Human Resource Policies 1
Temesha Toliver
Human Resource Policies
Liberty University
Busi 642
Human Resource Policies 2
Abstract
Most of all companies surround its business around fair ethical conduct on policy manuals as
guidelines for employees to follow. Ethical policies are considered diversity and equality policies
which are more prone to being successful in a workplace when enforced by management and
employees. Policies such as the dress code, code of conduct, harassment, and employee benefits
are implemented into company policy manuals to protect employees and company from
unethical events such as discrimination or unjust situations which could lead to lawful actions
taken against the company. Companies have spent over millions of dollars towards lawsuits and
litigations, not including court and attorney fees. In order to prevent reoccurrences, all policies
are set by Human Resource directors relating to past altercations.
Human Resource Policies 3
Introduction
For a company or business to conduct a policy manual, the firm must first consider the
ethical concerns within the work environment. Ethical concerns are generated from ethics, which
are moral principles that determine an individual’s behavior or the conduct of one’s action within
a workplace. They are essential to managing businesses. Many companies govern ethical policies
which begin in a vertical-down company. Since ethics is based off of morals and values of a firm,
the policies written for the company must be practiced by both employers and employees.
Morals and value of an organization are honesty, integrity, trust, fairness, and respect. If morals
are not a part of the importance in running a business, executives and managers could cause the
company harm by employees. These policy manuals are simple guidelines given to employees to
have acceptable work performance with high standards. Inconsideration of following the
guidelines could lead to serious issues such as lawsuits, harm to a company's’ name, boycott, or a
negative impact on an employee’s life such as emotional guilt and shame. Ethical policies
include dress code, employment benefits, harassment, and a code of conduct. These distinctive
policies give employees a general idea of what to expect in a workplace and the correct and
incorrect behavior accepted while at work.
Policies
Policies are established by work organizations which consist of a set of strategic plans,
guidelines and procedures governed by agencies and the company to set boundaries of behavior
that is expected within a business organization. This set of guidelines discuss the morals and
values of the company in a diverse work environment. It also mentions common issues that occur
Human Resource Policies 4
frequently and how the company addresses these issues. It gives clear and concise instructions on
what is expected in the organization for the company to have continuous growth and success.
“Recent research strongly suggests that support for diversity policies is a critical component to
their success” (Scarborough et. Al., 2019). Four main polices addressed in this paper are the
dress code, code of conduct, harassment, and benefits to ensure employee satisfaction.
Codes of conduct.
A code of conduct is like a policy. It is a well written document explaining the principles,
values, and mission, of an organization. It clearly defines the expected behavior and procedures
that could occur if unethical or unusual circumstances happen. It does not differentiate the
difference between ethical and unethical behavior, however, when using the term professional to
describe behavior, it defines this act as good behavior respecting the values of the company.
Unethical behavior lacks the morals and values asked by a company. For example, demonstrating
intimacy in the view of customers from obtaining personal relationships is a form of unethical
behavior. The discrimination of race, sex, or gender is unlawful and prohibited from occurring in
a work environment because it demonstrates a form of unethical behavior which violates the
codes of conduct set in place by the organization. Codes of conduct exist in both for-profit and
non-profit organizations. Typically, nonprofit organizations are supported by communities and
sponsors who support the nonprofit sector should be held accountable for through the statement
“accountability environment” (Bromley & Orchard, 2015). However, codes should be developed
in a policy to uncover the fact that self-regulation exists. According to Nakhle & Davione
(2016), the codes of conduct serves as an instrument used to formalize a “corporate culture”. The
first and most popular code adopted was by the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits in 1994
(Nakhle & Davione, 2016). They worked on a project named Principles and Practices for
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Nonprofit Excellence which helped nonprofit organizations recover confidence from the public
that was damaged by national charity scandals, adverse media coverage, which was finalized in
2005 (Nakhle & Davione, 2016). By adopting the code of conduct, organizations are able to
agree to their boards and other stakeholders that their diversity should mirror the diversity in the
community so that they could advocate their consumers (Nakhle & Davione). Periodically, a
company's mission should be reevaluated and updated according to changes in the economy. If
a company or member of the company comes in violation to its own codes of conduct, the
company could be held liable for litigations, lawsuits, court and attorney fees, as well as name
slander and a possible loss in business traffic.
Harassment.
Harassment is a form of aggressive persuasive pressure in which an individual can
conduct that causes emotional harm to another person. Harassment victims could be employees,
supervisors, or employees who witness harassment. This form of behavior could result in name
calling, bullying, facial gestures, annoyances, persuasiveness of sexual content or encounters.
Not only does harassment violate company policies and codes of ethics, it violates The
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1976,
and the title VII of Civil Rights of 1964 (EEOC.gov). Two common forms of harassment in work
environments are sexual harassment and racial harassment.
