Research shows that most of the successful organizations are those that have embraced work ethics as a core element in steering them to accomplish their goals and objectives. But we cannot run away from the fact that even those companies regarded as successful and have established a strong ethical culture also have employees who at times portray behaviors, attitudes, and decision making patterns that may require improvement from time to time.
Therefore, the question you all be asking now is can you improve the ethical culture of your organization. First things first, one fundamental way of enhancing organizational ethics among your employees is leading by example.
Employees are often interested in seeing and understanding how well you execute the ethical codes that you have set and if you abide by them.
Here are 5 major ways that you can use to improve your organizational ethics;
5 Major Ways to Improve The Work Ethics :
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Effective communication
In an ideal organization, communication is always effective when the views of everyone are not disregarded for whatever reason. To attain this, it is necessary to ensure that you cultivate a corporate culture where employees have the freedom to speak candidly to the managers and other individuals in leadership positions.
Effective communication is more about creating a convenient environment that allows employees to report any form of unethical behavior as well as making it possible for the managers to let the employees know vividly about ethical behaviors that are expected of them.
In most cases, employees are always hesitant in communicating such misbehaviors because they feel that probably there is nothing that can be done by their superiors. Reluctance can also be because they fear being judged, or disregarded when they report any violation cases regarding ethical conduct.
It is such kind of reluctance that usually leads to the creation of unhealthy and risky work-environment.
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Enforcing discipline measures
It would be a blatant lie to state that all employees may only comply with the work ethics without necessarily facing disciplinary action. The best thing to do is to ensure that all the disciplinary policies enshrined in the code of ethics are enforced accordingly to any offender irrespective of their position or rank in the organization.
If in any case, you do not have enough time for doing this, you can as well delegate the duty to the head of department or supervisor. But at the same time ensure that you understand the documentation and grounds for such punishment just in case an employee decides to sue you for taking such action.
This way, others will be able to see and recognize how serious the organization is in regards to enforcing the code of conduct hence learn from there and consequently improve the overall employees’ behavior across the board.
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Empowerment
If you want to get the best out of your employees in regards to improved work morals, you need to empower them from time to time. Empowerment involves quite a good number of issues, and one of them is training.
Organize for training seminars where you invite experts to educate them on how about dealing with problems. You can also send them to seminars conducted outside the organization and give them a chance to share what they have learned with other employees who didn’t attend the seminar. It helps greatly, especially when it comes to changing the attitude and boosting the energy levels of employees.
You also need to give the employees space and freedom to carry out other work-related issues delegated to them without interfering with the process. It portrays that you have a conviction in their abilities to deliver and make right decisions.
Empowering your employees also helps in increasing efficiency, which is important especially in regards to personal responsibility. Most of the employees will feel highly held and thus see the need of becoming competent and productive in discharging their duties.
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Set targets and deadlines
It is essential to ensure that you set clear timelines for achieving the particular goals, objectives, and assignments. Employees should be helpful in achieving this since these targets motivate them to accomplish set goals and objectives in time. Once you create the culture of ensuring that every element concerning employees work or project is given a stipulated deadline, you will notice the change regarding improved work principles.
Remember that meeting target is also essential in ensuring that you set the ball rolling so that you do not have backlogs that would hinder the efficiency to deliver what the company needs to do within the required period.
But most importantly you need to understand that setting targets and meeting deadlines is a skill of time management which is acquired and executed, the work ethics within your company will be seamless.
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Change
There are instances when unethical behaviors of your employees cannot seem to change irrespective of the approaches you take to enforce the policy of your code of ethics. In this case, there is a need to modify the policies since some of them have either become obsolete or cannot just yield desirable changes. What you need to do is to adjust or change some of these rules and procedures even if it means interfering with operations that save money or time.
You need to keep in mind that at times it would be necessary if short-term losses are overshadowed by significant improvement in the long-term status of the organization. Never be afraid of making short-term drastic changes for as long as you are confident it will help your company to establish a lasting reputation.
The bottom line
When working to improve the work ethics of your organization, you also need to be careful in all the steps that you take to ensure that you attain desirable results. There are instances when you may think that you are taking reasonable measures for the sake of improving work morals among your employees only to end up deteriorating the entire situation.
Therefore, always make sure that you make informed decisions so that you do not end up spending too much time, energy and resources in improving moral principles of your employees.
These are some basic and most important methods for improving work ethics. However, the best option is to do the first step properly – hire people that are willing to change, learn and grow. Then you won’t have to make some radical changes and both you and your employees will enjoy in the process.