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MORALE DEVELOPMENT
Dr.S.R.Krishnamurthy, B.E., M.S., Ph.D., Former MG/ TNEB 1 INTRODUCTION According to Oxford Dictionary, the meaning of the word morale is the state of confidence, enthusiasm, determination etc. of a person or group at a particular time. This state of enthusiasm is a vibrant one. Depending on the situation obtained in his or her work place, the morale is likely to change. When the morale touches the lowest ebb, the efficiency of the employees reduces. What are the reasons for such diminishing of the morale? Is the employee in a confused state in his or her work place? Is he or she not in a position to segregate the personal and professional moral issues? How has been he or she brought up? Has he or she imbibed good and ethical qualities, or not while growing? Does he or she possess the will to face the moral issues in his or her personal and professional domains? These are some of the issues influencing the morale of the employee. At the same time, one may have to think how best the employees be guided both by their employers and by the code of conduct called as code of ethics formulated by the Professional Bodies/Societies. Let us discuss the issues in detail. 2 Ethical Behaviour of Employees--- An Over View Before venturing to discuss the ethical behaviour of the employees, one has to go into grass root level of ethics. There are various definitions to Ethics. Ethics is a set of moral rules and regulations formulated from time immemorial by the Society for its members to lead an honest and happy life. For achieving the same, self-interest of the members is secondary and caring for others is primary. Ethics indicates the way of life one has to lead, where honesty, discipline and understanding of moral ideals, character and relationship with others are the influencing forces. It also cautions the members about the opposing forces to which one should not succumb. Mike Martin, in his Book Ethics in Engineering says, Ethics is also used to refer to the particular set of beliefs, attitudes and habits that a person or group displays concerning morality. It is the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation One has to know the two types of Ethics. They are: Personal Ethics and Professional Ethics. Personal Ethics is defined as the rules by which an individual lives his or her personal life and Professional Ethics indicates the moral way the Professional should behave in his domain of profession, be it engineering, medical, legal or business.

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Ethics in general indicates the moral choices made by each person in relationship with other persons. Various great philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle propounded their theory of ethics based on ancient religious thoughts prevailed in Greece. Later, philosophers like Kant and Mill modified the base of Ethics to say that it need not stem from religion and advocated that the moral principles are universal regardless of their origin and are applicable even in secular settings. There are many moral theories helping the employee how to conduct in various situations relating to personal and professional areas. Duty Ethics, Rights Ethics and Virtue Ethics are important moral theories. Duty Ethics contends that there are duties that an individual should perform, like treating others fairly or duty not to injure others. Rights Ethics emphasizes that all have moral rights and any action violating those rights is ethically unacceptable. Virtue Ethics regards actions as right that manifest good character traits and regards actions as bad that display bad character traits called vices. This theory underscores the type of person one should be. Responsibility, honesty, competence and loyalty are considered as virtues and they are more of personal ethics. However, in using Virtue Ethics it is important to ensure that the traits one identifies are really virtuous and will not lead to negative consequences. Employees are bound to have moral problems in their personal as well as in their professional areas. How are they going to behave in such problematic situation? Unless they understand the ethical problem fully, their behaviour is bound to be different and consequently, no solution would be at sight! 3 PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT Employees mental make-up is a varied one and need not be the same with all employees. The prime reason is the educational qualification, upbringing pattern and external influencing factors in their day- to- day life. An employee should not be assumed to be composed at all times. He or she is a salaried person and the decisions taken by the Boss may not be acceptable. For instance, the employee works in a manufacturing Organization where exists an established practice to offer more than nominal gifts while negotiating contracts, to the purchaser. The employee with high ethical background does not like this practice. He considers this as bribe in the context of negotiating a contract. He also feels that bribes unfairly influence judgment and decisions. He contends that one should have higher-order principles and the contract should be fought by merit and consequently earned and not got by any short circuit method. Such higher-order

