03rd August 2020
6 ways to create a culture of integrity
Social responsibility and ethical business practices are becoming more and more important not only for attracting and retaining employees but also for customers/ consumers. In fact, recent research by Worldcom PR Group has shown that even during Covid-19 where you may expect leadership attention to be elsewhere, leadership engagement with other significant issues such as sustainability have significantly increased.
Robert Chesnut has outlined 6 ways leaders can be proactive, inspire their workforces, and stay ahead of the ethical revolution.
From the Article:
Make sure people know how to report violations.
Too many companies bury their reporting system in a link deep in the company intranet and don’t talk openly about how the investigation process works. That silence breeds suspicion, distrust, and an environment in which employees aren’t comfortable using the process. Companies that want a culture of integrity must make the process of reporting all problems, especially violations of the code, easy, straightforward, and clear. You need to create a culture that isn’t afraid to have people raise ethical questions, that welcomes bad news, and that celebrates employees who speak out about problems. I once had an IT security person walk up to me in the office and point out that I had left my computer on and unattended at my workstation for five minutes while I went to the restroom. Rather than getting annoyed, I gave him an award for having the courage to call out a senior leader (me) for a lax security practice. A year later, he still cites that recognition as the highlight of his career at the company.
I hear leaders of some companies proudly say that their employee ethics hotline has few or no reports. That could be a sign of a problem. Try this: Pull random employees into a room and ask them to show you how to file an ethics report. Time how long it takes them to get to the right place. Or do a quick anonymous survey and ask how comfortable employees are reporting violations and whether they feel the company walks the talk when it comes to ethics. Explore new tools. For example, Vault Platform, in the UK, designed a mobile phone app that allows employees to securely and confidentially submit incidents of misconduct that they have experienced or witnessed. It includes a unique feature whereby an employee who is reluctant to speak up alone can submit a report only if another employee independently submits a complaint against the same person.
You can read the article in full online: How to Build a Company That (Actually) Values Integrity.
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