A healthy office environment is essential for the productivity of employees. If the workers are not content with their working conditions, it clearly reflects on their performance. A lot of factors affect the workplace environment, most important being the lack of workplace ethics. Workplace ethics are a set of unspoken rules which everyone should adhere to for maintaining a productive environment at work. When people start ignoring these basic principles, not only do they create disturbances for their coworkers but also have a degenerative affect on their overall capabilities. An employee who cannot even follow the basic workplace ethics is unpopular with his colleagues and the superiors.

What are workplace ethics?

Many of the people who are guilty of ignoring the basic office ethics are not even aware of the fact that they are doing anything out of the ordinary. In order to make sure that you are not one of those employees who disrupt the office environment by ignoring basic ethics, go through the list of workplace ethics described below and never go against them.

Be Punctual:

Punctuality is one of the most essential traits that the employers look for in an employee. Not only that, it is one of the most desirable traits in a coworker. When you come in late you disturb all your colleagues who are at work and by coming in late you might be causing delays in work that is pertinent to one of your team member’s deadline.

Keep Personal Life Personal:

You have to remember to be professional in your workplace. Detailed discussions about your personal life with a coworker are highly inappropriate. Even if you are on social terms with a coworker, you do not have to discuss your personal life while you are at work. So keep personal life personal and do not bring your home issues to work.

Don’t Be Nosy:

Just as you should not discuss your personal life at work, you also have to refrain from poking your nose in other people’s affairs. Do not ask personal questions or try to pry out details that the other person clearly doesn’t want to share. Same goes for official matters that you have been excluded from. If two of your coworkers are having a private conversation, there is no need for you to get to know what they are discussing.

Respect Privacy:

You should respect the privacy of your coworkers. Peeking into their cubicles from time to time and stealing glances at their computer screens is absolutely unacceptable. Moreover listening to their conversations and looking into their files is something that can make the coworker furious. So no matter how much you want to look into his computer files, Keep in mind that curiosity killed the cat.

Welcome The Newcomers:

Being rude to the newcomers, creating problems for them, mocking them and giving them a hard time are some things you should never even dream of. You have to bear in mind that you are not in school anymore and even back then no one liked a bully. Be courteous to the newcomers and help them whenever needed.

Phone Call Etiquette:

The most common and the most abundant ethical mistakes are made when people are attending phone calls. When you are receiving a phone call, talk in a low voice so that you do not disturb your coworkers. Moreover keep you cell phones on silent so that whenever your cell phone rings, your coworkers are not disturbed. While dealing with phone calls, make sure that you only attend official phone calls and emergency calls only. Do not call your friends or family members to chat with them unnecessarily as they only create distractions for the coworkers and cast you as an unprofessional employee.

Taking Credit:

When you are credited for some work, make sure that you do not take credit for someone else’s efforts. If you are being given undue credit, you must rectify it immediately by giving the credit where it is due. Bear in mind this will not affect you negatively rather your coworkers and superiors will appreciate the fact that you had the strength of character to give the credit where it is due.

 REFERENCE:
http://www.webaxes.com/2010/06/workplace-ethics/

About Ethics in Information Technology

Photo by Darren Hester (Flickr)

Every advancement in information technology is accompanied by at least one ethical quandary. From Facebook to email updates, computer users are unaware of the fine balance between ethics and profit struck by providers. Software developers, businesses and individuals must think about the rights and wrongs of using information technology every day. The fundamental issues underlying the world of information technology are the end user's expectation of privacy and the provider's ethical duty to use applications or email responsibly.

Intellectual Property and Information Technology

The merger of intellectual property rights and information technology has been rough going since the 1990s. The advent of Napster, Limewire and other peer-to-peer downloading networks brought the issue of infringing on artistic property to the fore. NBC's exclusive rights to the 2008 Olympic Games were challenged by bloggers and online pirates who placed footage on YouTube. The ethical issue that arises when dealing with intellectual property in the virtual world is the length to which content producers should pursue permission to reprint images and articles. While lifting entire articles for a term paper is clearly unacceptable, there are questions from ethicists about the practicality of seeking out unknown artists and writers for something as minor as a blog.

Read more: About Ethics in Information Technology | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_4743180_ethics-information-technology.html#ixzz1F1orm181

According to Dennis Thompson, Universities—and their faculty, students, and staff—have a great deal at stake in the efforts to meet the challenges posed by developments in information technology. The problems the new technology presents, as well as the opportunities it offers, implicate some of the central values of the university. Teaching and research, in their individual as well as their institutional modes, take on new forms that are forcing changes in traditional
practices and established procedures throughout the university. The question of who controls the products created by and for this new technology naturally comes to the fore, and quite properly prompts reviews of internal policies on intellectual property. But the framework of intellectual property does not adequately capture many of the serious concerns we should have about the products of information technology, and those that it does capture are more general than the preoccupation with information technology suggests.

REFERENCE: 

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp9906.pdf

Ethics

What is Ethics?

Ethics is the branch of study dealing with what is the proper course of action for man. It answers the question, "What do I do?" It is the study of right and wrong in human endeavors. At a more fundamental level, it is the method by which we categorize our values and pursue them. Do we pursue our own happiness, or do we sacrifice ourselves to a greater cause? Is that foundation of ethics based on the Bible, or on the very nature of man himself, or neither?

Why is Ethics important?

Ethics is a requirement for human life. It is our means of deciding a course of action. Without it, our actions would be random and aimless. There would be no way to work towards a goal because there would be no way to pick between a limitless number of goals. Even with an ethical standard, we may be unable to pursue our goals with the possibility of success. To the degree which a rational ethical standard is taken, we are able to correctly organize our goals and actions to accomplish our most important values. Any flaw in our ethics will reduce our ability to be successful in our endeavors.

What are the key elements of a proper Ethics?

A proper foundation of ethics requires a standard of value to which all goals and actions can be compared to. This standard is our own lives, and the happiness which makes them livable. This is our ultimate standard of value, the goal in which an ethical man must always aim. It is arrived at by an examination of man's nature, and recognizing his peculiar needs. A system of ethics must further consist of not only emergency situations, but the day to day choices we make constantly. It must include our relations to others, and recognize their importance not only to our physical survival, but to our well-being and happiness. It must recognize that our lives are an end in themselves, and that sacrifice is not only not necessary, but destructive.

REFERENCE:
http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Ethics_Main.html