MANAGE & LEAD
discrimination, favoritism, and hostile work environment
replace much management discretion. The many suffer
for the sins of the few, and sometimes, even the best
employees get caught in the equal treatment trap. At
best, time-off policies, to use just one example, require
organization time and energy – hundreds of hours of
tracking and accounting.
EVERYDAY ETHICS
Not all employees will understand the challenges
experienced by Hurd and other senior company executives
in their practice of workplace ethics. Still, all employees
have the opportunity daily to prove the core and fiber of
who they are as people. Their values, integrity, beliefs, and
character speak loudly through the behavior in which they
engage at work.
Lapses in the practice of workplace ethics come in all
sizes—large and small, far-reaching, and close to home.
Some ethical lapses affect individual employees. Other
ethical lapses affect whole workgroups, and in particularly
shocking instances, such as Hurd’s, whole companies,
leaving the stakeholders to suffer as a result.
Failure to practice everyday workplace ethics isn’t always
apparent. Only you will ever know about the decision you
made, but each lapse in ethics affects your essence as an
employee and as a human being. Even the smallest lapse
in workplace ethics diminishes the quality of the workplace
for all employees.
EXAMPLES OF LAPSES IN WORKPLACE ETHICS
Each failure to practice value-based workplace ethics
affects your self-image and what you stand for, far more
than it affects your co-workers. Still, the effect of your
behavior on your fellow employees is real, tangible, and
unpredictable.
The following are examples of employees failing to practice
fundamental workplace ethics. The solution? Change the
behavior, of course. You may never have thought of these
actions as problems with ethical behavior, but they are.
And all of them affect your co-workers in negative ways.
5 You are using the company restroom and use up
the last roll of toilet paper, or the last piece of paper
towel. Without a thought for the next employee’s
needs, you go back to work rather than address the
issue.
5 You engage in an affair with a co-worker while married
because no one at work will ever know. You think
you’re in love. You think you can get away with it. Your
personal matters are your own business. The affair
will not impact other employees or the workplace.
5 You place your dirty cup in the lunchroom sink. With
a guilty glance around the room, you find no one
watching and quickly leave the room.
5 Your company sponsors events, activities, or lunches.
You sign up to attend and fail to show. Equally as
disrespectful, you fail to sign up and show up anyway.
You make the behavior worse when you claim you took
the appropriate action, so someone else must have
screwed up.
5 You spend several hours a day using your work
computer to shop, check out sports scores, pay bills,
do online banking, and surf the web for the latest
celebrity news headlines and political opinions.
5 You use up the last paper in the communal printer,
and you fail to restock the empty tray, leaving the task
to the next employee who uses the printer.
5 You hoard supplies in your desk drawer so you won’t
run out while other employees go without the supplies
they need to do their work.
5 You overhear a piece of juicy gossip about another
employee and then repeat it to other co-workers.
Whether the gossip is true or false is not the issue.
5 You tell a customer or potential customer your product
will perform an action when you don’t know if it will,
and you didn’t check with an employee who does.
5 You allow a part that you know does not meet quality
standards to leave your work station and hope your
supervisor or the quality inspector won’t notice.
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