Working Values

Companies can dramatically improve their ability to effect behavior change when they develop an ethics training curriculum aimed at building ethical leadership and culture building skills throughout the organization. The training should focus on developing ethical decision-making skills, promoting open communication, encouraging role modeling and communicating with respect.

Recent Ethics Resource Center (ERC) data shows that an increasing number of companies have ethics programs and provide training:

• Written standards of conduct are up by 19 percent.
  
• Training on ethics has increased by 32 percent.
  
• Mechanisms to seek ethics advice or information are being instituted at an increase of 15 percent.
  
• Means to report misconduct anonymously is up by 7 percent.
  
• Discipline of employees who violate ethical standards is up by 4 percent.
  

However, the ERC reports that this increase in training has not improved outcomes:

• In 2005, 52 percent of employees observed at least one type of misconduct taking place.
  
• Employee willingness to report misconduct declined in 2005. Of employees who observed misconduct at work in 2005, just over one half (55 percent) reported it to management. This represents a 10 percentage point decrease since 2003 and demonstrates backsliding to levels similar to those in 2000.
  
• There is little change in pressure to compromise standards in 2005 -- 10 percent of employees feel this pressure always or fairly often, a level similar to that reported in the earlier year.

Source: Ethics Resource Center, National Business Ethics Survey

The data suggests that while incidences of misconduct persist, employees are less apt to report them, despite an increase in ethics training and reporting mechanisms in the workplace. Why is there so little correlation between the implementation of ethics programs and an employee's willingness to speak up when they observe or suspect a violation?

For most companies, ethics training is still predominantly a "check the box" program focusing on compliance with the law. It's crucial that companies ensure compliance, but making sure that employees know the rules is no guarantee they will follow them. Building a culture that institutes, promotes and helps employees maintain ethical behavior in the workplace necessitates a different method of training – a differentiated curriculum targeted at specific audiences within the organization and training on specific skill sets for these audiences.

This kind of training demonstrates that ethics is valued at all levels of the organization. Senior leaders can be trained in five-minute increments or modules to facilitate ease of use and the efficient use of time for learners who are chronically short of time. Skills should include open communication and specific behaviors for modeling tone at the top.

Managers need to be trained in open communication and skills and competencies to support a culture of ethics within their departments and teams. They need to learn how to demonstrate specific behaviors for modeling ethical behavior in the workplace.

Employees can be trained to use a company-wide decision making process or model to help them remember and practice where and how to provide feedback to managers or supervisors. The model can also direct employees on where and how to report workplace issues. Training in specific listening and communication skills help to promote open communication with managers, supervisors and peers.

A company-wide discovery process should be undertaken to understand the specific culture within the organization and articulate its business objectives in relation to ethical behavior. After the discovery process, the findings can be woven into the ethics training curriculum to meet the particular needs of that organization.

Organizations can build an ethics curriculum that will:

• Build ethical leadership skills and at all levels of the organization -- not just teach policies and procedures;
  
• Reflect the culture of the organization;
  
• Be engaging and immediately applicable to learners;
  
• Connect business objectives to ethics training;
  
• Promote open communication and teach the skills necessary to achieve it; and
  
• Provide tools for integrating learning into the workplace.