What would you do if you thought your company was acting unethically? The answer is not as easy as you might think, says Claire Warren
What would you do if there was a conflict between your own ethics and those of the company you work for, even after recommendations from a cultural review focused on ethical behaviour had been implemented?
a) Live with the conflict because you believe there is always going to be a gap between personal and professional ethics.
b) Discuss the conflict with work colleagues, promoting the idea that more be done in the areas of concern to you.
c) Discuss your reservations externally in an attempt to build up external pressure and scrutiny.
d) Hand in your notice on the basis you should not work professionally for an organisation that has any obvious conflict with your personal standards of ethics.
e) Take your case to senior management, volunteering to do additional work on the policies of concern.
It’s a question the audience was asked at an event earlier this week organised by St Paul’s Institute and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), in partnership with the CIPD, to explore the link between corporate ethics and culture.
And it’s one that I’ve thought about quite a lot since because for most of us there’s no easy answer. I went for E but I work in a small team and feel confident enough to voice my concerns. But what if I worked in a much larger team, or was more junior, or less confident? Or what if I was faced with an actual ethical dilemma rather than answering confident in the (possibly mistaken) belief that it is never going to happen to me?
Unfortunately, it’s the kind of questions that many employees may still have to face given that while research from CIMA and American accounting body AICPA shows that four out of five businesses worldwide have committed to ethical performance, neither senior management nor boards seem to be reviewing or monitoring ethics information at the level recorded straight after the crash.
Event speakers CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese and CIMA vice president Keith Luck both agreed that the solution lies in organisations adopting values-based leadership.
Trust in business has “never been more damaged”, said Cheese, who told the audience that organisations need to start to repair that damage by defining their corporate purpose and values.
“We have to define what we mean and then make sure it is understood four, five, six levels down in the organisation,” he said. “The HR profession should have a huge amount to say on this.”
Luck added that the financial crisis made it clear unethical business practice does not work in the long-term, adding: “Regulation alone does not stand in the way of bad behaviour. By applying a values-based approach organisations are better placed to encourage employees to do the right thing.”
Unfortunately whether or not we will truly see that happening in the near future is another question that doesn’t have an easy answer.
Monday’s event was part of a wider series of debates under the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, The City and the Common Good: What kind of City do we want?
http://www.stpaulsinstitute.org.uk/
#CommonGood