Today human resources professionals spend much time working to create a respectful work environment. Indeed, their tireless efforts should be applauded. Of course, much of that effort is needed to stay in compliance with anti-discrimination and additional workplace regulations, but a genuine focus on ethics extends beyond legal conformity.

The risks are high when employers research the ethics of their culture.

Over three-fourths of customers consider a company's ethics when determining where to purchase. Similarly, workers have reported that unethical behavior would drop if managers were more virtuous role models.

Examining an organization's ethical wellbeing

Consequently, how can HR help organizations assess their ethical wellbeing? It begins before people become employees. Corporations need to take into account the standards used in their recruiting procedures.

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They should question whether their ethical commitment is interwoven into the criteria by which people are assessed in concluding if employees are aligned with organizational goals when they are hired. 

I recommend evaluating employees to determine what they believe is their values and if they adhere to them beyond the platitudes. This information provides managers valuable data to review. Exit interviews are crucial sources in learning about the holes in the realities of an organization's ethical policies in action. Include inquiries about how all workers were treated and expectations of how they were presumed to treat other employees will yield rich information helpful when leaders make policy determinations.

While one may never get people, culture, and policies to align perfectly with actions, expectations must be raised to ensure that the company recruits, selects, and retains employees, especially leaders whose personal ethics are cohesive.

Is where you want to be, where you need to be?

Moreover, employ people whose ethics are in alignment with the company. This is crucial in the case of managers whose employees acutely examine every behavior. As a result, they contribute immensely to developing and articulating the company code.

Over the years, in examining what extraordinarily ethical corporations have in common, we discovered that they have clarity and imagine integrity across the organization in their leaders. Every employee is to have an unwavering understanding of the corporation's ethics, no matter what their title and responsibilities are. The most ethical organizations have cultivated leaders from among their employees to be unwavering in appearance and deed that would force other workers into situational ethics. 

When confronted with significant decisions, ethical organizations consider more than strategic and legal elements. They think about the ramifications to people and the organization. This is the application of legendary organizations and their leaders who see beyond the moment.  

Employees and leaders will face an ethical quandary. When that ensues, those employees that ethical colleagues and leaders support will confidently seek solutions to assist them in doing the right thing. This form of support reduces attrition and sparks collaboration improving innovations that delight and attract customers and embolden employees to never "just look away." The right thing I always the right thing.

In this kind of organization, with these leaders, ethical decision-making isn't an event. It is more than a compliance issue. Ethics then becomes an ongoing behavior. Behavior, not policies, change cultures for the better.

About Jim Woods

Jim Woods has been a global diversity and inclusion expert since 1998. He advocates linking strategic interventions to bottom-line business results. He is a D&I innovator and respected thought leader, having written numerous leadership books and contributed to many publications on the subject of strategic diversity and inclusion and leadership solutions. As President and CEO of Woods Kovalova Group, he has had the privilege of working with clients that include Whirlpool, the U.S. Army, Homeland Security, Deseret Bank, Seimens, and myriad organizations and individuals everywhere.

He has taught fifth-grade math and science along with teaching human resources and leadership on the university level. Mr. Woods holds a bachelors’ degree in business administration and leadership. Including a master’s of science in organizational development and human resources.

He delights crowds as a speaker and is an accomplished children’s book author. Mr. Woods landed his second Fortune 1000 client while homeless living in his car. Work with Jim.