Question

What your top three takeaways are from this article. As a supervisor or manager, how would you apply these points?

The most important influence on ethical behavior in the workplace is overall company culture, which determines whether employees are valued or belittled and whether stakeholders are treated with trust or suspicion. A company that bases its policies and decisions on deeply rooted ethics will create a culture in which employees are naturally disposed to act ethically, too. The type of integrity that is at the root of an ethical company culture cannot be faked or taught, but it can be contagious and inspiring. As Jill Young of South University's School of Business explains, "If you act with integrity, ethical behavior is just a natural progression."
Customer Service
The values that shape an ethical company culture influence the relationships that a business maintains with its customers. An ethical company will train employees to treat customers with dignity and respect, and to be fair and honest with them. Employees who see such behavior as an integral part of customer service will understand the depth of the company's commitment to ethical behavior. They will likely model their work accordingly because ethical behavior can inspire kindness, honesty and fairness.
Human Resources
Ethical human resource policies are vital to creating and maintaining an ethical company culture. Employees who are treated with basic decency are more likely to be content with their jobs. When employees feel exploited, they are prone to overt unethical behavior such as theft, as well as more subtle offenses such as using company resources for personal gain. When employees are fairly compensated for their work, they are likely to give more to the company and less inclined to take advantage of opportunities to cut corners or exploit situations for personal gain
Product Integrity
A company culture that inspires ethical behavior in its employees will probably provide products and services created with ethical values in mind. For example, a food business that uses optimally fresh ingredients handled in a clean and compliant facility most likely won't have to be dishonest with customers who get sick from eating the company's food. Employees who know they can stand behind the products they sell will probably be inspired to act ethically in other facets of their work life.
Competitive Integrity
Although a company's competitors are often seen as enemies, a truly ethical company extends its solid values to the way it treats its competitors as well as its stakeholders. Calling a competitor, pretending to be a customer and asking questions that you will use to create competing products is dishonest. Employees who are asked to engage in this type of behavior get the message that all company values are questionable, and this impression will interfere with your overall efforts to maintain an ethical workplace.

Answer 1

Three takeaways from this article

1. The most important takeaway or learning from this article is the impact of ethical behaviour on different aspects of the organization from product integrity to customer service. A company which promotes ethical behaviour in the culture is able to maintain better customer service, it maintains a better relationship or connection with the customer. Because their employees will have empathy with their customers in case of an issue with the product or service.

2 The second key takeaway from this article is understanding how ethical behaviour will promote retention as well as a healthy atmosphere in the company. Employees are the internal customers of the organization, how you are going to treat your internal customers will promote how the employees are going to behave with your customers. for example, a company like southwest airlines are known for their ethical behaviour with their employees which creates a healthy atmosphere for the employees and its because of this, employees are more able to connect with the customers. Ethical behaviour promotes a very transparent culture in the organization and makes employees customer bond strong as well.

3 The third important key takeaway is the understanding that how ethical behaviour drives your employees to treat even your competitors in a respected way. This prevents doing dishonest things like bribing their employees to give inner information about competitors or promoting against their competitors and in opposite it promotes to have a healthy competition, learn from their product and service and improve your own product, Like some companies do advertisement by stating that their product is superior and other company products are of low quality which is not an ethical way of branding your company and degrading competitors

As a manager, it's our job to lead by examples to apply these points as the lowe staff always looks for their immediate boss, how ethical they are in their actions and they follow the stops. so the most important task is to be ethical in your decisions, do not go favouritism in the company. Use objective methods to judge the performance of the employees and take the rational decision. The same strategy goes with treating your customers as well, if managers behave well with customers and train their subordinates with the same state of mind that customer is the king, then it will set a roadmap for the employees as well.

Managers must clearly define the goals of the company as well as set the path for the employees that these are to be achieved in an ethical manner, you can't cheat your customer to sell your product, you must not give wrong information about the product to the customer for your own benefits. And along with this strong steps should be taken against the employees who do not follow the ethical measures to set a strong example for other employees as well that profitability is important but not through the unethical measures