Ethics in manpower outsourcing
dubai — Little did I realise two decades ago, that the subject and impact of business ethics would have on me personally and professionally, when we had business ethics classes in the management school in the mid-nineties. The once a week classes on business ethics at St Xaviers Mumbai, were more like the sermon on the pulpit. Often I was left with a self-doubt on the practical benefit business ethics classes in the first place. After a few months of work in Mumbai, I moved to the UAE and joined the recruitment and outsourcing industry. Years passed by in the UAE, faster than I could fathom and saw the manpower outsourcing industry evolve and mature, both in terms of legality and professionalism.
In the battle fields of recruitment business, the rules of engagement were at times not well defined. Short term gains were thrilling, end justified the means to many in business, rules were meant to be broken and being ‘flexible’ was seen as a customer focused decision. However, for some good reason not known to me, I did not have to make any concession in terms of integrity. This fortunately built a strong level of trust with customers, my employers, especially the candidates in our line of business. Having served an employer for over two decades, I decided to move on and the first priority that I put forth was to join an organisation that had a high level of integrity and business ethics.
Business ethics is defined as a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. Peter Drucker observed, “There is neither a separate ethics of business nor is one needed”, implying that standards of personal ethics cover all business situations enacted laws of business ethics.
Several countries introduced laws to rein in unethical practices. For instance the UK Bribery Act 2010 is an act of the parliament of the United Kingdom that covers the criminal law, relating to bribery.
In practical terms business ethics is all about doing what is right. From having the right licences, right code of conduct, avoiding any under the table payouts, short changing what has been contractually agreed with the customers, following the laws of the country in letter and spirit. Once these fundamentals are secured, it becomes easier to transact business.
The UAE has made several strides on regulating the manpower industry. The new licences for on-demand labour supply that covers manpower outsourcing or the agency licence that covers executive search or overseas recruitment services, is provided only to the UAE nationals, that are professionally qualified and capable, so that outsourced employees and potential candidates rights are well protected. The Ministry of Labour in the UAE has done its best to ensure that there is transparency and ethics in this business sector, by engaging with their counterparts in the supply countries as well, especially to protect the blue-collar workers. The onus of responsibility now falls on the business leaders to ensure that the framework is implemented in the UAE across all levels. One of the key value proposition that an organisation can make is trust and transparency, built on a sound partnership approach. Trust can be built when the business is built on ethical grounds and its takes a long time and often takes multiple transactions to build it and on the contrary it take only one unethical action to destroy it.
Tareq Al Jabbarin, executive director of Sundus Recruitment and Outsourcing, stated that “the word Sundus stands for pure brocade or linen. Sundus has striven hard to maintain its focus on business ethics in every sphere of its activity and continues to be its core value proposition. Sundus has just celebrated its 20th anniversary and secured an additional licence for overseas recruitment to ensure organisation can hire bulk blue-collar workers from overseas on ethical lines”. And in continuation of the same Tareq stated firmly that “we walk away from projects that have clauses to charge employees any kind of fees or short change any contractual commitments, further the UAE as a country offers a conducive atmosphere to organisation that shares these values”.
I conclude this chapter with a quote from Simon Mainwaring “more and more companies are reaching out to their suppliers and contractors to work jointly on issues of sustainability, environmental responsibility, ethics, and compliance”.