Ethical Conduct?

By Eileen M. Levitt, SPHR

Over the years, I have received numerous questions from those looking for jobs requesting my advice. What are those questions? A great number of questions posed by job seekers are from those looking to either cover up information, prevent information from being discovered and/or applicants hoping that missteps won't be uncovered.

Questions relating to: Will a DUI impact getting hired? I was convicted of a crime, is this important? I lied about my GPA, what should I do? I really didn't finish my degree, will they find out? I was fired, how do I embellish it? I left after a short period of time, do I need to include it in my resume? I put down in my application that I knew something I don't. I have bad credit, oops. I accepted a job, and now I changed my mind. The list goes on and on.

I have found this theme to be quite interesting, and a little sad. Has our society experienced a moral decline? Are job seekers today looking to cover things up more? Are they concerned about the actual cover up, or just the potential employer discovering that they covered something up? More importantly, are they simply emulating society?

How do the job seekers justify their actions? I hear excuses that range from George Bush had a DUI, so I am just like the president; Enron was much worse; it was the only way I could get a job there, etc.

What does all this mean? Job seekers are emulating society and its organizations, which mean that aside from thoroughly checking references, organizations need to take a hard look at how they address ethics issues. What can organizations do? When I asked a colleague at the Ethics Resource Center (www.ethics.org), he provided me with best practices, guidance and questions for organizations to take a good look at their ethical conduct. Here is an overview of that conversation.

Organizations need to ask themselves a number of questions and then address those questions.

  • Do we have clear standards?
  • Are there ethical role models at all levels?
  • Are there congruent formal systems? More importantly, are there congruent informal systems?
  • Do we measure and reward the right things?
  • Do we communicate and educate?
  • Do we put our money where their mouth is?
  • Do we do the right things for the right reasons?
  • Do we have an effective program to prevent and detect ethical misconduct as well as legal violations?
  • Is ethics agenda based on core values?
  • Is there a common language and process for ethical decision making / reasoning?

In addition and more importantly, for leaders of the organization to be an effective ethical leader and role model. They need to:

  1. Make the ethics of their decisions visible
  2. Legitimize ethics as a business issue.
  3. Encourage ethical conduct in others
  4. Acknowledge observed ethical action

Now that you have looked at your organization, and determined what you want to be. Why not write an ethics policy? Make sure that policy is also distributed to potential applicants. Let them know through examples that the policy is not just a bunch of words, and give them an opportunity to come back with corrections without repercussions of the omission. You might find yourself pleasantly surprised with the results.

Eileen Levitt, SPHR, is President of The HR Team, a human resources consulting and outsourcing company based in Columbia, Maryland. She offers these top 10 tips that all businesses should consider when reviewing their corporate structure

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