Promoting Workplace Ethics How can managers help create a more ethical workplace culture? Leadership and talent development consultant Steve Nguyen summarizes a list of practices for management to accomplish this goal. Be a Role Model and Be Visible Employees look at top managers to understand what behaviour is acceptable. Senior management sets the tone for ethics in the workplace. Communicate Ethical Expectations An organizational code of ethics can reduce ethical ambiguities. The code of ethics should state the organization's primary values and the ethical rules that employees are expected to follow. Managers should remember that a code of ethics is worthless if leaders fail to model ethical behaviours. Managing Ethics in the workplace Promoting ethics in the workplace creates a positive culture for managers and employees, as well as a successful business. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) notes that the stock price growth of the 100 firms with the most ethical cultures outperformed stock market and peer indices by almost 300 percent, based on the most widely used measure of ethical workplace culture. "The evidence indicates that a positive workplace culture predicts shareholder value by enabling superior value-creation," according to the SHRM. "The ethics of a firm's culture plays a significant role in creating and sustaining value." Businesses with strong workplace ethics add value to the organization and support an environment where employees feel safe and valued. Leaders can help create an ethical workplace culture that benefits shareholders, the organization and people in the company. Employee Ethics The study of business ethics refers to the ethical dimensions of productive organizations and commercial activities, and it applies to the production, distribution, marketing, sale and consumption of goods and services. Misconduct by employees and organizations can include anything from conflicts of interest to violations of company internet policies to falsifying time reports to briberv and illeaal political aifts. Misconduct happens in every organization," Patricia Harned, chief executive officer of the Ethics and Compliance Initiative ECl), told the Center for Association Leadership. "No organization is free from ethics and compliance challenges." arned's assertion is based on 20 years of results from the ECl's National Business Ethics Survey of the U.S. Workforce. ighlights of the latest survey include the following statistics. - More than 40 percent of workers said they had observed on-the-job misconduct that violated their employers' standards or rules. - Of those who witnessed misconduct, 63 percent reported what they saw. - Of those who reported misconduct, 21 percent said they experienced some form of retaliation. - Sixty percent of misconduct involved someone with managerial authority. Roughly, a quarter of observed misconduct involved senior managers