Ethical Misdeeds

Since every organization experiences both ethical and unethical behaviors, the question becomes, what is the extent of unethical behaviors in the workplace. In a 2013 work-related issues study, the ERC, the Ethical Resource Center surveyed 6,420 for-profit employees and forty-one percent of the respondents reported observing at least one major ethical misconduct at work during the last year, some of which were illegal. Although most of the misdeeds were one-time events, 26% were ongoing within the organization. Of the observed misdeeds, managers accounted for 60 percent; including 24% committed by senior management.                                                                                                                                                                               
Sixty-three percent of the survey participants reported the observed misdeeds, with a little more than one-third going unreported. Of the sixty-three percent who reported the miscount, 21% experienced retaliation. The ERC extrapolated its findings over the entire 18 and over workforce population in 2011 to better demonstrate the magnitude of the problem, resulting in misconduct being observed by 62 million employees in the past year, with 41 million of those reporting the misconduct, and 9 million experiencing retaliation for reporting the misconduct.

In a 2013 survey, the Institute of Leadership & Management found the same troublesome trends in the United Kingdom. They surveyed 1,174 managers having forty-three percent reporting of being pressured to violate the company's code of ethics; 9% reporting they had been asked to break the law, and 10% had to quit their because they were asked to do something that compromised their ethics.

In a 2014 survey, the ILM asked UK managers what they considered to be common examples of unethical behavior in the workplace. The top misbehaviors the 1,600 manager respondents listed are as follows:

• Taking shortcuts or performing low quality work - 72%
• Lying to hide mistakes - 72%
• Bad-mouthing colleagues - 68%
• Falsely blaming others when you don't get your work done - 67%
• Slacking off when no one is watching - 64%
• Lying to hide your colleagues mistakes - 63%
• Taking credit for other colleagues' work - 57%
• Lying about being sick - 56%

In 2016 Gallup Poll public trust surveys, only 18% of respondents expressed confidence in "Big Business" compared with 73% confidence in the military. When asked to assess whether a profession had "very high" ethical standards, only 2% rated business executives or bankers "very high." Only 1% rated advertising, automobile or insurance salespeople as "very high." At 29%, nurses were the only profession with a "very high" rating above 15 percent.

Consumer frauds also contribute to the public's generally low opinion of business. A 2011 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) telephone survey revealed, 10.8% of the adult population had been victims of fraud. The top categories and corresponding estimates are as follows;

• weight-loss products - 5.1 million
• prize promotions - 2.4 million
• unauthorized billing for buyers' club memberships - 1.9 million
• unauthorized billing for Internet services - 1.9 million
• work-at-home-programs - 1.8 million
• credit repair scams - 1.7 million

Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in world, winning multiple awards, including being "Best Bank in the US.," "25th Most Admired in the World," and "Most Community-Minded Company," engaged in ethical misconduct. Dating back to 2011, approximately 5,300 employees created more than 1.5 million fraudulent checking and savings accounts and 500,000 fraudulent credit cards.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Ethics is not an Oxymoron

Since we usually find what we are looking for, businesses that operate based on good ethical principles attract good employees and good customers. Likewise, businesses that lack good ethics usually suffer from high employee turnover, lost customers and often their bad reputations are held accountable through litigation. "A man reaps what he sows"; Galatians 6:7, (NIV).

An organization should be more than just a bunch of individuals, but rather a community of people on a common mission. For them to be effective, efficient, and ethical, your job as a manager is to develop a sense of a common mission among this community of people. At the heart of any business operation is service. The financial well-being of the organization depends on its community of people to appropriately serve the needs of its stakeholders. Without ethical employees, the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization is short-lived.

Because of the imperfections in human nature, organizations, some more than others, are ethically challenged. Aside from your customers you will also be interacting with suppliers. Unfortunately not all those in your network nor those wanting to become part of your network will have high ethical standards. Awareness of these factors is essential to succeeding as manager; which is why as a manager you need to manage your organization's ethical environment.

At work, ethical behavior is a personal choice influenced by one's previous behaviors and the current work environment. There are organizations who choose to meet the rules and regulations set forth by federal, state, and local governments; as there are others who continually exploit the loopholes. Stakeholders however tend to praise those organizations whose owners and managers choose to exceed the minimum requirements set forth by the regulators.