An EMI’s has a moral responsibility to ensure that employees create good work
Both the employers and their employees have a shared responsibility of ensuring that organizational goals and objectives are met. Similarly, as an industrial or manufacturing engineer (IME), I have a responsibility to produce satisfactory results from my employer’s perspective. This is to mean that it is my responsibility, as an IME, to provide not only timely but also efficient and profitable work for my organization.
Inspired by Erich Fromm, Maslow, a humanistic psychologist, argued that craving for self-actualization is deeply rooted in a human’s inner self. Maslow argues that self-actualization is manifested when human needs are met. At this point, when powerful needs for self-esteem, love, security and food are met, the deepest desire for self-actualization and creative expressions are raised to the surface. Konz and Johnson acknowledge Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as the major factors which contribute to good work (Konz and Johnson 54).
Alongside IME’s responsibilities to the employer, he also bears a moral responsibility to his workers in the production of good work. In a broad view of an IME’s moral responsibility, leadership and management practices are essentially “ethics-laden” duties since the decisions made in such practices affect employees either directly or indirectly. In addition, most of these factors impact employees in making decisions. In line with good work, “principles of good human practice must be applied to individual jobs if the full benefits of the human factor are to be achieved” (Drury 46).
Konz six criteria of job design are essential and enough for the fulfilment of an EMI responsibility
Konz six ergonomic criteria of job design confirm that an IME has a moral responsibility in the creation of good work for workers. The advancement in technology has resulted in great differences in the way the workforce is handled. With technological advancements, companies can carry out their tasks by the use of machines. Although employees’ output is significant to their organizations, an IME should be able to understand that human beings are not machines.
Employees should be motivated to achieve organizational objectives. When such objectives are not met by employees, an IME must account for the organization’s low performance (Maslow 70). Based on the fact that an IME is answerable to the employer in times of low performance, he or she bears the moral responsibility of ensuring that workers needs are met.
Konz six ergonomic criteria of job design are sufficient to fulfil an IME’s moral responsibility. Moral responsibility, as a subject, is mostly acknowledged within the context of the relationship between employees and their employers. (Frankfurt, 39). Since all the components of the agronomic criteria are designed to meet employees’ needs, there is a high chance that EMI’s moral responsibilities will be fulfilled when such needs are met. In line with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the criterion of job design sufficiently meets the moral responsibility of an EMI (Maslow 70).
Employees and Employers’ Moral Responsibility
In conclusion, this essay has established that the modern workplace is characterized by employees and employers who have moral responsibilities to ensure that organizational objectives are achieved. While employers have a responsibility to ensure employees’ needs are met, employees bear responsibility of meeting their employers’ expectations. The use of Konz six ergonomic criteria of job design is helpful in the management of the modern workplace since it helps in harmonizing moral responsibilities that exist between employers and employees.
Works Cited
Drury, Colin G. “Methods for direct observation of performance.” Evaluation of Human Work. London: Taylor & Francis 1995: 45-68. Print.
Frankfurt, Harry G. “Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility.” The Philosophy of Free Will: Essential Readings from the Contemporary Debates 2013: 139. Print.
Konz, S. and Johnson, S. Work Design: Occupational Ergonomics, 7th ed. Scottsdale: Holcomb Hathaway, 2008. Print.
Maslow, Abraham H. “Motivation and personality.” New York, 1954. Print.