What, if anything, do we owe our employers?

Most people, and employers in particular, like to think that employees owe something to the people who sign the checks, but just what is it that we owe our employers ethically? Many people, I realize, are tempted to say, "You need to do your best," but that immediately raises more questions than it answers.

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One of the reasons we engage in this ethics exercise is so that we can evaluate the acts of others as well as our own -- or "assign praise and blame," as Aristotle said. You may know whether you're doing your best, but there's no way I, or anyone else, can tell. And in many cases, people don't have a good handle on their own abilities. They think they are capable of more than they are, or they sell themselves short.

But even if we assume people do appreciate their own abilities, we're still left with puzzling questions. Let's consider two employees -- we'll call them Frick and Frack -- who have the same job title and the same pay at the same company. Both get above-average performance reviews.

Frick works really fast and is very good at what she does. She turns all her assignments in on time, does a little more than expected, and does it all in about six hours a day. She spends the rest of the time reading, talking to co-workers, and taking outside calls. Frack, on the other hand, is a plodder. He also does well, turns assignments in on time, also does extra work, but spends most of the day staring at his computer screen. He eats lunch at his desk, doesn't socialize, and takes no calls. Both Frick and Frack do the same amount of work.

Would it be fair for someone to assume that Frick isn't "doing her best," because they observe her socializing or reading? Could there be an argument that she isn't working as hard as she really could, that she's holding back and doing only what's necessary to maintain her above-average rating?

One possibility, of course, is that we're talking about two different work styles. If forced to sit at her desk for eight solid hours like Frack, Frick might actually become less productive, rather than more. But let's assume that she could work eight hours and turn out even more work. Is she ethically obligated to do that, or is she only required to do what's asked of her or at least as much as Frack is doing?

It seems to me that it would be hard to defend an ethical obligation that Frick should do any more than Frack, because she has the same job title and receives the same salary -- especially if Frack's work is seen by the boss as more than satisfactory. What's lacking here is an objective standard, which seems to be required if we're going to cast this as an obligation. If we're going to say that the employee owes the employer "something," we need to be able to objectively define what that "something" is.

One objective standard might be the job requirements, perhaps as stated in the job description. The problems with that are myriad. First, many people don't have job descriptions -- or job descriptions that bear any resemblance to reality. In a lot of workplaces, job descriptions were developed after the fact by either watching what people did or asking them.

Second, unless you work in a strict union environment, jobs change. No matter what they start out as, they morph into something completely different. In these days of shrinking staffs and added responsibility, job responsibilities can change (read that "increase") almost daily. If everyone did only what was in their job description, assuming they have one, the economy would grind to a halt in about an hour. In fact, even unions found that they could bring a company to its knees by "working to rule," doing only what was required in company job descriptions.

But maybe job descriptions are the key. After all, ethical obligations are minimums. We're always free to exceed them. If I owe you $10, I satisfy my obligation by paying you the $10. If I give you $15, all the better for you. So it could be the same for obligations to employers. If I fulfill my job requirements as stated on my job description, I have fulfilled my ethical obligations. If I do more, all the better for my employer.

This, however, creates a problem for those people who don't have job descriptions, for employers who don't know how to write them, and for jobs that almost defy writing objective and meaningful guidelines. In the last case, employers often resort to such broad brooms as "do everything and anything necessary to keep the site up and running." And they usually end with a catch-all phrase, such as "And any other duties that may arise at the employer's discretion."

These types of clauses again take us out of the land of objective criteria and into a never-never land of changing priorities and confused objectives. And we end up right back where we began.

I'm a firm believer in working hard and doing what's necessary to get the job done. Part of that's my nature, part of it comes from liking what I do, and part of it comes from having been a boss and knowing how good it feels when people pitch in and keep things running -- and how bad it feels when they don't.

But while many people talk about what employees "owe" employers, I find I'm at a loss to state it in a way that we could craft as an obligation, or at least one that would do the work we want in evaluating someone's performance. Maybe I'm missing something here. And maybe you have some better ideas. If so, let me know.

Write to Carlton Vogt at ethics_matters@infoworld.com. To discuss any of these issues, you can go to the Ethics Matters forum at www.infoworld.com/forums/ethics .