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Ethics Q & A
June 28, 2004
By Jane Garthson, Mills
Garthson & Associates
The dilemma:
I am secretary to an executive director of a medium-sized charity. Although I am very busy, he keeps asking me to handle his personal correspondence, completely unrelated to the charity. He knows how to use his e-mail and the fax machine, but often prefers to ask me to do it for him. Should I be putting his personal work ahead of the organization's work? How do I handle this without losing my job?
Jane says...
Many secretaries wish that was all their boss asked of them - instead of lying for them, covering for them with their spouse or boss, and doing their work for them without credit. All of those requests are clearly unethical.
Your situation is less clear, as it is possible that the Board would prefer that the ED have assistance such as yours, even with personal items, in order to focus on work critical to the organization's mission. It is also possible that your boss does not realize how busy you are, and thinks you are handling his personal requests without detracting from the work of the organization. I assume most of your time is still spent on organizational work.
First, your time is a resource of your organization, and all resources of a nonprofit are supposed to serve the mission. You know the details of your position and I do not - which option serves the mission best? Is there another alternative - perhaps a less busy person could help the ED? Or could you give his work low priority and do it when time permits? With an ED, it is not usually possible to say "stay late and do it on your own time". Most already stay late for board and committee meetings, community consultations and special events, as well as to complete their own desk work. Besides, most employees do some personal business during the day - when else can you phone your doctor?
Second, your personal integrity is at stake here. You are being asked to do work which I gather is outside your job description, and was not mentioned when the position was described to you. Is the culture of your organization very informal that way, with everyone helping each other, or is it more prescribed? While charities usually need a lot of staff flexibility, all staff are still entitled to job descriptions that outline their main tasks and to objectives that will form the basis of their performance evaluation. You are at risk of being evaluated more poorly than you deserve because you are diverting time for these personal items. It is not ethical for the ED to knowingly put you in that situation, but again, the ED may not really have noticed the impact of his requests.
If you updated your job description, in draft, to include these duties, and revised your objectives to match, would the ED sign off? That would put the situation out in the open, as job descriptions are filed in the HR files and are not confidential documents. It is possible the ED would not wish to have his personal requests known throughout the office. And if you ask for some of your other work to be shifted to another position to make time, that change would require more staff discussion and awareness.
In small organizations, EDs often have to inform the board of such staffing changes, which would further increase the number of people who know - this time the ones who conduct the ED's own performance review and objective-setting.
A third aspect might be your reaction to helping with fairly low-skill functions such as sending a fax. If you think you are being asked to help because the ED regards the work as too menial for him to do, you are more likely to be upset than if he asks for your help because of time constraints. Is that a factor here? If so, are you thinking about the personal work as symptomatic of general lack of respect for you? I will not try to answer that bigger question here.
I suggest that you also consider your long-term relationship with the ED, who you may need as a reference some day, and with the colleagues who will be affected by any changes to work distribution or atmosphere.
Only you can decide what you can live with, and for how long. But I strongly suspect that you can clear the air and find a solution by raising the issue with your boss in relation to your performance review and to organizational work that is kept waiting by his personal requests.
I hope you have a good enough relationship to feel you can do this safely. If you do not feel safe raising the issue even on these terms, then the situation with your boss is more unethical than described in your query. Good luck.
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