Many organizations address ethics by sponsoring an occasional one or two hour training session for their employees. It’s almost as if we treat ethics like a vaccine: one shot and you’re good for life! What we do know about learning, however, is that continuous exposure to new material is needed to integrate it into employee knowledge and behavior. The same principle applies to ethics as well. This short article will suggest ways that ethics can be integrated into your existing employee processes.
Start at the beginning: Include ethics in your recruiting and selection materials and processes. If the ability to reason through ethical issues is part of the job, why not mention that fact in your job posting? Additionally, including simple examples of ethical reasoning in your job interview can give you insight into your candidates’ ethical thinking and emphasize the importance your organization places on ethics.
Get employees off to a good start in the organization – Include information on ethics in employee orientation materials. This may include a review of agency codes or state laws especially relevant to your agency, as well as policies related to common ethical issues. These ethical issues will vary from organization to organization, but may include: receiving gifts, use of organization cars, computers, or other equipment, financial disclosure requirements, and rules of nepotism. If your organization has whistleblower protections, include a review of those protections, as well as information on how to report any ethical issues they find. Our employees “orient” our organizations with our without our direction. Why not choose to put our employees on the right track early on and add ethics to your guidance?
Keep employees talking about ethics – Integrate ethics into ongoing discussions in your agency or organization. Perhaps an employee newsletter could include an “ethics column” that discusses common ethical dilemmas facing your organization. Discussing possible ethical dilemmas in work groups can help supervisors guide employees through ethical situations. As a manager, you can be blissfully ignorant about how your employees are “solving” ethical dilemmas. If you assume that everyone in your workgroup is reasoning the same way, you are likely to be unpleasantly surprised!
Finally, focus on ethics in training and development. Encourages supervisors and employees to identify additional ongoing ethics training and attention to ethics as part of annual employee development and performance plans. Attention to these factors will help integrate ethics into all of your organizational processes.