We often talk about ethics and practicing ethics in organisation. But communicating ethics and these practices takes a lot of harwork and tactics. Here are some measures through which we can communicate ethics in a proper manner to our people.

What goes around up ultimately comes back down! Life is cyclic in nature and intent. Checking in on ethics-related beliefs and behaviours can be enriching to an organisation. The following tips can help incorporating organisational ethics into day-to-day business or departmental activity:

# Scrutinise: The underlying intention for establishing organisational ethics has to be examined. Such raison d'être will help resolve how and why to communicate ethical messages to employees.

# Emphasise: Every organisation has stories that demonstrate their ethics. For example, Nordstrom made a full refund to a man who returned his car tyres. The organisation does not even sell them. Ethics ought to be a part of the organisational mainstream. The positive effects of ethical behaviour have to be communicated. The best way to do this is by modelling another person's rewarded behaviour.

# Demonstrate: Actions speak. Top management must demonstrate ethical behaviour, to inculcate ethics in their employees.

# Standardise: Devise and develop guidelines and strategies that support ethical behaviour. Ethics need to be translated into comprehensible actions and these expectations have to be communicated to employees consistently.

# Confer: Group discussions help finding new ways of incorporating ethics effectively into the organisational mainstream. 'Dialogue' allow participants to share ideas and beliefs free of judgement and suppositions. Such discussions demonstrate respect for employees' differences and insecurities around the subject matter. They also throw light on the source of their beliefs around ethics. Engaging a skilled and objective facilitator for such discussions is a good idea.

# Integrate: Ethics need to become an integral part of the business. Organisations need to "use ethics" in all their activities including hiring, pricing products, providing service and choosing clients.

# Measure: Why should any employee comply with the organisational code of ethics? Link the behaviour to performance and change is not far.

# Safe feedback: Unethical behaviour has to be reported, immediately. However, a safe feedback mechanism is required for this. Anonymous hotlines, suggestion boxes or one-on-one meetings allow employees to provide such feedback without feeling threatened.

The above tips for communicating ethics is not customised counsel. Any organisational communication programme can be successful, provided it is tailored to meet the unique needs of the organisation.

donna

Dear donna,

People need to be interested in ethics and morality, not only in the workplace but in their lives.

What is really important as far as ethics and morality in the workplace is concerned, is what you stated :

'Devise and develop guidelines and strategies that support ethical behavior. Ethics need to be translated into comprehensible actions and these expectations have to be communicated to employees consistently.'

If this is done effectively enough, then standards of ethics and morality are bound to improve markedly. Very often employees do not realise that their actions are not really ethical or moral. They often think 'so what? It's only ........'.

But it isn't. Flicking a box of pins and flicking an expensive thinkpad or mobile is still 'flicking'. No matter the value of the object, the action is equally wrong. It's stealing - either from the office or from an individual.

Employees should be made to realise that 'lying' takes many forms. To assure a customer over the phone that his matter will be attended to immediately and then forgetting all about it, is lying. To tell your boss you were ill and in bed when you were not, is also lying. It's easy to say 'oh, it was only a little white lie'. But white or not, it's still a lie - and should be avoided at all costs.

People do this all the time - make promises that they know will never be attended to, say they'll do actions they have no intention of performing, feel that taking office property home will never be noticed........... they do not realise that once a habit has been formed, it will keep on being harder and harder to end it. And it might become worse and worse.

It's like cigarette smoking - to say you're 'only smoking half a pack instead of two a day' is good, but it's better to say that 'I have finally stopped smoking', and stop.

Just a few thoughts! I think you'll agree.....

Regards

Ayesha

Ethics is a part of life
But to teach ethics to employees is little bit tricky
No one wants gyan and that too about ethics
it is all a matter of personal choice
It is very difficult to change a person's inner motives
If a person has lied all his way through life, teaching ethics to him will not produce results.
If the top management is firm about ethics then the employees will think twice about their behaviour (but only in the workplace)
If I see my boss fudging data, I will not blink an eyelid in fudging data also.
But I will not do the same thing in my home.
Similarly lying
We can demonstrate ethics , not preach.

Read this excerpt from book called FISH, there is a special philosophhy which makes the employee imbibe all those values which are necessary for them in corporate culture.

Fish Philosophy!

To evolve a living and breathing corporate culture that employees could appreciate and emulate they adopted the Fish Philosophy! The Fish Philosophy is based on four concepts:

Play: Embrace your inner self and have fun at work.

Team spirit and customer-driven: The multi-tasking madness has made employees too busy thinking about what to do next and forget listening in a meaningful way. Have time for each other and your customers.

Make your customers' day: Explore and innovate some unique ways to achieve the pinnacle of customer service.

Choose your attitude: While you cannot always control the events in your daily life, you can control how you respond to them. Choose not to rub off your bad day on to your colleagues and customers.

To buy the employees into the philosophy, Hai, held a meeting with his 350 staff, explaining the philosophy and making them aware of how important it is to make work fun and fulfilling when every one spends most of their waking hours either doing the work or thinking about the work. The organisation did not tell their employees to do anything, they wanted them to believe in it and volunteer help to make their lives better.

"Sometimes all it takes is one person to say that you have the power to accomplish anything you want to."

cheers

sid