Describe a Situation Where Your Professional Ethics Were Challenged and How You Came to Terms with the Situation. What Did You Learn from This?

Describe a situation where your professional ethics were challenged and how you came to terms with the situation. What did you learn from this? - 500 words

I manage a team of 30 people including 5 engineers and 25 workmen. In 2015, I was given the responsibility to grade the yearly performance of workmen in their PMS (performance management system). Only one-third can be graded outstanding (OS); rest are graded “good”. For W10 workmen, there is an opportunity to get promoted to E1 (executive grade) with mandatory transfer based on a written exam, individual PMS grade and personal interviews.

                                     One of the workmen under my report was the leader of the workmen union and was due for promotion to E1 grade. While assessing his performances over the year, I found him very insincere and average on most of the parameters. So, I graded him “good”. When reviewing, my HOD (head of department) told me to upgrade his rating to outstanding. I was shocked to hear that and asked for the reasons. As union leader was very influencial and popular , HOD was very apprehensive of the workmen reaction. Moreover, his transfer with promotion would ease the pressure on the management as the union would be without its elected leader. I didn’t find his reasons compelling still I asked for three days’ time to review the grades.

                                  Now, I had two options: upgrade him and do injustice to others or disobey my HOD and risk getting my own PMS suffered. None seemed exciting. I called a meeting of the engineers under me and discussed the candidature of all the workmen at length and in the process I became more convinced of my decision to not grade him outstanding. Now the problem was how to convince my HOD to not overturn my grading. I went to the meeting with the HOD and general manager and informed them of my decision. As expected, they were very angry at me but I tried to convince them with reason. Upgrading a sub-optimal performer would cause degradation of one of the deserving workman and would not only discourage others but also set a wrong precedent. Moreover, since all the members of the union already knew about his professional inefficiency, very few would endorse the idea of promoting their leader at their own cost. So the reaction of the union couldn’t be strong. The decision would go a long way in establishing the right practices in NTPC. All the reasoning convinced my HOD and he decided to keep the grading unchanged. Afterwards I noticed a positive change in the approach of other workmen toward work and they tried to keep their volunteer activities and professional work separate.  

                    This whole incident made me stronger and boosted my self-confidence. My belief on my ethics only grew stronger. I feel I was able to convince others because of my self-belief and commitment towards my moral values. I learnt that when doing right things, in the beginning we may face some resistance but in the long term there is no regret. On the contrary, once we start compromising we will be on slippery slope for lifetime.

Describe a situation where you failed and how did you deal with this experience. What did you learn from this? – 500 words

In 2012, I was made in charge of boiler in the biennial overhauling activities. Since I had a very good knowledge on subject matter, it led to extreme faith in me among my seniors. Eager to prove myself, I made detailed planning and scheduling of the entire task to be carried out. One of the tasks was checking the fuel oil system which I had planned towards the end. During overhauling, it was found that two of the three motors had little anomalies and would not be able to run at full efficiency. At least few more days were needed to rectify it. The task was not urgent but in order to perfect my work I gave the go-ahead to dismantle both the motors simultaneously as I still had one pump ready which I thought would suffice the need. During light up, my reporting officer (RO) pointed that two pumps were necessary for the task. Unit light up was delayed and the situation came into the notice of General Manager. I, along with RO was reprimanded for allowing the repair work. Spare was arranged from other plant and the deadline was exceeded by a day. I was feeling very depressed for breaking the faith RO had shown in me.