"'Companies
that do training well are those that go out and talk to employees
directly and keep checking back to see whether it's really getting
through to people,' says Win Swenson, managing partner in KMG's
Washington, D.C. office.'"
Susan J. Wells, "Turn Employees Into
Saints", HR Magazine, Dec, 1999, Vol. 44, No. 13
HR Magazine, December 1999
Should
you have an "ethics program"? Do you have an
"ethics program"? What are the ramifications if you don't
have a program? I have a program, but how the organization
performs the task of satisfying the "ethics requirement"
set out by management is that we hire an outside
"expert" to conduct a week's worth of 8-hour classes so as
to cover all employees. This is enough to satisfy the
requirement? What about those new employee who have joined the
organization after the fact? Do you routinely schedule an
ethics "refresher" each year?
Susan J. Wells presents an excellent subject on
Ethics' Programs. Wells indicates that even though there is a
need to address these issues, many organizations have only taken the
initial step. Wells brings out percentages that might
overwhelm you in realizing that organizations don't seem to follow
through on their Ethics Programs. "73% of 747 HR
professionals say their organizations have developed written
standards or codes of ethical business conduct ..." Yet,
"... 61% of respondents said their companies don't provide
training on ethical standards." "... 31% said their
organizations have ethics offices or ombudsmen."
An interesting point was brought out by Wells in
that "companies that do nothing at all may be smarter than
those that take a weak stab at developing ethics programs.
Generally what can occur is the impression that management creates
an "ethics program" only so that upper management is
protected from any blame, and therefore can possibly promote
unethical conduct. In this case, the company would better off
not having any attempt at creating a program.
A failed attempt at an ethics program could over
time reveal bad behavior, but the ramifications of said could lower
the company's previously perfect image, decrease employee morale and
performance, and the customer loyalty could be tarnished.
How then does a company effectively create a
quality ethics program? Wells mentions, that experts recommend
"to combine external ethics consulting and education to
jump-start, but not replace, a carefully crated internal program
that is managed and implemented by the company." On the
other spectrum, the least effective method is by hiring an outside
trainer to deliver a brief training session that actually has
nothing to do with the employees' actual work/job.
"Penn State's Trevino says, 'A good
consultant who comes in and helps an organization to develop a
program that's uniquely theirs, that fits, analyzes and improves the
organization, is fine. But that's not often how it
works. The concern is when a company just wants an
off-the-shelf product that fills a perceived need quickly - that
kind of quickie training method won't work.'"
What needs to be done is the HR department and
others need to work together and determine - What are the real
issues? Once this is answered, the training is to be developed
around these issues and special situations tied to policies.
Wells uses an excellent example of how Lockheed
Martin Corp. in Bethesda, Maryland performed this task of an
ethics program. The company created a game "The
Ethics Challenge" so as to assist employees test and improve
their ethics knowledge along with their problem-solving
skills. They utilized comic characters - Dilbert and
Dogbert! The game has 34 scenarios that were based on real
problems that the employees dealt with on a regular basis. The
game became a success over the past four years and has replaced
their previous training method that was done by an instructor in a
workshop environment. Supervisors and managers currently
conduct this training for their employees and with that they choose
situations that are relevant to their own departments.
TI, Texas Instruments took another approach with
their program which includes a tear-out card from their manual
"The Values and Ethics of TI" and with this, they take
this for a continual ethics test for all employees to apply prior to
taking any action:
![](_themes/topo/topbul1a.gif) | Is the action legal? |
![](_themes/topo/topbul1a.gif) | Does it apply with our values? |
![](_themes/topo/topbul1a.gif) | If you do it, will you feel bad? |
![](_themes/topo/topbul1a.gif) | How will it look in the newspaper? |
![](_themes/topo/topbul1a.gif) | If you know it's wrong, don't do it. |
![](_themes/topo/topbul1a.gif) | If you're not sure, ask. |
![](_themes/topo/topbul1a.gif) | Keep asking until you get an answer. |
Of course, follow up after implementing any ethics
program is necessary with all employees. This one of the
faults of many organizations in their attempt to initiate a program,
they neglect the follow up and therefore, their efforts have been
wasted. If an appropriate and effective program cannot be
developed, then carried through with continual efforts of
implementation, the organization is better to not have a program at
all. |