Reporting an ethical violation should be a positive experience!

Research has shown that the vast majority of companies’ ethics hotlines are not utilized effectively by employees due to fear of retaliation. Why is that? What is the process of following up with a complaint? What scares one’s people from doing so?

When it comes right down to it, shouldn’t organizations want its people to report any ethics/compliances issues? Reporting them would be a reflection of the values that an organization has trained its people to believe in, communicated, and expect values based behavior in the workplace. Why then does a system fail when it comes to actually behaving by those values?

Can an organization oversee itself? If organizations took their values seriously, they would be rewarding those who report violations of the core values on which a company says it is based. In fact, the term ”whistleblower” would never be used, because it is negative in connotation. Instead, how about a term like “values advocates?”  Why has a value advocated? Because these employees were trained in your company’s values and taught to incorporate them into their work. Then, if a situation arises, they report behaviors that challenge those very values and ethics in which they were trained. These behaviors routinely have a negative effect on morale, work relationships and the workplace environment. Values advocates should be rewarded not punished.

• Design a system for overseeing the reporting of ethical/compliance violations.
• Create a process that will make all involved in investigating an issue accountable and responsible for the process and resolution.
• Find the proper reward, not punishment, for those who report violations.
• Any leader who violates the sacred trust of confidentiality, anonymity, and retaliates is terminated.

This isn’t that difficult. Do you believe in your values or not? Is ethics important or not? What lengths should you go to protect those who live those values for the betterment of all?

fbucaro

Like you, business ethics and ethical leadership expert, Frank Bucaro has seen the challenges and problems of corporate leadership, particularly over the past few years in regards to poor decision-making, SEC violations, and record breaking financial settlements in a number of different industries. With over two decades of executive training, speaking, writing and with real life experiences, his view and approach to ethics in the workplace is uniquely different. He emphasizes that ethics is a moment-to-moment choice and has little to do with position, titles, personalities or education. Ethics is everybody’s responsibility from the top down. His goal is to help organizations to: a. Strengthen their ethics training initiatives in order to significantly decrease the odds of an ethical/compliance violation. b. Energize, train and motivate employees to understand the value of consistent “high road” behavior as a business advantage. c. Support individuals and thereby the organization by contributing to its success by quality, ongoing values based leadership development. Frank is known for his very practical, slightly irreverent, yet somewhat humorous approach to ethics and leadership development. His conversational style and real life stories connect with his audience in a personal, intense and practical level. Companies such as Bayer Healthcare, BP, ReMax International, EnMax Energy, Danone, etc. have partnered with Frank when they want to proactively stress the message, tools, insights and practical applications that good ethics IS good for business!