Know How: Corporate Ethics
How a little moral orienteering makes employees better
By Meredith Wise
Special to the Worcester Business Journal
They are exposed to potential conflicts of interest, demands for productivity that sometimes discourage sound judgment, temptations to misuse resources and mismanage contracts and agreements.
Adding to these pressures is the fact that sometimes good managers make poor decisions that are in conflict with reasons to act morally. They do so not intentionally, but because they are under the pressures of today's fast paced work environment. The obvious concepts and principles of business ethics, with its attention on doing the right thing, can go right out the door during times of stress.
So, how does a company keep its good employee from being pressured to do bad things? How can a company support its staff in making the right, ethical decisions?
Business ethics is knowing what is right or wrong in the workplace and doing what's right with regard to staff, products and services and in relationships with all stakeholders. Attention to ethics, not only in words, but in actions, creates a supportive environment for leaders and staff.
Quoting David Gebler, president of Working Values, Ltd., "Everybody really does want to do the right thing. Virtually everyone wants to be part of an organization where it's comfortable to do the right thing."
The Trailhead
Sounds good, but exactly how does an organization create a tone and environment that supports "the right thing to do" and helps their staff stay the course?
One way is for company leaders to create a guide, a moral compass, to help their staff determine what is right and appropriate to the situation.
A moral compass is a set of principles or a core values statement developed by an organization, that helps the organization manage ethical dilemmas by avoiding them in the first place.
For example, Freedom to Care, a British whistle-blower's support group, borrowed from the work of British Professor Geoffrey Hunt's Four Principles of Ethical Management to create their compass - OPAL - Openness, Accountability, Performance with Integrity and Leadership.
New Cultures
This moral compass will be most effective when included in an organization-wide cultural approach to ethics. The Ethics Resource Center's 2007 National Business Ethics Survey showed that the risk of unethical behavior diminishes significantly when the organization adopts a cultural approach to ethics. From their findings, the four elements that shape an ethical culture are: ethical leadership, supervisor reinforcement, peer commitment and embedded ethical values.
Three things must be present for an organization to support ethical decision making.
Leaders must set the stage with actions as well as words.
All staff must be involved in developing the moral compass and trained on implementing the values of that compass in the workplace.
All staff, especially management, must be held accountable for, and supported in, their decision making. Many benefits arise out of raising awareness of ethics in the workplace and encouraging ethical decisions and actions.
Giving staff a moral compass to guide their behavior is not only an essential part of ethics management, it is the right thing to do.
Meredith Wise is president of the Employers Association of the Northeast.
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