Introduction
Every day, thousands of public employees are faced with difficult decisions, many of which involve ethical dilemmas. Unfortunately, all too often, the wrong decision is made, resulting in ethics violations and challenges for both the individual and the public agency.
Over the years, California and the federal government have enacted rules and regulations to assist agencies and employees in navigating the ethical issues found in today’s modern workplace. Businesses and public agencies have also created Codes of Ethics or Codes of Conduct, which assist employees in resolving ethical dilemmas.
Objectives
This training course is designed to provide you with an understanding of ethics, common ethical dilemmas, and ways to resolve those ethical dilemmas. In addition you will learn the barriers to ethical decisions and the consequences of violating ethics laws.
Learning about ethics will raise your level of awareness regarding conflicts that you may encounter in your daily activities, and it will provide you with a solid basis with which to make decisions.
What is ethics?
Ethics or ethical behavior is defined as moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior and is comprised of morals, laws and ethics itself. Ethics is often thought of as doing the right thing or having a high level of integrity and while this may be true to some extent, ethics really means making a decision between right decisions or right answers when multiple right decisions can be made.