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principles, when developed and merged with theories of justice, constitute the broad philosophical perspectives on conduct that ethical theory can provide. In using Virtue ethics, one should ensure that the traits he or she identifies as virtues are really so and will not lead to negative consequences. What is meant by the psychology of moral development? Do the employees really have any level of moral development? What are the consequences would the employees face with their various levels of moral development? These are the issues to be addressed to here. Lawrence Kohlberg and his student Carol Gilligan propounded some psychological theories of moral development. They researched on the concept of moral development by trying to find out the kinds of reasoning and motivation an individual adopts in response to moral issues. They suggested three main levels of moral development. They felt that an individual, be an employee or not, he can be classified in one of the three levels of moral development, depending on his reasoning power. They are: 1. Pre-conventional level 2. Conventional level and 3.Postconventional level. Pre-conventional level is the most primitive one in which right conduct is regarded greatly. Individuals belonging to this level, are motivated primarily by the desire or urge to avoid punishment. This level is only basic and some individuals do not venture to go beyond that. Such quality in some employees would make them only servile. There would be no future promotions to them in their official career. It is saddening to note that such employees would also never bother about their upliftment. No employee should ever resort to this level of moral development. Conventional level is that level in which the norms of ones family or society, accepted as the final standard of morality. Employees belonging to this level are motivated by the desire to please others and to meet the expectation of the bosses. They do not have self-interest as their prime goal. This in a way seems a practical solution to moral issues. But, such employees can never lead the others and are ready to relinquish their promotion and stick to the present status, to meet certain obligations. Kohlberg says that most of the individuals are rest contended with this level and never mature beyond it. Postconventional level is attained by the employee, when he regards the standard of right and wrong as a set of principles concerning his rights and caring for others. Such employees are autonomous, because they think for themselves and do not assume that customs and convention as are always right. Their motivation is to do what is morally reasonable. They also have an urge to maintain their integrity, self-respect and

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the respect for other autonomous employees. Such employees are small in number in any organization; but they are likely to become leaders in their organization. But Gilligan did not agree with the findings of her Guru, viz. Kohlberg and expressed that his findings are based on male dominated views and women employees would always care for others and not self-centered as male employees, by virtue of their inherent qualities. They would follow the ethics of care and not ethics of rules and rights. It is of course a debatable issue! One can infer from this, that women employees care for others rather than for themselves and male employees are not so. 4. Varieties of Moral Issues Faced by the Employees Moral issues in employees personal life or in the organization to which he or she belongs are varied in nature. These issues get highlighted sometimes, in macro level. This is termed as macro ethics. Engineers are also salaried employees. When engineers design a new product, they may not have previous experience of the product; but as their profession warrants new creations out of their knowledge, they proceed with the manufacture. If the product is found to have harmful effects on the user, the engineer is taken to task. It may be seen that engineering decisions affect the quality of life of large number of people in the society. The important question now is where and how moral problems arise in the employees profession. Let us take first the example of an engineer and then a non-technical employee working in the office. Engineers get involved from the stage of design, manufacture and selling the product. The engineers so involved could have been under water-tight compartment, while manufacturing; but their activities ultimately end up with rolling out the product and market it. This is the ground reality. Now let us analyze the above in some more detail. There could be possibilities at times that the product so manufactured proved to be unsafe or less suitable or made out of outdated or obsolete technology. This could be the result of bad intentions to use inferior materials or to contain the cost of the product with in the budget, thereby not foreseeing the harmful effects on the users. The role of bribe and various other forms of corruption can also pull down the quality. Then comes the state of mind of the autonomous engineer, who joined fresh in the organization. He tries to explain to his boss about the inferior quality of the product and consequent dangers associated with it. But, the boss poopoos his statement and

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even threatens to fire him from the job. Having spent a fortune for his engineering education, no one would simply resign the job on account of this. Similar situations are daily arising in engineering profession. Take the example of an employee working in the office. His boss wants him to keep bogus accounts in respect of transactions with suppliers and threatens the subordinate employee with dire consequences, if any thing is revealed to others. The sincere employee enters in to the state of moral dilemma now . This tends to raise a number of pertinent moral questions as detailed below: To what extent the directives of the employer/boss guide the conduct of the employee. What should the employee do if his/her boss errs in his judgment and orders to flout the rules and regulations? To get the answers, the employee has to adopt three types of enquiries in to the associated moral issues. They are: Normative, Conceptual and Factual enquiries. Normative enquiries seek to identify the values guiding the employees. Conceptual enquiries seek to clarify important concepts or ideas and Factual enquiries seek to provide facts needed for understanding and resolving value issues. These in turn, raises some valid points, like what moral rights should the employees recognize to help them to fulfill their professional obligations and what obligations are there to the employees towards their employers. 5. Resolving Techniques Applied to Moral Issues and Ways to Boost the Morale of the Employees

Employee has to resolve his or her moral whenever they crop up. Individually it may not be possible to resolve them. They may have to be discussed with his or her colleagues in the office or work place. For this to happen, the employee should possess the virtue called collegiality. This ethical character aids the employee to resolve any moral issue. An employee possessing the said character is respected and people would love to share their thoughts with him. Employees are expected to be loyal to the organization to which they belong. They may be either employed on contract or regularly employed. In both the cases, the employee is supposed to be loyal to the agency that employs him. Loyalty is always a desirable character attribute. Codes of ethics also assert that the employees should be loyal to their employers. Let us now consider when the employee would turn to be disloyal and under what circumstances.

