The April 2010 issue of Risk Management has a great article titled: Finding and Fixing Corporate Misconduct. After noting reports that misconduct had declined during 2009, the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) says the following.
According to the results from more than 300,000 employees in over 75 countries, this “decline” in misconduct during 2009 is actually misleading, as it pertains to less severe and risky behaviors such as the misuse of company resources or other ‘inappropriate behavior.’
In other words, no matter what you may have heard, there’s pretty good evidence that more serious forms of misconduct actually increased last year. What can you do about it?
The CEB says that you want to create a “culture of integrity.” And the most important thing to count on is what they call “Organizational Justice.” Basically, it’s the perception among employees that you mean business about your standards and rules.
The CEB suggests three steps for creating an atmosphere of organizational justice. Here they are with my idea of what that means in an everyday, practical sense.
(1) Equip managers to decisively deal with unethical behavior.
Equipping managers means giving them the tools to hire smart, including a background check for any position of trust and pre-employment or routine credit checks for appropriate positions. It also means supporting managers when they make tough calls.
That’s the sort of thing you read often on this blog. But the CEB’s next two steps are also important and don’t get nearly enough attention.
(2) Show the whole employee population-using real instances from within the company-that the company deals decisively with misconduct.
You can’t skirt this one. The only way that your people will know you’re serious is by what you do. Talk will only take you so far.
(3) Close the loop with employees who report misconduct so that they know that appropriate actions were taken.
There are two big reasons why honest employees don’t report wrongdoing. They may see it as dangerous. And they may see it as a waste of time. Keep them safe. Make sure they know that their conscientious behavior had a result.
At the end of the day, this is all about walking the walk. If you do that, it will make your talk about honesty and integrity more powerful. If you don’t that talk will just be empty words.