Are Standards of Conduct Improving?

While it’s true that there’s still a significant problem with unethical workplace behavior (from the executive level on down), things aren’t all bad. According to the latest National Business Ethics Survey, misconduct is apparently on the wane. The number of employees surveyed who had witnessed unethical activities at work dropped 7% from 2007-2009. This isn’t a result of underreporting – whistle blowing actually increased 5% for the same time period.

The NBES found a similar improvement in standards of conduct during the last recession. There is a surprising correlation between belt tightening and a stronger focus on doing the right thing. Perhaps this is the natural swing of the pendulum away from the excesses that tend to occur when everyone is riding a “bubble” of prosperity. Increased government oversight as a response to large scale irresponsibility on the part of financial institutions and other corporate entities who have betrayed the public trust probably plays a role as well. Buzzwords like accountability and transparency are certainly changing how ethics are discussed – if not how well they are upheld in practice.

It’s Not all Sunshine and Roses

Even with this overall improvement, 22% of workers interviewed said that the economic downturn had a negative impact on ethics at their workplace. So, the trend toward better behavior is far from universal. Here are 10 behaviors that 10% or more of employees surveyed reported witnessing in 2009:

1. Company resource abuse
2. Abusive behavior
3. Lying to employees
4. Email or Internet abuse
5. Conflicts of interest
6. Discrimination
7. Lying to outside stakeholders
8. Employee benefit violations
9. Health or safety violations
10. Improper hiring practices

 

Who’s Doing What?

It is likely that standards of conduct violations such as company resource abuse happen at all levels (who among us has never made a personal phone call or sent a personal email on company time?) However, it’s obviously those at the top who are lying to outside stakeholders and employees. Furthermore, abusive and discriminatory behavior by supervisors or managers toward subordinates – the bully boss syndrome – is known to be very widespread. The fact is that the more power an individual or group has within a company, the more egregious their ethical lapses can be.

How to Fix This

The NBES offers recommendations along the following lines for a four pronged approach to upholding standards of conduct policies:

1. Leadership must set the tone for ethical behavior and act as role models to earn the trust and respect of the workforce.
2. Supervisors must reinforce this message in everyday interactions with employees.
3. Workers should support each other in discussing the importance of ethics and in encouraging peers to do what’s right.
4. Ethics should be embedded in day to day activities so that even new hires going through onboarding can sense how important these standards are to the company’s culture.

If you are unsure how to proceed in creating and implementing a code of ethics or standards of conduct policy at your workplace, let The Stonehaven Group help you. Your organization can reap the benefits of a workforce that is better engaged and dedicated to protecting the reputation of your company over the long term.