When we hire employees on what Dhamma principles should base?

Answer
by Venerable Dhattajeevo Bhikku 

Regarding recruitment of personnel for any position, the general requirements that the human resource section would consider is as follows:

their qualifications (Bachelor, Master or Doctors degree)

their work experience,

personality and so on..sometimes they also examine nationality, family and they even go back to 7 generations. It’s fine . Sometimes they even check their financial situation and their family history.

However no matter what principles they use, these are considered as a complement to the real principle the Lord Buddha taught us. He taught us to recruit good personnel to work with us. But who is a good worker?

Simply speaking a good worker is a responsible person.  He/she is not just a good worker because of the qualifications, good looks, beautiful voice, good name or reputable family. If you are to recruit a good employee it has to be a responsible person.

The first responsibility is the responsibility towards oneself.

The second responsibility is towards members of the family.

The third one is being conscientious towards business ethic. This might seem complicated to understand but don’t worry, I will elucidate later.

The fourth one is being conscientious of the society. Sometimes when you ask workers what this means, they wouldn’t have a clue.

The fifth condition is being conscientious of the environment.

The five conditions are the basis, which allows us to go ahead and train them. Sooner or later they will be responsible for the assigned work.

What is being responsible towards oneself mean? In Buddhism, the first step is to be responsible for one’s humanity, which could be measured with the observation of the five precepts. The candidate might be knowledgeable and capable but without the precepts, he/she is not responsible for his/her own humanity and then it could dangerous to recruit him/her because we don’t know whether he/she is going to kill us or betray us. The candidate is responsible for him/herself, when he/she is responsible for his/her humanity or observes the 5 precepts.

The second responsibility is responsibility towards members of the family. This could be done through simple observation whether they do take care of their parents. If they have a family, do they look after members of their family? If they neglect their family then don’t bother to recruit them.

The third question is, are they conscientious for business ethic? What does this mean? Are they involved in the road to ruin: alcohol, drugs, and women, riding for fun and gambling. If they do, don’t get involved with them because we know that if they are addicted to alcohol or drug, we know how bad it is going to be. If they frequent women and nightclubs or brothels, or if they like to ride for fun, simply speaking they are lazy. Don’t recruit them.

And lastly, all sorts of gambling whether it would be playing cards, boxing betting or football betting are considered to be on the road to ruin and whoever is involved with these activities is believed to be morally and economically irresponsible. Don’t recruit them, because they have an unwholesome mind. In the circle of card playing, players can only think of the ruin of their counterpart so that they will gain. Therefore this circle is called the harmful circle. Therefore they are not to be recruited.

What is being conscientious of the society mean ? I.e. whoever feels responsible to the society will loathe injustice and bias. Remember well, you have to find out if they are impartial.  If so, recruit them.

Being responsible for the environment, simply speaking means we need to help each other to take care of the soil, trees, water and air. How are we going to live?. If we come across a person who cares about the environment then we can be assured that this person will take good care of all our belongings or whatever we are involved in.

If you recruit a person with the above qualities, you can train them. But it is necessary to know how to train your worker. Anyhow, I believe that as you can set yourself up like this, and have trained yourself that much; you can train your employees. If you don’t make an effort to train them and even though you have a good worker, you can’t get much out of him/her, this time you are to be blamed. Don’t blame your employee.