Question

Evaluate some key components of corporate ethics programs and how they promote ethical conduct.

Answer 1

Focusing on achieving key company goals and maintaining good working relationships in the workplace is essential for employees but ensuring ethical conduct among employees is equally important. Ethical behavior ensures that the business has a reputation for sound professional standards and values that are directly consistent with the purpose of the organization. There are a few different ways you can encourage ethical conduct among your employees.

You can't expect your employees to behave ethically according to the code of ethics of your business if they don't know what that code is, or why it's relevant. Host daily lectures on ethics and the ethical approaches to problems. Using examples and role playing to provide an incentive for us to choose between difficult choices and illustrate why one is more ethical than another. The more preparation and support you have, and the more focus you put on being ethical and behaving appropriately, the better the employees understand exactly what you expect in the workplace.

Too often, businesses simply demand ethical behaviour; but, if you want to encourage this as a influential practice among workers, then so to speak, you have to demonstrate and prove. Provide incentives for good ethical behaviour; for example, if you have an employee who goes above and beyond setting aside their personal interests to always do what's best for their customers, that's called ethical behaviour, and others should be praised and held up as an example to try to do the same. The more sound ethical decisions you give workers, the more likely the masses will follow suit.

Expect more from the management team; workers usually follow company guidelines set out by managers for them. Keep the supervisors to a higher ethical level and they can be honest in transmitting intentions to their workers to do the same. Challenge managers to have daily meetings with staff and work through possible ethical problems that could occur and find ways and collaborate as a team around them. If everybody is on the same page, the team as a whole is more likely to follow the same kinds of ethical behaviours.

Think frankly about the company's existing methods about operation. If management speaks about the value of workplace ethics but doesn't treat their own workers equally, you're just paying lip service to the ethics. A positive relationship between management and workers helps cultivate ethical actions all around. Consider how the organization takes decisions on recruiting, training, promoting and paying workers. Take measures to remedy the situation if these critical acts are not taken critically and reasonably.