Do You Know Your Employee’s Ethics?

There has been some research that shows that approximately 30-50 percent of companies don’t have an employee handbook. And more troubling still, those companies that do have a book, only about 6 percent of their employees have read their employee handbook. This can be a big problem for a small business, as it makes it impossible to be able to handle situations that may escalate very quickly. And as it is impossible to be sure that the employee has been trained on their company’s stand on a given matter, so a potential problem arises.

So what do you do when you can’t get your employee to buy in on your ethics?

Well, just follow this basic approach to understanding workplace ethics and required behaviour. It is the simplest approach and it works!

It is best if each of your company’s departments write their own ethics and behaviour agreements. Each department can be able to take responsibility and provide their own ethics. This ensures that your ethics are unique for each company you have and it increases your chances of being able to handle situations quickly.

For example, if your company values honesty, training for your employee on honesty is a priority to you. It is best if you include your company ethics in your employee orientation and your employee handbook. And if your employee handbook has rules on behaviour, it is best you include another set of rules which include rules for honesty. This means that the employee is already committed to honesty in the way they approach work.

And if your company has rules about courtesy, honesty, respect etc. then then ensure each of these is mentioned in your employee handbook. And ensure you have rules on courtesy, honesty etc. in your employee handbook.

In general, these are written by your company’s guidelines then followed up by a summary of rules.

It may sound easy and it is, but it can be a bit intimidating. However, it is best you do take the time to get agreements from your employee on these before you need their help. It will help you make a better product.

This can be done by using role playing situations. It could be by role playing with your employees or talking to them about what you want to achieve in the near future.

The key here is to keep discussions friendly. It is better to have a friendly discussion rather than a confrontational one.

It does show that you have taken the time to do a good ethics agreement with each of your employees rather than expecting them to do it for you. By doing it then doing it well will get you the best results. And it will stop you having to deal with unethical behaviour in the future.