Ethics in the workplace? She’ll be right…

The highly publicised corporate collapses of recent years were classic examples of the impact of unethical behaviour in the Australian workplace. Australia’s culture was founded on the concept of mateship, making if difficult for people to ‘dob’ in a colleague who was seen to be behaving improperly.

Of those respondents who witnessed unethical behaviour in the Rewards survey, 61% rated the incident as “minor” and 32% as “major”.

“Everybody will have a different definition of what constitutes major or minor unethical behaviour. We generally consider a minor offence to be taking stationery or having a ‘sickie’, where as something more major might be defrauding the company or operating with a conflict of interest,” Mr Nicholls said.

“Companies need to set the benchmark that clearly defines ethical behaviour in the workplace and take disciplinary actions for those people who act against these guidelines. It comes back to organisations having strong corporate governance processes in place and installing the company’s values in the hearts and minds of the employees.”

“If organisations have unethical behaviour going on, then they must have a clearly defined path for people to report it. Such 'whistle blowing' programs have the positive effect by building trust and creating a more open and transparent organisation and send a clear signal that inappropriate behaviour will not be tolerated.”

“A lack of ethics in senior management is a key reason why people leave employers. If companies want to attract and retain strong talent, they need to have clear definition of what constitutes ethical behaviour and ensure that management is cultivating that culture, otherwise be prepared for employees to push the limits.”