The business case under consideration presents a bright example of the organization’s violation of the basics of the accepted principles of the organizational process, human resources management, and business and human ethics. The organization discussed in this scenario is JP Morgan Chase. I am employed by this organization, and my first impression after getting this job was that I actually found the paradise of Earth. However, the development of the events made me change my mind concerning the organization, principles of its work, and ways of treating its employees. In this paper, I discuss the major issues I have faced during my initial days of working for JP Morgan Chase with a special emphasis on the concepts of the organizational process, human resources management, and business and human ethics. I start with defining these concepts, then consider their application to my experience with JP Morgan Chase, and conclude with possible decisions to improve the situation and their effects on the organization and its key stakeholders.
First of all, speaking about the organization it is necessary to understand how any organization functions. Needless to say, this is a complicated process that requires the organization to follow certain business rules. These rules concern not only the purely business sides of the organizational performance but address employees’ needs to a considerable extent. Thus, the concept of the organizational process comes into play as the “systematic way a company defines, organizes, and implements its operations through the stages of the product life cycle” (Organizational Change Management, 2009). This concept is rather general but this feature of its attributes great importance to organizational process as the phenomenon that unites all important activities of an organization.
For example, the organizational process, according to Organizational Change Management (2009), might consist in carrying out activities for improving overall organizational performance, analyses of the input/output ratios of the organization, its marketing strategy, competition, supply and demand monitoring, etc. Being employed by JP Morgan Chase I considered this concept to be one of its major values and expected human resources management and business and human ethics to be its integral parts, but my further experience showed that the organizational process in JP Morgan Chase demands considerable improvements.
One of the areas that need urgent consideration and taking measures is the human resources management in JP Morgan Chase. Generally defined in three major meanings, human resources as such are treated as either the working force of an organization, or its department that deals with employment and recruitment processes, or the contribution that the workers, managers, and the executives make to the organizational performance (HrVillage, 2009). Drawing from this, human resources constitute an integral part of any organization as they form its basis and make the organization’s existence and development impossible without them.
Needless to say, any organization has to pay much attention to the development of its human resources management departments (HRM) in order to both provide its employees with proper treatment and to make as much use as possible of the work of its human resources. However, in JP Morgan Chase the situation with human resources management leaves much to be desired. My experience is a bright example of the dual standards implemented by this organization in the HRM area. The first stage of the management is rather attentive to new employees and involves considerable attention paid to their introduction to the organization, initial training, and educational procedures, etc. However, when it comes to practical tasks that an employee has to complete, there is no help from the HRM department.
Quite naturally, I think, this problem is the result of another, more serious, one, i. e. the lack of proper attention paid to top business and human ethics in the organization. Again, defining this phenomenon is vital for its further understanding in the context of my experience with JP Morgan Chase. Thus, scholarly sources of the Santa Clara University (2009) define ethics in two major ways. According to the first one, “ethics refers to well-based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues” (Santa Clara University, 2009). Based on this, ethics is the set of norms of social life that are not recorded as laws but kept to by the majority of the society.
The second way to define ethics is to refer to it as to the science that studies the development of the ethical standards of mankind (Santa Clara University, 2009). In the area of business, a slightly modified first definition can be used to refer to ethics as the set of norms of behavior and relations in the business world. Naturally, this set of norms considers the rights and needs of employees as well as numerous other areas. Drawing from this, one can treat business ethics as treating employees fairly and respectfully, providing them with favorable conditions for fulfilling their working functions, and encouraging their further commitment to the organization.
Considering ethics, both human and business, in this way, I can state that JP Morgan Chase needs to improve its business ethics considerably. The essence of my experience with this organization is familiar to the audience, but I would like to recall the main points once again. Thus, the concept of the organizational process can be applied to JP Morgan Chase only in the negative sense as the one requiring improvements. My grounds for this statement include the dual standards of HRM department work and the actual absence of working and human ethics. For example, on coming to the office of JP Morgan Chase for the first time, the HRM workers gently introduced me to the company, carried out several classes for me to catch up with what the company does and what my functions in it will be, but when I had to go to Kava, nobody could even define the aim and expected outcomes of the trip. I see drawbacks of the company’s HRM in ignoring my needs as an employee and in their reluctance to take measures to help me clarify the issue.
Further on, on coming to Kava I was shocked by the infrastructure offered by JP Morgan Chase to its workers on the island. Both, these unfavorable working conditions and lack of information about them before the trip constitute another point in the company’s HRM that needs improvement. Based on this, I suggest the company should reconsider its HRM policies to care more about employees and their commitment to work for JP Morgan Chase. This reconsideration should concern all the company’s stakeholders including executives, senior management, employees, partners, suppliers, customers, and especially the HRM department. The main activities that might help initiate the reconsideration process in the HRM area might include editing the company’s mission and major values, implementing educational classes for HRM department workers, and strict monitoring policies of the work efficiency in the HRM department through employees’ interviews, documentation reviews, and regular, but unscheduled, on-site inspections of the department.
References
HrVillage. (2009). Human Resources. Web.
Organizational Change Management. (2009). What are Organizational Processes? Web.
Santa Clara University. (2009). What is Ethics? Web.