HR Society Meeting-4/21/10

Guest Speaker: Professor Goldstein

Most companies have a print post and pray mentality when it comes to ethics.
They print a statement about their values, post it, and pray that it happens.

What should be be doing to reienforce the mission and values in the organization?

Integrity:
94% of employees say that organization integrity is critical and important for the organization that they work for
82% would prefer to get pay less and work for an employee with ethical values
1:4 employees have left a job because of ethical issues

how do we build a company that really walks its ethics talk?

4 P Model:

Processes: Having specific means-something formal to reinforce the values of the organization.
EG: Hotlines (can be used if values not being followed), ethics boards, processes (mission discernment-a way you talk about an issue where each time you talk about it. you run it through the values of the organization. Questions are asked about the situation. The point is to bring the organization into the situation and determine where it stands as far as its values.)

Place: Does the mission and values have a place on the agenda of managers in terms of talking about the roles of ethics and values in the organzation?
-You need to bring the managers together at a certain time and place that works for everyone to specifically discuss ethics.
-Question: What role can you play to make sure that ethics and values do have a place?
-Build ethics and values into your performance evaluation. (Eg. Respect as a performance factor-Define respect, rank-behaviorally anchored, reward people for their behavior in performing these values.)

Power:
-Important
-Determines whether or not there is a place for ethics and values. Is it optional or mandatory?
-Power should be made an explicit part of the performance evaluation
-Can do this formally or informally. Small gestures can be very powerful.

People:
-If you are going to uphold the values of the organization, then the people working in the organization should understand what are the values?
-Requires training-may require conflict resolution training as well to help people to communicate with each other.

Easy to talk about but hard to do.

Barriers:
Resources:
-Not enough money in budget.
-Who's responsible for it?
-Difficult to quantify the payoff-this is a long run process not a short run.
-employees leaving because of ethical problems is a powerful reason to do this.

Complacency:
-We don't hear complaints about it.
-When you start to think everything is fine something pops.

Distraction:
-If something happens, then suddenly the ethics is not important anymore

Cynicism:
-What is the point of going through this when its just going to be a fad for a while?
-Its post-Enron, now everyone is talking about ethics
-Important to counter because there is already a certain amount of push back in regards to
ethics.

What kinds of practical steps can be taken to do this?
-Modeling ethical leadership/behavior (very important)
-People look at their leaders for this-HR is the face of the organization.
-Most important influences
-behavior of management
-behavior of supervisors
-When managers/HR consistantly model values
-they feel more valued, more satisfied with organization, and less pressure.
-Use rewards/discipline
-Communication
-Organizational integrity is important to be communicated to everyone in organization as well
as the external groups (eg suppliers, contractors)

This is an effort that takes persistance and commitment.