Creating Ethical Organizational Culture and Climate
It is the company’s culture that affects how its employees and other stakeholders think about right and wrong. When businesses work to build a strong ethical culture, they encourage everyone to be honest and do the right thing. People are drawn to the products and services of companies that have strong principles.
Customers are pleased and sure of themselves because they know the business is trustworthy. Ethical businesses also keep most of their employees for a long time, which cuts down on the costs of turnover. When people put their money into companies with good morals, they don’t have to worry because they know their money is safe. Being moral keeps stock prices high and keeps companies from being taken over.
For any company, the following 5 steps can help them build an ethical work culture:
Ethics are set by the top management
Making sure that top managers and leaders set a good example is one of the most visible ways for companies to show that they want to build an ethical workplace culture. Employees look to the way upper management acts to see what kind of behaviour is okay at work and is supported by the company. Since actions speak louder than words, when top executives act in an honest way, it sends a good message to workers. Senior leaders should be aware that they are being watched and should make sure that what they say they do.
There is evidence to support the idea of leading by example. Al Bandura is a psychologist at Stanford who is known for his work on learning by observing others. Bandura’s stages of learning through observation are:
Attention\sRetention\sReproduction\sMotivation
People in these stages pay attention to how other people act and keep thinking about it. Then they act the same way again. When people have a good experience with a behaviour more than once, they want to do it again.
Make it clear what you expect from people who are ethical
When a company makes and shares an official code of ethics, it makes it clear to employees what is expected of them. A code of ethics, also called a code of conduct, spells out the organization’s main values and the moral rules that everyone should follow. The code should say that it applies to how people dress, act, and think. Observing the environment is also a good way to figure out cultural norms and expectations.
Having a written code of ethics is helpful, but it doesn’t mean anything if the people in charge don’t follow it themselves. Employees pay attention. It is important for them to know if the company is really following the moral rules it set or if it is just saying it.
Offer Formal training in ethics
A formal programme for ethics training tells a lot about how ethical a company is. Seminars, workshops, and other types of ethical training programmes help people in an organisation remember its rules of behaviour and make it clear what kinds of actions the company considers acceptable and unacceptable. Situational examples help us think about how to deal with possible moral problems. People can improve their ability to solve problems by going to workshops. Peers or mentors may be able to help with trainings.
Don’t reward behaviour you don’t want, but do reward behaviour you do want
Culture in the workplace always starts at the top. As part of their annual performance reviews, managers should be judged on how ethically they act. As part of their evaluations, they should be asked to explain how their choices align with the code of ethics. Executives should also be judged on the steps they take to reach their moral goals and how those steps help them reach their ends.
As before, research backs up moral principles. Operant conditioning, which was created by B.F. Skinner, says that you can make other people do what you want them to do. Based on the idea of operant conditioning, businesses shouldn’t encourage behaviour they don’t want to see in other people.
People who behave in an ethical way should be markedly rewarded for it, and people who don’t behave in an ethical way should be punished for it. Instead of firing good employees who break the rules once, the company may decide to give them constructive criticism and put them on probation for a short time. Instead of punishing or shaming, correction should be done in the spirit of working together and teaching.
This step should make companies more likely to give their workers chances to get rewards, praise, and social support. When giving rewards and praise, you should give it carefully and with attention to detail so that it doesn’t have unintended effects.
Offer safety to your employees
If you work for a company with strong morals and ethics, most of your coworkers will want to do the right thing. It can be hard for anyone to report unethical behaviour at work that they see in other people. Employees who are shy or quiet may find it especially hard to report unethical behaviour. It is likely that most people would be scared to report the unethical behaviour of a boss or someone in a senior management position.
A lot of companies can make sure their workers feel safe reporting unethical behaviour without worrying about losing their jobs or getting in trouble in some other way. This is when an impartial third party, like an ethics counsellor, ethics officer, ombudsman, or ethics consultant, can come in handy. An ombudsman can get the tools and information they need to help with a complaint about unethical behaviour or a consultation about it.
How to use technology to help build an ethical workplace culture
The best thing that could happen is that no one will ever break your Code of Ethics policy at your company. Sadly, that’s not how things work at many companies. This is why it’s smart to use a modern approach to making an ethical work culture. For safekeeping your code of conduct policies, reports, investigations, and the results of investigations, BoardEffect is the best electronic platform for you. It gives a group of people a safe and private place online to talk, work together, and look into reports of unethical behaviour that could hurt the company’s reputation. If something goes wrong and ends up in court, lawyers can quickly get to the company’s code and any other information they need about what happened. The administrator of the board can decide who can and cannot take part in these kinds of discussions