The professional and ethical responsibility based on IEM Code of Professional Conduct

 *The referenced facts are correct as per the year 2020*

Introduction

Every imaginable form of profession has an impact to the daily lives of others. Whether you are a subscriber to the butterfly effect theory (where even the smallest effect caused by the tiny motion of the flapping of a butterfly will cause a tornado several weeks later) or not, it is very hard to dispute the significance of maintaining proper conduct in carrying out duties under professional requirements. Complying to a lengthy set of rules written by an authoritative legal body may sometimes feel like being subjected under a dictatorship, but one has to keep in mind that these rules are not written to build some sort of power game over the people who are subjected to such laws, but rather to maintain order and ensure that the possibilities of unwanted incidents occurring remains low. This is especially true in the field of engineering where even the slightest error can bring about unprecedented consequences.

In Malaysia, there are two well-known professional bodies that are acknowledged to be authoritative when it comes to professional issues regarding engineering. They are the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) and Institute of Engineers Malaysia (IEM). Taking the necessary step of establishing ground rules for engineers, BEM has introduced the Engineers Act 1967 (Amendment 2015) which discussed on every aspect related to the engineering profession including, the code of conduct. A total of 10 codes of conduct can be reviewed (excluding deleted ones after amendment) for the purpose of guidance. Upon the effective implementation of this act, IEM has enlisted a total of 15 code of conducts under “Regulations on Professional Conduct” as an interpretation of BEM’s code of conduct. The list is available to be read in the official website of IEM [1].

Professional and ethical responsibility is a wide-ranging topic that can be subjected to various interpretations which can also be based on a variety of philosophies. And thus, to limit the scale of discussion for the purpose of maintaining focus, this article will discuss on professional and ethical responsibility through the lens of IEM Code of Professional Conduct.

 

Content

It is vital to clarify the exact definitions of the terminologies that will be used to describe proceeding elaborations on the code of conduct. According to the regulation of professional conduct, “member” refers to any IEM member of any grade that can be referred under Section II of the Bylaws, while “client” is included under the definition of “employer”.

The first one to be discussed will be the fiduciary relationship between a member of IEM and his/her client [1]. Fiduciary by definition is a person or an organization that acts on behalf of another party whilst simultaneously prioritizing the clients’ interests ahead of their own, and is responsible to maintain good faith in the relationship. By being a fiduciary, the employee or organization is bounded by legal and ethical terms to ensure that both parties (employee/organization and client) continue to act in the others’ best interests [2].

                An uninformed person might be inclined to associate clients with a group of people who are purely interested in achieving business objectives out of professional relationships. However, this is far from the truth especially in the context of professional engineering where clients span from business partners to the members of community at large. This clarification is very important to unshackle discussion on maintaining trust from the bounds of money, so to speak. To further elaborate on the importance of maintaining trust between engineers and the members of community, the unfortunate collapse of Highland Tower will be used as a discussion point [3]. This tragic event caused by improper planning by both the architects as well as engineers costed the lives of 48 individuals as well as asset costs to the occupants of Highland Tower. The leading root that leads to the occurrence of this incident was a rotational retrogressive slide emerging from a high retaining wall behind the second block of a three tier car park that was built to be used by the residents living in the three blocks of Highland Tower [3]. Since this is an article on the conducts of an engineer, the mistakes done by architects will be left out (but not out of disregard). Post disaster analysis revealed that the mishap might have happened due to a faulty or rather incomplete design of foundation that failed to take into account the obvious fact that the building itself will be built on a sloping hill. The foundation designed had failed to consider lateral loadings that may be imposed by a possible landslide (which eventually happened). There are also findings that reveal corruption practices where the engineers, architects and contractors had conspired and obtained a Certificate of Fitness despite ignoring the conditions set by the local authorities. These ethical issues directly violated the first two regulations on professional conduct laid by IEM, where a member must by all means, take absolute measures to ensure that the products of his work will not result in avoidable fatalities or injuries to any individual as well as avoid damage to the environment surrounding his or her work. A sad thing it is to abandon ethical responsibilities for self-interests only to leave a trail of dead bodies that will forever serve as a reminder of how crucial it is to always put the others’ best interests in a fiduciary relationship.

