be a preferable way to gain a great employee and not impact existing trust in management.