Ethics in the Workplace

Admittedly, this little gem is not insurance-specific, but I received it via an online insurance news aggregator to which I subscribe. The article intrigued me, and I’d be interested in IB readers’ responses. Feel free to comment anonymously, BTW; this isn’t a test, more like a tweak:

"My boss accidentally left a document on my desk listing the salaries of all the company’s employees. I read only the header, not the contents, then returned it. I felt I did the right thing, but now I’m not so sure. Reading it would have harmed no one, and the information would have helped me negotiate a long overdue raise. But would it have been ethical?"

Randy Cohen (who pens the column) answered that not only was it ethical, but advisable. According to Mr Cohen, his correspondent should have read the contents, and then passed it around to his colleagues. After all, he opines, “(t)he one who benefits most when such information is suppressed is your boss, not you or your colleagues.”

I beg to differ. For one thing, whether or not the document (or any document, for that matter) is labeled as “Confidential” or “Top Secret” is immaterial: it doesn’t belong to me, and unless I’m invited to read it, it’s none of my business.

On the other hand, the idea that one’s salary is not necessarily considered confidential intrigues me: why wouldn’t it be?

So, dear IB readers, what say you?