                 An engineer is also expected to always be fully aware of his professional capabilities at all time. A lot of people often make the mistake of only considering what one is able to do when evaluating his or her professional capability. However, as outlined by IEM regulation of professional conduct, a member must always continuously seek to maintain or improve his or her professional competency by observing the latest developments introduced in the field of science and engineering that is related to his or her professional occupation [1]. This will require complete self-honesty in order to acknowledge the fact that there are things that the engineer himself is incapable of doing. This is in line with the fourth regulations on professional conduct; a member is not advised to take on tasks that is beyond his capabilities as per his judgement on himself [1]. The inclusion of these conducts is important considering the extent of things a person may claim to be able to do in the pursuit of selfish interests such as increasing promotion prospect or putting up a façade of competence. Of course, there are instances where these codes are violated out of ignorance. Thus, by laying down these conducts in black and white, engineers (or IEM members to stay true to the target group) will no longer have any excuse of not being “aware” of any instructions that obligates engineers to constantly be in a self-improvement mode.

The consequence of not complying to these conducts may spell disastrous aftermaths. Imagine a manufacturing factory located in an imaginary industrial area in Perak. Now the chief engineer is interested in implementing data analytics to improve the management of supply chain of the factory. In an effort to avoid burdening extra costs that will be incurred if he decides to outsource the development process of the system, he decides to first lay out his plans to his subordinates. Upon hearing the chief engineer’s plan, a rather excited but incompetent manufacturing engineer decides to take on the project to impress his bosses. Long story short, his incompetence lead to the development of a horrendously defective system which lead to halted productions, forcing the company to shoulder huge losses. In this imaginary example, there are several IEM regulations of professional conducts that have been violated. The first one is the one discussed previously, when the manufacturing engineer undertakes the project despite being well aware of his incompetency to execute the project properly [1]. The second one is violated by the Chief Engineer himself, where according to IEM regulation of professional conducts, he is supposed to make sure that the person he assigned to perform the project is competent enough [1]. This conclusion is of course only applicable if we are to assume that the violations are due to voluntary negligence of the conducts instead of human factors such as unfortunate misjudgments of competence.

            The code of professional conduct also touches on restricting engineers from actively requesting any consultation work by promoting himself or through any agent [1]. This implies that engineers are not allowed to perform self-promotion to do work that is outside of his current job scope. With the existence of professional social media such as LinkedIn, such conduct proves difficult to be implemented. If an engineer is not careful, social media posts that are initially meant to increase public image reputation can quickly turn into self-advertisement. The rationale behind the implementation of this conduct is to ensure the integrity of an engineer’s image as well as maintain the reputation of the engineering profession as a whole. Defying this code of conduct may result in ramifications such as illegal disclosure of confidential information to boost one’s profile, unprofessional antics in the name of marketing and many other unprecedented consequences.

 

Conclusion

Complying to IEM Code of Professional Conduct is not only a professional obligation, but also an ethical decision that must be made by every engineer in Malaysia. An individual that works in the engineering industry must always keep in mind that his or her work do not only affect him or herself individually, but also other people who are involved in his or her activities.

References

[1]

The Institution of Engineers Malaysia, "The Institution of Engineers Malaysia - Professional conduct and discipline," [Online]. Available: https://www.myiem.org.my/content/professional_conduct_and_discipline-68.aspx. [Accessed 29 10 2020].

[2]

J. Kagan, "Investopedia - Fiduciary," Investopedia, 7 9 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiduciary.asp. [Accessed 29 10 2020].

[3]

A. P. D. I. L. M. Sidek, "COEB 422- Engineers and Society - Professional Ethics," UNITEN, [Online]. Available: file:///C:/Users/E/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$DIa20088.12397/Lecture%205-2%20Professional%20Ethics.pdf. [Accessed 30 10 2020].

[4]

A. P. D. I. L. Mohd., "COEB 422 - Engineers and Society - Engineering Professionalisme," [Online]. Available: http://lms.uniten.edu.my/moodle/mod/folder/view.php?id=399434. [Accessed 29 10 2020].