HR MANAGERS AS ETHICS AGENTS OF THE STATE 151immediate or, as shown in a number of the American cases, the more sinister
employer may bide their time and concoct other reasons for termination. This
form of retaliation may have a more insidious effect on the career of the HR
practitioner.
If HR managers are to return to their role as guardians of EEO, and accept
the challenge of Ulrich and Beatty and their colleagues, they may well have
to distance themselves from line management again, even though they have
worked very hard to move closer to their group and to be perceived as ‘aligned’
with the interests of the business. The risk of course is that their HR role will
be dispensed with altogether unless there is some legislative backing for the
role as occurs in Germany. Assuming that their role exists in organizations,
at the same time, senior management will need to be open to ‘bad news’
and challenge on ethical issues because unless HR managers can act without
fear of retaliation, CEOs may well find that issues will escalate and create
even further problems and costs (Trevino et al. 1999). Employee ‘voice’ is an
important human rights issue for all employees, not just HR managers, and
with the relatively low percentage of HR managers in businesses these days (at
least in Australia), the outsourcing of HRM and the use of contract workers
reductions in voice might be expected (Davis-Blake, Broschak, and George
2003), so the likelihood of HRM acting as the ethics agent is even further
reduced.
External auditors might also be considered to provide independent assess-
ments of compliance but much of the discrimination that occurs in organi-
zations is not recorded and experiences reported by Florini (2003) on the
external auditor who avoided the sensitive areas in a voluntary compliance
audit would tend to suggest that this activity also may have limited benefit. The
appointment of independent board directors to whom HRM can have direct
access (as suggested by Beatty, Ewing, and Tharp 2003) may provide some
additional value and some protection for the HRM, but these directors need
to be from a different mould to line management. Elsewhere, I have argued
for a more proactive approach to monitoring discrimination (by the relevant
government authority) is necessary (Bennington and Wein 2000a) and I think
that the same argument applies to ensure compliance with other areas of HRM
that are covered by legislation. As Bertok (1999) has stated, problems will
remain unless there are strong public institutions to enforce the law.
In conclusion, this chapter has only highlighted some of the issues for HR
managers who adopt the role of ethics agents for the state in one particular
area, that of EEO/AA. However, unless we are serious about the issue and
protections are provided for HR managers then the state can expect little
improvement in employer conduct and will need to look to other means of
ensuring compliance with its legislation.