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Take the example of an employee working for Company A, in the day time and works with Company B outside his duty hours prescribed by Company A. It is known as moonlighting! No body can prevent this, as he may have to earn more to support his family. A question now arises whether he can work with the Company B, if it is a competitor to Company A. How far is the employee in a position to keep the confidentiality? This is a moral issue faced by him. Company B might have employed him only because he works with his competitor Company A and through him some inside-information could be got! In the above circumstances, how the employee is expected to behave. One Option will be, not to think of moonlighting at all. Another option is to tell the concerned in the Company that he wants to be loyal to Company A also and he has to maintain confidentiality relating to the matters of Company A. Take the case of an employee working in the Office. He is in the same seat for very many years. He is considered as authority in the matters dealt by him and other employees respect him on that account. But, he feels that when he gets his next elevation, he may not be in a position to handle a wider area of works. This unnerves him and begins to commits mistakes in his works. He gets angry over trivial matters and slowly begins to lose respect among others. This leads to decline in his morale. Now, what is the resolving technique to be used to bale him out? One option would be to give him a change of job and ask him to get familiarize with the new job as quickly as possible. He may be considered to be sent for training related to the new job. The second option could be to have an one-to-one dialogue with him by the Management and express its confidence in him. Either of the options would make him feel at home. Now consider the case of a freshly recruited engineer in a factory. The factory used to discharge the effluents in the nearby river for decades. This fresher feels that it should be stopped. He first tries to discuss the matter with his immediate boss who refuses to pay heed to his words. He is even threatened by the boss with a weapon of dismissal. This shatters the morale of the engineer and he is upset. What is the resolving technique to boost his morale under such conditions? The first method could be to appraise the circumstances under which such draining the effluent into the river and whether any complaint has been received or not. This discussion should be held under congenial atmosphere, taking the engineer into confidence. The second course of action would be to ask from him a comprehensive proposal for effluent treatment plant, taking the help of his seniors. This will make him feel proud and generate a sense of belonging to the organization.

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Another technique would be to create the healthy rivalry among employees by forming Quality Circles in the organization, involving all departments. The employees should be encouraged to offer their suggestions to improve the efficiency of work and if worthwhile suggestions are forthcoming, they must be rewarded by cash and other means. 6. Morale Development of EmployeesEmployers Role Employers should treat their employees as an important part of their organization. There should be a feeling between employer and employee that unless the organization thrives, no body would survive. Employers should try to respect the feelings of their employees. After all their employees are human beings and prone to make unintentionalunless proved otherwise- mistakes. In such cases, the employer is to be magnanimous to pardon such mistakes. This will certainly boost the morale of the employee and make him to be more careful in future. In some big organizations, there is a practice to send gifts to the employees houses on the happy occasions of birthdays, festivals etc. This certainly makes the employees to feel proud of his organization and improves his sense of belonging to the organization. After all, human beings are longing for appreciation and if it is given in large measure, they are satisfied. The more important role of the employer is to accept certain rights of the employees. They are given as under: Right of Professional Conscience Right of Conscientious Refusal Right to Whistle blowing Right to Recognition Right to pursue non-work activities of choice Right to privacy off the job Right for equal treatment while on job Right for Protection against Sexual Harassment a) Right of Professional Conscience The right of professional conscience is the most basic and also the most generic professional right of an employee. In the case of an engineer, he has a general obligation to protect the safety and well-being of the public. Correspondingly, he has a general right to protect the safety and well-being of the public. He has the right to exercise professional judgment in an ethical manner.

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b) Right of Conscientious Refusal It is the right of the employee to refuse to engage in unethical behaviour and to refuse to do so solely because one views it as unethical. Let us take an example from medical ethics. There is no shared agreement over whether abortions are morally permissible. If a nurse believes that it is immoral, he or she has the right to refuse to participate in the operation, as an employee. c) Right to Whistle blowing Whistle-blowing is alerting relevant persons to some immoral or illegal acts in the organization, by the employee. Whistle blowing occurs when an employee conveys information about a significant moral problem to some one who is a position to take action. The important terminology used relating to this act is given below: Act of disclosure: Information is intentionally conveyed outside approved organizational channels or in situations where the person conveying it is under pressure from his immediate superior not to do so. Topic: Significant problems like criminal behaviour, unethical policies or practices, injustice to employees within the organization. Agent: The person disclosing the information is the employee. Recipient: The information is conveyed to a person or organization in a position to act on the problem. There are two major classification of whistle blowing. One is External whistle blowing and the other is Internal Whistle blowing. There are cases where the person whistle blowing, prefers to be anonymous and in some other cases, he or she openly comes forward to whistle blow, revealing the identity. The employer should see that the need for whistle blowing should be minimum. This can be achieved by the following qualities of the Management: There should be a strong Corporate Ethics culture Clear commitment to ethical behaviour starting at the highest level of Management.The will to impart the mandatory training to the employees in Professional Ethics. Managers should set the tone for the ethical behaviour for the subordinate employees There should be clear lines of communication with in the organization. Openness gives an employee a feeling that there is a way to air their grievances. There should be a meaningful access to high level managers by the employees. This access should guarantee that there is retaliation or victimization.

