Human Service: Assisting People to Meet Their Needs - Essay Sample

Introduction

The human service industry entails the organizations which are involved in service to humanity in various ways helping them meet their needs. Social service is hence a profession developed to respond to human problems as well as the human needs in society. Featured by human beings' appreciation in all of their diversity, human service is meant to offer assistance to its clients within their community's context as well as the environment. The professionals in human service promote and encourage unique values as well as the characteristics of human service (Hyde, 2012). Respecting the dignity and welfare of all people is the basic service of social service professionals with the promotion of self-determination while taking care of cultural diversity.

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Ethical Leadership

Importance of Creating an Ethical Workplace Culture

It is always essential to develop an ethical culture in the workplace. This helps in the creation of an ethical management team that is suitable for any business to thrive. In any company where there exists a perception that their employees value the company's employees, their customers, as well as their vendors, the company's performance is notably better mainly in times of the economic downturn. When there an ethical behavior of the management team, then there is a belief that every employee's contribution is rewarded and appreciated that each employee, as well as every customer's interests, are valued.

Also, having an ethical culture in an organization helps in the creation of the corporate culture. In this case, any organization which devotes its resources to the development of the procedures and policies which encourage ethical actions helps in developing a negative corporate culture. The moral of the team members will thus improve where the employees feel protected against personal beliefs' retaliation (Dickens, 2003). Such policies include open-door policies, anti-discriminatory rules, and equal opportunities for growth. In cases where the employees feel the goodness of being at work, then the organization's overall feeling is more positive.

The ethical culture also boosts consumer confidence in an organization. A company can lose customer confidence very quickly with the few bad reviews existing online. Hence there is a need for an organization to retain the loyalty of the consumer through having a distinctive ethical culture that begins with honest and also fair methods of advertising and continues all through the sales process (Ethics Codes Collection, 2018). Negatively dealing with complaints or even failing to honor guarantees is one of the areas that can make an organization to lose consumer confidence.

Creating, Nurturing, and Maintaining an Ethical Workplace

There are many ways in which an organization can create a culture that nurtures and supports ethics. Modeling the desired behavior is one of the means of doing this, especially from the organization leaders. There is always a need for all the organizational leaders to practice what they preach and hence be sure of modeling for others the behavior which is recommendable, which they wish to be nurtured within the organization (Downe, 2016). The high profile leaders in the organization should, therefore, demonstrate the required ethical standards and be beyond reproach in this sense.

Organizations should also focus on skill-building as well as problem-solving techniques. The institutions must help with the step by step strategies for developing an effective, ethical decision making, behavior, and skills as well as the strategy for resolving the ethical troubles or dilemmas rather than just stating what kinds of behaviors are expected. There are some of how institutions can assist in training their employees to best use the tools available to them in participating in a more thoughtful and better ethical decision making (Hopkins, 2002). This includes the use of workshops, consultations from peers, and easy to use reference materials. Also, providing corrective feedback is another essential principle in creating and nurturing cultural ethics in an organization. This can be done by reinforcing for the desired behavior, and corrective feedback for the undesirable behavior is also critical.

SLU Core Values and Ethical Culture

One of the core values of SLU is respect. Animated in the Christian spirit, respecting their students' dignity and strive to foster their commitment to excellence in their work is the core-purpose of SLU. The community mainly depends on the people's diversity as well as unity on the free exchange of ideas and learning and working harmoniously. Besides, SLU mainly emphasizes.

Moreover, SLU stresses on the development of every person's mind, spirit, and body for a balanced life. All the SLU members need to demonstrate the commitment to personal development to help in strengthening the community's character. Responsible stewardship, as shown in the SLU core values, is also another aspect that contributes to the ethical culture where they foster a spirit of service to employ their resources to the university as well as the community development. Through this, the employees will attain the motivation of being resourceful.

To sustain the creation of ethical culture in the organization, SLU is committed to excellence. In this case, all of the employees, collectively and individually, work hard in a bid to ensure that students have developed the character, assimilate knowledge, and learn from skills of becoming morally responsible leaders. The university's success is dependent on the conscientious commitment to its mission, vision as well as goals.

NOHS Ethical Code

The human service professional avoids the duplication of another professional helping relationship with the client. This is an ethical value of being honest where they consult together with other professionals who are assisting the client in a different type of relationship when it is in the best client's interest in doing so. In cases where the human service professional has a conflict with the colleague, in a bid of managing the problem, they first seek out the colleague (Wood, 2018). The professional can seek the assistance of the consultants and supervisors in the case where effort fails. The professionals of the human service appropriately respond to the problematic as well as the unethical colleague's behavior

In terms of the responsibility to the employers, human service professionals usually adhere to the commitments made to their employers to any possible extent. The professionals are usually involved in the participation in efforts of establishing as well as maintaining the employment conditions which are conducive to the client service's high quality.

Theoretical Orientation

Since ethics are processes that are both art and science, three major theories explain ethical reasoning. These include; utilitarian ethical theory, deontological theory, and virtue ethics. The utilitarian theory incorporates the greatest good for the highest number of people. It is mainly applied in making decisions based on what will benefit the majority. The main limitation of this theory is that the decision-makers are forced to guess their outcome's choice (Stein, 2014). Also, it is not always possible to predict an individual's issue. Deontological theory, on the other hand, can be defined as the idea that people need to be treated with respect as well as dignity. Its application is on the identification of one's duty and acting accordingly. The theory, however, has various limitations, including possible disagreement about the principals involved in the decision. Besides, there is a likelihood of making the right choice with bad consequences. Its advantage is that it has the strongest models of ethics in applied public relations. Therefore the best theory to create an organizational culture between the three is the deontological ethics theory.

Ethical Code

The organization will be conducting its business ethically and honestly across the globe. There will also be an improvement in the quality of service, operation, and products. Employees must not buy or sell any securities of the company when they know the information relating to the company until its public disclosure.

The employees would not buy or sell another corporation's securities where the value might be affected by a company's action where the employees have the awareness and have not been disclosed to the public.

The directors, officers, as well as the employees, will need to refrain from gathering the intelligence of the competitors through the illegitimate means and also stop acting on the knowledge obtained through such a means. The employees of the organization will try to avoid disparaging or exaggerating the comparisons of the competence as well as the service of their competitors.

The employees will agree to disclose the dishonest, unethical, fraudulent as well as the illegal behavior or even the company's violation of the policies as well as procedures to the management.

In case of violation of the ethical code might result in a disciplinary case and even lead to possible termination.

References

Dickens, P. (2003). Human services as service industries. Service Industries Journal, 16(1), 82-91.

Downe, J., Cowell, R., & Morgan, K. (2016). What Determines Ethical Behavior in Public Organizations: Is It Rules or Leadership?. Public Administration Review, 76(6), 898-909.

Ethics Codes Collection. (n.d.). Retrieved May 11, 2018, from http://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/node/3925

Hopkins, K. M., & Hyde, C. (2002). The Human Service Managerial Dilemma: New Expectations, Chronic Challenges, and Old Solutions. Administration in Social Work, 26, 3.

Hyde, C. A. (2012). Ethical dilemmas in human service management: Identifying and resolving the challenges. Ethics and Social Welfare, 6(4), 351-367.

Stein, H. D. (2014). The concept of the human service organization: A critique. Administration in Social Work, 4(2), 1-13.

Wood, S. (n.d.). What is Human Services? Retrieved May 11, 2018, from http://www.nationalhumanservices.org/what-is-human-services

Wood, S. (n.d.). Ethical Standards for HS Professionals. Retrieved May 11, 2018, from http://www.nationalhumanservices.org/ethical-standards-for-hs-professionals