Ethical Issues in Employment Agreements

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Table of Contents

Abstract
The employment contract
Conclusion
References

Abstract

The paper aims to understand the ethical issues involved in the making o a fan employment contract of a company. The research is based on the study of the employment contract of various well-known companies. Then choosing one for the paper (in this case Convergys) and then identifying the ethically questionable clauses. The paper summarizes the general ethical concern which is found in employment contracts with other companies and their outcomes.

The employment contract

Employment contracts, once reserved for higher-level executives, have become a tool to be used in the case of all employees. The primary reason for such a shift is due to the emergence of a fast-moving service sector where intangible property and information are at the hands of the employees. Thus, in such an era of knowledge workers, it has become imperative for organizations to safeguard their intangible property against possible malpractice.

Ethical issues to be covered in employment contracts with employees have become a common practice that organizations today employ. Such practices have to be endorsed by both parties. But still, there are certain clauses in the employment agreement that raises certain ethical issues of concern, for instance, non-disclosure clause, termination clause, and intellectual property right et al. This paper tries to evaluate the employment agreement of Convergys Inc. and find possible ethical issues in the contract.

Before evaluating the employment contract it is important to understand the business of the company. Convergys is a multi-national corporation that provides relationship management solutions, outsourced customer and HR management solutions, consulting and professional services, billing services, and multichannel self-care technology solutions to its clients.

The employment contract covers almost all the areas and they can be summarized as follows:

The name of the employee and the capacity in which he has been hired. The duties and responsibilities of his office have been given.
The agreement has a date of termination i.e. five years from the date of the agreement.
The working hours, compensation, and benefits have been clearly defined in the contract.
It deals with confidentiality and invention-related issues wherein the policies have been clearly explained.
The contract deals with employment termination of the employee voluntarily by the employee or by the employer with/without cause or on ‘good cause’.

The areas which have not been dealt with in the contract are as follows:

§ It is silent on the issue of a “Change of Control”
§ It does not state anything regarding what the employee can do with his/her own time, with his equipment.
§ Silent about monitoring of the employee’s work.

Certain ethical concerns that are raised through the clauses of the contract are:

Confidential Information and Trade Secrets: most companies today have this clause and in legal terms, they are not against law. But on ethical grounds, they encroach upon the employees’ freedom of expression especially after the employee no longer works with the company.
The clause of New Development mentioned in the contract states that all inventions or ideas conceived by the employee during the working tenure with the company will be a property of the company. This is without exception for the ideas conceived during non-office hours using the personal property. This is an ethical issue wherein the personal space of the employee is being constrained.
Further after the termination of an employee’s job, he is bounded by the contract not to disclose confidential information regarding the company, employees, derivatives, customers, or vendors to a third person. This is a hindrance created to avoid whistle-blowing even if it is ethical.

The other ethical issues which find prominence in organizations, especially in the dot-com industry, are issues of surveillance and employee privacy. For instance, companies like Xerox, Dow Chemicals, and New York Times et al. have employed employee surveillance to monitoring the employees’ emails, telephone calls, etc. Dow Chemical fired fifty folks for exchanging dirty jokes via email. Xerox fired forty, and the New York Times twenty-three for the same kind of offenses. But the question that arises is whether such encroachment into an individual’s privacy not a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 12). Further, nondisclosure of salary to any other employee in the company except for HR and the direct reporting boss again curbs the freedom of expression of the employee.

Conclusion

The question that arises is, are these clauses in the employment contract curbs the individual’s basic fundamental rights. To a certain extent, the answer is yes because the work environment today demands so.

References

Stim, R. , Fishman, S. (2001), Nondisclosure Agreements: Protect Your Trade Secrets and More. Nolo Publication.

Finch G. A. , (1999), Employment Contract Primer. Library of Law. Web.

Covansys Code of Conduct. Web.

Hoffman, I. , (2000), The Employment Agreement. Web.

Harris, L. , (2005), Achieving a Balance in Human Resourcing Between Employee Rights and are for the Individual, Business &Professional Ethics Journal, vol. 21, no. 2.

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Ethical Issues in Employment Agreements

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