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Employees coming forward should be rewarded for their commitment to fostering the ethical behaviour of the organization There should be willingness on the part of the Management to admit mistakes in public if needed. This attitude will set the stage for ethical behaviour by the employees and consequently minimize whistle blowing, especially external whistle blowing by the employees d) Right to Recognition An employee has a right to professional recognition for his work and accomplishes. He has the right to get fair monetary remuneration. The employer should recognize this expectation. It is a known fact that with out fair remuneration for the work, no employee can concentrate his energy and carry out the expected duties of his job. He may even resort to moonlighting as described earlier. There are some cases where employees have died prematurely with out proper recognition of their jobs. e) Right to pursue non-work activities of choice The employees should be permitted to join any society or movement and pursue its activities outside their duty hours. But, at the same time, they do not have right to consistently sabotage their employers interest during off-hours. During disputes, a mutual recognition of each others legitimate interests must be maintained. f) Right to privacy off the job All employees have the right to lead their private lives according to their choice and employers should not interfere into this. In their office-domain, the employer should not try to enter into the employees privacy by opening the desk and search with out the express permission, for getting some documentary evidence for his suspected involvement in leaking vital information to the competitor. g) Right for equal treatment while on job Equal work, equal pay should be the Slogan followed by any employer. Gender discrimination among employees is the dragging force and impedes the smooth running of any organization. If this is avoided, employees will be happy and consequently their morale will be high. h) Right for Protection against Sexual Harassment Employer should be always monitoring whether there is any sexual harassment in his organization. This is a real problem faced by women employees. Even this is brought to the notice of the Management, in some cases action is taken belatedly, for various reasons. One could be involvement of the person at the top level. Women employees

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should be encouraged to represent their grievances in this area to the top management and expeditious action taken against the offenders. An effective Grievance Redressal mechanism will improve the morale of the employees. 7. Morale Development of EmployeesProfessional Bodies / Societies Role

Professional bodies / societies have codified ethical standards. Many of the ethical questions faced by the employees especially by engineers are solved by the codes formulated by professional societies like IEEE, IEI etc. Many organizations can also tailor their own code to the individual circumstances and its unique mission. Corporate codes give the employee clear cut policies on business practices, relationship with suppliers, government organizations, compliance with various regulations, health and safety regulations, equal employment opportunity, sexual harassment and racial / ethnic tolerance. Codes of professional bodies / societies can not be specific on issues faced by the employees during day to day work. Hence, they are not explicit; but guide the employee on ethical issues. It should be remembered that these codes can not be regarded as substitute for good lines of communications between employees and upper management and for workable methods for fixing ethical problems when they occur. The codes focus their attention on the services provided by the employee require honesty, impartiality, fairness and equity. They also specify that the employees professional behaviour should adhere to the highest principles of ethical conduct on behalf of their employers also. Every employee should follow the guidelines enshrined in the codes. It must be borne in mind that the Codes do not enjoy the status of law, but only of advisory nature. It is a testament on guidelines to solve moral and ethical issues and prepares the employees to face moral dilemmas, especially in their profession. The codes expect that the employees to treat all colleagues and co-workers fairly, regardless of race, religion, sex, age and national origin. They also desire that the employees are to act as faithful agents or trustees for their employers or clients in professional and business matters. They expect the employees assist and advise their employers or clients in anticipating the possible consequences, direct or indirect, immediate or remote, of the works entrusted to them. From the above, we can understand that the Codes are guidelines to the good behaviour of the employees and they show the way for smooth conduct of work in a congenial atmosphere. If the Codes are followed in their true spirit, the morale of the employees will be at its peak.

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10. Conclusion The author of this paper is extremely thankful to the following Authors, whose books were useful in creation of the paper: a)Ethics in Engineering by Mike W. Martin and Roland Schinzinger b)Engineering Ethics by Charles B. Fleddermann c)Engineering Ethics by M.Govindarajan et al d)Professional Ethics by S.R.Krishnamurthy

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