A BEHAVIOURAL ETHICS APPROACH TO EMPLOYMENT LAW AND WORKPLACE NORMS

The field of behavioural ethics seeks to clarify how people behave when confronted with ethicaldilemmas. It has identified and analysed numerous mechanisms by which people may engage inunethical and illegal behaviour without fully recognizing its implications. In the field of employment law, which focuses on the interaction between employers and employees, the subtlemechanisms which may underlie people’s decisions to behave unethically are especially relevant,but have not been the subject of significant study. The question examined here is how applyingbehavioural ethics to employment law can cast light on some current employment law issues,including compliance. To this end, the article identifies four contexts in which the law can beimproved: ensuring protection for employees when they are under pressure to act in a mannercontrary to their personal ethical standards; clarifying the measures to prevent workplace bullying;creating clear rules in the case of workplace changes such as working from home, which gives riseto expenses for the employee; and ensuring protection against small daily violations which aresometimes considered too negligible for enforcement purposes. The article argues that the development of employment law can benefit from taking behavioural ethics into account