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Must you have a policy to enforce good ethics at your company?
By Lauren | August 12, 2008
Of late, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend growing in the world of human relations and corporate governance. Increasingly, employers seem to feel that, unless they have expressly and specifically prohibited specific unethical conduct, they can’t discipline employees who misbehave in that particular way. Consequently, if an employee lies to a customer, pilfers petty cash or bullies a co-worker –but hasn’t been told very specifically not to do that – employers may just throw up their hands, rewrite their employee handbooks, and let the employee off with a warning “not to do it again.”
With due respect, I don’t think this approach works very well. It tends to result in employee handbooks that look more like telephone directories than documents that the average employee would ever use or even read, and it doesn’t teach employees that ethical behavior is expected as a fundamental part of the company’s culture. It also allows management to avoid taking tough action against problem employees, and weakens a company’s overall ethical stance.
There are lots of good reasons for a company to have a code of ethics (more on that in future posts), and to set out its policies in a clear, well-written employee handbook. But getting down into minutiae misses the point. I believe that every company has the right to adopt a strong policy that unethical conduct on the part of its employees will not be tolerated, and to enforce that policy as long as the company complies with the law and acts in good faith. “If it’s not prohibited, it must be permitted” is a bad foundation for a company’s ethical culture.
Topics: Business Ethics, Corporate Governance, ethics |