Maintaining high ethical standards
Ethics training
- Ethics training seeks to help people understand the ethical aspects of decision making and to incorporate ethical standards into their daily life and behaviour.
- Ethical issues that deal with people being in under pressure or in stressful situations, ethics training plays a key role because it can help people learn how to deal with these type of problems.
- Whistle blowers are people who expose the misdeeds of others in organizations in order to preserve ethical standards and protect against wasteful, harmful, or illegal acts.
- The risks that whistle blowers can face are impaired career progress and other forms of organizational retaliation, up to and including termination.
- Some organizational barriers to whistle-blowing include a strict chain of command that makes it hard to bypass the boss; strong work group identities that encourage loyalty and self-censorship; and ambiguous priorities that it make it hard to discern right from wrong.
- Top managers have the authority to shape an organization’s policies and determine its moral tone. With the authority they have, they must serve as ethical role models and also influence the ethical behavior of the people who work for and with them.
- Setting goals and communicating performance expectations is important.
- A code of ethics is a formal statement of an organization’s value and beliefs and offers guidelines on how to behave in any difficult ethical problem where you can be afflicted.
- We must apply the code to every action and decision we make
- QUOTE- “to maintain these high standards and our reputation, we cannot just read the code and sign compliance forms. We must live it and apply the code to ever action and decision we take.” President and CEO, Michael Sabia (BELL CANADA)