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One of the most significant dimensions of business ethics management is analysing the attitude of a business towards its recruitment and selection policies.
Recruitment and selection is an area of decision-making that requires thorough attention, and should be accompanied by best practice guidelines to ensure that the risk of corruption and unfair practices are avoided completely.

A firm’s recruitment and selection policies should be in tandem with expected ethical ways of doing things, and should be in compliance with applicable laws, which may require the firm to take cognisance of various issues.
These include equal opportunities, non-discriminatory policies, workplace diversity, gender sensitivity, etc.

Proper staff recruitment and selection determines the present and the future growth of the organisation.
An attempt to define staff recruitment and selection will show that it is a process through which human resources are brought into an organisation.
It influences company productivity, its profitability, and significantly affects the overall success of the organisation.

Proper staff recruitment and selection give emphasis to new employees’ skills, competency levels, and their degree of integrity.
Ethics plays a very important role during the recruitment of new employees. Professional judgment dictates that organisations should anchor their recruitment and selection processes on sound corporate ethical presuppositions.

One critical role of the HR practitioner is to recruit the required candidates at a minimum cost, and ethical considerations in recruitment reduce the company risk of liability and damage to its reputation.
Embracing ethics in staff selection means going beyond the minimum standards set by law, and forming enduring recruitment and selection policies and processes that attract highly skilled and competent people, and inspire employees to do more for the organisation.
Staff recruitment and selection processes should comply not just with the letter, but also with the spirit of the law.

Researchers agree that ethical hiring practices actually result in better employees being recruited.
The widely held view that unethical behaviour in the workplace is a result of “bad apples” or poorly socialised people who sneaked into the organisation through poor recruitment and selection processes validates the need to do a thorough job before deciding to offer someone a job.
Embracing sound ethical rules when hiring a new employee means using merit to select a candidate.

It means disregarding unethical practices that condone discrimination on the basis of gender, political affiliation, religion, age, disability, etc.
In cases where there is need for affirmative action to address previous imbalances, these considerations should be well stated in the company’s policy statement and supported by law.
A good example is the Employment Equity Act of South Africa, which seeks to achieve equity in the workplace by eliminating unfair racial discrimination that was entrenched during the apartheid era.

It seeks to accomplish this through equitable ethnic representation of the South African population in all occupational categories and levels in the workplace.
Sound recruitment hinges on practices that embrace the virtues of objectivity, consistence, and confidentiality, avoiding manipulation, stereotyping and the prejudice of the halo effect, which in most cases may result in attracting needless risk through legal suits.

The criteria used for evaluating candidates should be stated and explained in order to avoid unnecessary claims of bias in the recruitment process.
Objective evaluation results in the best employees being recruited while consistency builds stakeholder confidence.
When an organisation recruits new employees, it should advise the applicants on its true state.

It is unethical to mislead the applicant, allowing him/her to discover the truth only after engagement.
Applicants should be given all pertinent information, including that which will materially affect their future engagement and relationship with the organisation.
A good example is where a firm hires someone knowing fully well that the company is in the process of being taken over by new owners.

Such a situation can result in the firm being sued for withholding important information during the recruitment process.
The same applies when a company decides to recruit from organisations that it does business with as its suppliers, customers and competitors.
A careless approach in this regard will bring to the fore serious ethical issues that may be very damaging to the reputation of the company.

It is not advisable to proceed with such a recruitment if its clear that it will result in the supplier feeling that you poached their good employee whom you got to know through the working relationship you have with the supplier.

When you employ somebody from among your known customers it should not be obvious in the eyes of the public that in so doing you are returning a favour.
It should also not appear as if you are trying to influence a future award of contracts to the firm by having in your ranks someone who was with the customer before.

Employment of someone from your competitors if done without any regard for ethical considerations can result in accusations of stealing trade secrets from your competitors.
The pivotal role-played by the recruitment and selection process in an organisation challenges the HR professional to anticipate problems, and carefully exercise due diligence in executing the process in order to avoid needless costs and risks to the organisation that comes with poor and unethical recruitment.

HR professionals must execute recruitment decisions grounded on informed ethical thought as a vehicle for adding value to the firm’s bottom line.
In a wider context, HR practitioners should assume responsibility for the establishment of an agreed ethics mentality across the business that gives direction on the expected conduct of staff in the organisation. Employees are on a daily basis encountering ethical challenges in the workplace.

Human resources practitioners must perform their advisory role effectively by recommending implementation of enterprise-wide ethics management programmes in order to curtail workplace misdemeanors that have become the norm in both public and private enterprises in the country.

• Bradwell Mhonderwa is the Managing Consultant of Business Ethics Centre, a Corporate Governance and Business Ethics Management firm. Phone 04-293 2948, 0712 420 090, 0772 913 875, or email [email protected]