Ways to Reflect your Business Ethics Within Your Office
There’s plenty of way to kill employee morale in the workplace, but one of the biggest elephants in the room that often doesn’t get addressed is the ethics of a business. We all know the economy is currently in a state where employees don’t have much to complain and therefor will put up with more mistreatment or unsavoury business practices, but in order to retain valuable and hardworking staff, you must be conscious of what ethical business behaviour means and how you can improve the level of respect that your employees have for your company. This is glue that holds a successful company together and one that results in real increases in productivity and longevity.
Respect
Holding regular company meets shows that you value the time you get to spend with your management and staff. These meetings should be a two-way street, not just a place where you get to give orders and “take everyone’s advice into consideration.” Actions speak louder than words, so take that whole ‘suggestion box’ idea and turn it upside by having an open forum of where every member of your company is not afraid to ask questions.
Transparency
Regular newsletters and memos go hand-in-hand with company meetings. Communication shouldn’t be some afterthought, it should be an opportunity to build trust and confidence within the company. If employees are squabbling over scheduling or pay differences, get their ideas down on paper and keep things from becoming some inner-office drama or gossip. Bad employees don’t just appear overnight, they often stew and develop over time.
You didn’t hire a bad employee during their job interview or even through training, right? Either they are a great con artist, your HR and judgment of character were wrong, or something happened between then and now for them to become a problem that you need to address. If you run an approachable and transparent company where everyone is comfortable with airing their grievances, you will have higher employee retention and a more productive workplace.
Use of Company Time
Why do so many businesses have this problem with employee tardiness, timecard accuracy, and on the clock issues? It’s not always because they don’t like their job or they do it just because they can. If you find that it’s more than just a few employees trying to cheat the clock, it might be because they are unhappy with their schedules. Having flexible schedules can be difficult, especially if you don’t have an established system provided for employees to get together and swap schedules or hours on the fly.
This is just a few examples of how business ethics within the workplace should operate. Ethics isn’t just about the obvious things like corporate crimes and malpractice, it’s about having a set of guidelines in-place that people within the workplace can follow and maintain to work in harmony with each other. Good ethics builds invaluable trust, honesty, respect, and confidence in everyone’s work. If your business has a reputation for having a strong ethical foundation, you are going to bring in quality workers and valuable leaders that are hard to find these days.
