How Important are Ethics?
Recently I enrolled in a class and one of our discussions was centered around ethics. My professor said something really interesting that made me think…”if your values don’t match your company’s, why are you working for them?” I thought it was a great point for discussion. How many employee’s truly believe in their company’s values?
Ethical behavior continues to be a discussion in all facets of business in today’s environment. Even though I could tell you all 22 of my current code of conduct bullet points, I wonder how many people outside of the HR world could tell me what they are and more importantly how ethics are essential to any organization.
It is not only important for every organization to have a code of ethics that is developed by senior management, but it is even more important that these individuals “walk the talk.” Having a code of ethics is one step, but if they just sit on a shelf and collect dust and are not carried out by each and every executive, manager and employee, there is really no point in having them.
A previous colleague of mine, Edward, truly struggled with his organization and the constant presence of unethical behavior and what he should do. Edward had an ineffective manager that was not only lazy, but only followed the code of ethics when it was convenient for her. She consistently compromised policies and treated him disrespectfully in front of fellow employee’s. Additionally, she also wouldn’t hold all managers accountable for the same behavior and definitely did not walk the talk. On average lets say she violated 5-7 code of conduct policies a day.
What type of example does this set for employee’s? How many times did she put her company at risk? Her behavior in turn made Edward, who was a stellar employee, miserable and question how a company in this day and age could get away with behavior such as this. Edward eventually moved on to bigger and better things, but his story sticks with me to this day. As for his boss, while her behavior was unethical, it was not illegal, but as we all know word travels fast and she damaged both her company and her own reputation with the local community and wrote her own pink slip.
In this state of our economy when we can’t offer employee’s as much as we used to, whether that be salary, benefits or a sense of security – what we should always be able to offer employee’s and ourselves is an ethical environment. Let’s face it, at the end of the day, in an uncertain environment – I believe this is one things we should all be able to count on and we can all play an active role in each and every day.
What is a code of conduct? A code of conduct is a list of policies and procedures that are essential to your organization such as no tolerance harassment policy, bribes, insider trading, conflict of interest etc. A common code of ethics establishes guidelines and expected behavior. What the code of conduct consists of or how many you have as a company is unique to every organization.
Many employee’s often ask me, how do you know if it is ethical or not, what about the gray areas? I’m going to stick with what my mother always told me, if you have to question it, it is probably not right.