Sexual harassment. According to The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s
Title VII (EEOC), sexual harassment is identified as sexual discrimination. According to
Buckner et. Al., (2014), sexual harassment is an ongoing issue of harassment in work
organizations. Since over 11,000 claims were filed with EEOC for sexual harassment with in the
past 8 years, costing over 50 million dollars to firms. EEOC, along with the U.S Supreme court
Human Resource Policies 6
conducted guidelines for companies encouraging them to train their managers and employees on
precautionary actions to take in cases of sexual harassment.
Racial harassment is defined as discriminating against another individual because of the
color of their skin, hair, facial or body features. Racial harassment violates the Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. Offensive language or slur criticizing another individuals’ color is an
unlawful act of discrimination which could lead to serious legal issues. Racial discrimination
limits workforce participation as well as employee satisfaction with the discouragement of
entering a workplace (Whitaker, 2019).
Dress codes.
Researchers have studied several cases where the attire of employees were inappropriate
in a work environment. Dress codes vary depending on the nature of a job. HR normally takes
responsibility for developing the dress code while management were responsible for following
the dress code along with employees with less enforcement and consequences as employees
(Middlemiss, 2018). Dress codes are enforced by businesses to protect employees from
harassment as it interferes with business of operations. One example the article used was a
discriminatory act of the dress code policy: Nicola Thorp, a receptionist of a firm was sent home
without pay because she did not wear heels, which was not required in the policy manual. The
company informed her that she needed to wear two-inch heels to work. Mrs. Thorp argued that
men did not have to wear heels and filed a petition with the Equality Committee to ban the
enforcement of women wearing heels to work. The dress code became a tool used to decrease the
acts of sexual harassment. The dress code policy had to be an ethical guideline that could not
interfere with the culture of employees through discriminatory preferences through the 2010
Equality Act. Also, grooming standards were implicated by the Title VII of the Civil Rights of
Human Resource Policies 7
1964 (Moran, 2017). This act prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex,
and culture (Moran, 2017).
Benefits.
Life outside of work can become complicated at times. Employers wants to ensure that
their workers ae able to balance life when financial events occur such as marriage, health
payments, retirement, or an unexpected leave of absence due to family death or health concerns.
Employers developed a benefit plan which covers employees while they are not working as well
as offering competitive pay so that they can ensure they employees make enough money to
survive. In 2016, the Glassdoor Economic Research conducted a study discovering that the top
employee benefit packages are health insurance, vacation and paid time off, pension plans,
401(k) plans, and retirement plans (Purdon, 2018). For health expenses, most companies
established policies which discuss the accounts that cover employees' copayments at the time of
a doctor visit called Health Saving Account (HSA). High deductible plans (HDHP) allows
unused insurance benefits to roll over to the next year to cover major medical costs. This plan
has cheaper premiums for employees to choose their payment plans, however the deductible is
higher. Since dental and vision are not considered under medical benefits, employers have
ensured that coverage for these benefits are accessible.
Unemployment benefits. From time to time, the economy rises and falls causing an
economic hardship on businesses. Once business slows down, less money flows in which results
in employment layoff. For the protection of employees, the social security program provides
income protection for those who involuntarily lose their jobs (Darrough et. Al., 2018). Most
companies are willing to lay off employees and offer them a less amount of wages to assist on
bills until business picks back up. Most employees are naturally aware of the economic hardship
Human Resource Policies 8
before it hit their job. Employees are forced to put forth continuous efforts towards working hard
to maintain their job. However, when employers create benefit policies, employees' behaviors
began to shift with the knowledge of being paid without working at all.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is necessary for all businesses to establish codes of conduct to ensure the
protection of the company as well as employees and consumers. Codes of conducts are simply
codes of ethics defining the company’s values, morals, and mission, and describing the
professional behavior that will be expected in an organization as well as procedures that will
occur when these codes are violated. The most common codes that are violated are dress code
policies and harassment because of the diversity of work environments. Although dress codes are
well managed now in work places, sexual harassment remains as an ongoing issue. The EEOC
and U.S. Supreme court encourages companies to enforce training programs within the
organization to help keep harassment under control while developing anti-harassment policies to
protect employees from these unethical acts. Romans 2:11 says, “God shows no partiality”.
Supervisors who are involved in sexual harassment are automatically terminated because it
causes great liability on the company. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “But the LORD said to Samuel, Do not
look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD
sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”
Lastly, companies offer benefits to their employees to ensure employee satisfaction. Benefits
include 401(k), health plans, retirement plans, pension plans and vacation paid time off plans.
This give employees the ability to experience greatness while working at a company. Companies
offer competitive pay to ensure that their workers are able to survive a normal lifestyle.
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Unemployment benefits are also an option for employees to consider for protection in case of
involuntary unemployment.
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References
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role of manager training. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 26(4), 257-278. doi:10.1007/s10672-014-9248-z
Darrough, M., Kim, H., & Zur, E. (2018). The impact of corporate welfare policy on firm-level productivity: Evidence from
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U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. https://www.eeoc.gov/
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