As with other professions, HR management confronts a number of difficult issues and dilemmas concerning ethics, roles, practices and the nature of its professional association.

HR professionals are increasingly required to address complex ethical issues in the workplace as part of their role. More and more organisations are making explicit the standards of behaviour expected in the workplace, and often HR are charged with ensuring that these standards are met and they are tasked with dealing with situations when these standards are breached. This can give rise to complex situations that may be extremely difficult to manage.

While the basics of ethical conduct can be quite simple, the application can be difficult because in real-life it often involves complex dilemmas and behaviour based ‘grey areas’.

This course examines the role HR plays in managing ethics within the organisational context and demonstrates decision making tools that can be used to help address ethical workplace dilemmas. The course uses a case based approach to consider the management of ethical dilemmas by HR.